Turn Out the Playroom Lights
How to take the power out of Republican distractions
I remember hearing that if you tell the children to come to dinner and they ignore you, just turn out or dim the playroom lights and they will go to where the lights are on. You could say that light works here as an attraction. But you could also say it’s being used as a distraction.
Now that political primaries are over and election season is here, we’re going to see a lot of what the Republican Party does best, distraction.
Here are a few distractions we’ve had lately. They’re hard not to notice.
Another way to distract the public is to toss a new phrase into mainstream American English. Who knew of Cancel Culture before 2019? Cancel Culture as social pressure does two jobs:
It takes attention away from something or someone.
It actively keeps someone else from speaking.
For example, Cancel Culture erases the fact of American slavery, and at the same time turns anyone’s acknowledgement of American slavery into a moral outrage: “You have no right to make me feel guilty!”
It’s a supreme distraction.
Cancel Culture has been taken literally by the movement to remove books from library shelves.
Just last week I noticed the latest distraction created by those who work to hide their assault on democracy. White supremacy is now supposed to be called “Replacement Theory”.
Speaking about the recent mass shooting in Buffalo, President Biden told us what Replacement Theory really means.
Biden decried the lies and tribalism that feed such rage. “A hate that — through the media and politics, the Internet — has radicalized angry, alienated, lost and isolated individuals into falsely believing that they will be replaced. That’s the word: replaced. By the other.
“White supremacy is a poison. It’s a poison running through … our body politic and it’s been allowed to fester and grow right in front of our eyes. No more. I mean no more. We need to say as clearly and forcefully as we can that the ideology of white supremacy has no place in America. None,” Biden said. “Failure in saying that is going to be complicity. Silence is complicity,” and here he paused, “is complicity. We cannot remain silent.”
I believe with all my heart that we must follow President Biden’s lead and fight to protect language that tells the truth. I know it’s tempting to go along with the press and use the latest popular term that confuses our language and shields those responsible for anti-democratic actions.
But we can’t afford to hide behind our own shield by just saying what’s socially acceptable. Remember, we’re not trying to hide the truth. We’re trying to spotlight it. So don’t rush to be socially acceptable and validate the term “Replacement Theory” by using it.
It’s time to turn off the lights in the playroom and shine them on the place where real life happens. The life of American democracy depends on our controlling the narrative.
Powerful and illuminating (ha,ha) words! Thanks
Well said.