Words. Remember when they used to be important? Like, when Bill Clinton got tripped up on the words “sexual relations” as in “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” when referring to Monica Lewinsky?
Or how about the time when George Bush (the first one, not the one we knew as Dumbya) said “No new taxes” and the running joke was that he was actually saying “Know new taxes” as he moved closer to losing his bid to be re-elected?
Words once mattered. When people said something like that - especially under oath - people paid attention and made them pay when they lied. As I mentioned, Bush lost his election. And Clinton’s reputation was never the same and we all saw how his wife’s reputation was ruined going forward. There are probably no words for how all that unfolded, however.
Words should be important, and certainly more important than people give them. Donald Trump once said he liked to grab married women by the pussy because he could and to show his dominance over them. And a large number of women not only voted for him but basically subconsciously told their husbands that they would leave their marriage to spend a single fleeting moment with a disgusting mid-70’s trust fund failure who would likely have been homeless if he had been born into the same life situation as the rest of us.
The thing is, that same man has become so comfortable with his version of the English language that he has actually caused a significant minority of Americans to believe all of the nonsense that comes out of his mouth and to deny other things that he said because they couldn’t justify their support of it.
Sure, today is going to be his last day in office. And, also sure, he has mastered the art of destroying our nation on numerous levels with just a few words.
You might be among those who don’t believe he encouraged people to drink disinfectant despite video evidence, or that he committed a treasonous offense while on a phone call with the Ukranian leader despite audio evidence and a transcript that laid it out very clearly.
However, there was no way he could be defended after he walked some of his loyal followers into the most significant insurrection against the United States since shots were fired on Fort Sumter in April, 1861. And we all know what happened after that.
The thing is Trump began using words that called for a second civil war weeks before the election. When the polls were showing that he was likely going to lose the election (and, yes, you are correct that those same polls had him losing in 2016), he began pushing the narrative that he could only lose if the election were rigged. Kinda like if former UT head coach Tom Herman said the only way Texas could lose to OU is if the Sooners cheated or the referees won the game for them. No, it is exactly like that. And it is bullshit.
Trump used his words and he used them loosely but also carefully to cause a domestic terrorist attack against the United States on our soil in our nation’s Capital. Yes, the man we all thought would be remembered for “covfefe, hamberders, witchhunts, Gina (it’s China), liberate and shithole countries” will now have as his last act the one where he Charlie Manson-style marched his followers into committing blatant treason against a nation that had finally and convincingly turned its back on this miserable man.
His words became so dangerous that he was banned from most social media outlets, and many of his followers were driven back into the dark web to be vocal with their racist, misogynous and conspiracy theory-driven words. And the result was one of the best weeks the nation has experienced in the past four years.
Let’s hope we can overcome this dark period of time in our nation’s history and find a way to embrace some of the better words in our English language - such as “love, middle ground, care, humanity, compromise, and nation over party.”
Word up.
