Progressives’ messaging hurts cause, even as Trump runs amok
A high-ranking doctor at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dropped some needed truth bombs at the MAGA administration last week while resigning in disgust.
In recent months, the CDC has been gutted, denigrated and even fired on. Finally, Dr. Demetre C. Daskalakis, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, was one of four leaders who resigned in protest, saying: “Enough is enough.”
“I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health,” Daskalakis wrote in a scorching goodbye letter.
And the new COVID vaccine initiative “puts people of dubious intent and more dubious scientific rigor in charge of recommending vaccine policy to a director hamstrung and sidelined by an authoritarian leader.”
It was a 1,200-word salvo against an administration hell-bent on havoc, quackery and meanness.
But there is one term, mentioned twice by Daskalakis, that MAGA defenders ran with and that many people will remember: “Pregnant people.”
The term is a newish phrase to include women along with others who have transitioned to being men but still are able to give birth.
Hammering this issue home last year helped a very flawed and awful person regain the White House. It turns out many in the American public do not reside with Daskalakis and his learned brethren — and sistren — on this subject.
For years, those on the Left, and some of their Democratic Party counterparts, have invented and embraced a world of terms, jargon and speech meant to designate social awareness, push back against perceived injustices and just seem sensitive.
The term “politically correct” gained momentum in the 1980s but then suffered a backlash. Similarly, being “woke” indicated one had been awakened to society’s prejudices and inherent unfairness. So a realm of terms was invented to show one’s embrace of this enlightenment.
But like “politically correct,” “woke” became a pejorative. Phrases like “men can have babies” and “LatinX,” which removes any gender affiliation (Latina, Latino), are seen as irritating, preachy and smug.
You know, virtue signaling.
Comedian/podcaster Marc Maron, himself a dutiful Lefty, dropped a truth bomb of his own in a new HBO special, speaking about how his own tribe is pushing itself into irrelevance: “Progressives have really got to figure out how to deal with this buzzkill problem. You do realize we annoyed the average American into fascism.”
It was a joke. Sort of.
For years, Americans have been shifting rightward. There’s just something about progressive politics and the Democratic Party they don’t like.
A couple weeks ago, The New York Times, citing analysis by L2, a nonpartisan data firm, wrote Democrats are “hemorrhaging” voters.
“Of the 30 states that track voter registration by political party, Democrats lost ground to Republicans in every single one between the 2020 and 2024 elections — and often by a lot,” the story said.
During that time, Democrats lost some 2.1 million registered voters, and Republicans gained 2.4 million.
Voters in the other 20 states, including Georgia, do not register with a political party and were not counted. So it’s probably worse for the Dems.
Democrats have always inherently believed registering new voters helps their cause.
No longer. Trump even made inroads with Black men and Latinx (sorry) voters in 2024. There must be a reason.
Pundits argue Republicans perform better with voters on issues like economics, immigration and crime.
But there’s another theory about why voters turn their backs on Dems: the annoyance factor posited by comedian Maron.
Recently, a center-left think tank called Third Way picked up on that theory and compiled a list of terms Democratic candidates and officials should avoid like a Kid Rock concert.
In a widely circulated memo entitled, “Was it something I said?” the group notes: “For a party that spends billions of dollars trying to find the perfect language to connect to voters, Democrats and their allies use an awful lot of words and phrases no ordinary person would ever dream of saying.”
It’s an effort to sound empathetic to certain constituencies.
But, “the effect of this language is to sound like the extreme, divisive, elitist and obfuscatory enforcers of wokeness,” the memo states. “To please the few, we have alienated the many — especially on culture issues, where our language sounds superior, haughty and arrogant.”
Ouch.
They list 40-some terms and phrases guaranteed to nudge independent voters rightward. “Birthing persons” was the first of such “tortured terms” mentioned.
Some others were “cisgender,” “incarcerated people,” “privilege,” “triggering,” “patriarchy,” “Latinx,” and “intersectionality.” Terms can draw eye rolls or blank stares.
Sure, Trump’s lies, power grabs, reckless polices and clown-car cabinet are worse than cringeworthy terms.
But words matter. And moral superiority these days can mean being on the outside looking in.
About the Author
Bill Torpy, who writes about metro Atlanta for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, joined the newspaper in 1990.
