Watching Fox News provides a living lesson in how right-wing propagandists use and abuse language to indoctrinate weak minds. They carefully craft how they frame issues in order to manipulate their already deluded audience into embracing their conservative biases and conspiracy theories.
Click here to Tweet this article
Among the rhetorical carrots that Fox News and Republicans have been dangling temptingly before their screed-starved supplicants is the newly coined “woke” polemic that the right defines broadly as any passingly liberal sounding policy that can be spun into a pseudo-scandal.
Everything from Critical Race Theory to voting rights to progressive taxation to climate change, and more can be lumped into what the right regards as “wokism.” It’s become a catch-all pejorative for whatever is bothering them at any particular moment. Never mind that it’s original meaning, as used in the Black community, was simply to be informed, educated and conscious of social injustice. And those are qualities that are anathema to conservatives.
RELATED: GOP Creates an ‘Anti-Woke’ Caucus to Take on the ‘Greatest Domestic Threat to America Today’
On Tuesday Greg Gutfeld of Fox News added another word to the wingnut lexicon that required redefinition by the the right. Gutfeld presented his candidate for politically correcting verbiage: “Equity.”
Gutfeld’s conspiracy theory is that there is a coordinated effort by some nefarious unnamed liberal cabal to replace the word “equality” with the word “equity.” He warns that “it’s really important that people understand what the difference is, because one is about peace and the other is about war.” And how does he justify that bizarre distinction? With a tortured illogic that mauls the definitions of both words (video below).
“Equality simply defined is that people have the same opportunities to achieve the same goals. We’re all at the same starting place. Equity though is we enforce limits on achievement so no one achieves more than anyone else. That will punish the really hard workers. That leads to war. That is socialism.”
WHUT? Gutfeld is not even close to the actual meanings of either word. Equality has nothing to do with “opportunities” or “starting places.” For the record, equality is the state in which people have the same stature and/or class. And while that sounds admirable, it can mean that two people can be discriminated against in the same measure and that would still be considered equality.
Equity means fairness and impartiality. So it requires that there be no discrimination. The words are complimentary, not contradictory. Of course, none of that matters to Gutfeld or Fox News. All they are interested in is smoothing a path to express their inherent racism. However, Gutfeld went even farther to demonize equity as something harmful and associated with oppression.
“So equality gives everybody a step up, and equity crushes from above. And you have to remind yourself of this. Whenever you run into this situation because people are gonna are always try to replace equality with equity and you can see it in news reports. They’ll just let the word equity fly by. That is an evil word. It is a word that caused communism. It’s part of socialism.”
One would have to have a pretty twisted perspective to link equity with something that “crushes from above.” And to characterize equity as “evil” is evidence of a perverse misunderstanding of the English language, if not a wholly warped worldview. Embracing such a depraved paradigm would naturally lead Gutfeld to the ludicrous conclusion that “equity” begets communism.
Gutfeld is Fox’s court jester. He is supposed to be their comic relief. But he isn’t joking about this. And conservatives have never been known for their sense of humor anyway.
RELATED: Trump is Silent About the Insurrection in Brazil, But is Very Upset About Late Night Comedy TV
Nevertheless, this is emblematic of how right-wing media and Republican politicians communicate. They take words that are already in common use and distort them to express something entirely different and utterly deplorable. Then they accuse anyone who engages in whatever practice it is that they have absurdly redefined, of being corrupt or dishonest or otherwise undesirable. Which, ironically, is a strikingly accurate definition of themselves.
NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly.
Fox host: Equity "is an evil word. It is a word that causes communism" and "leads to war" pic.twitter.com/DRy6qFD1LR
— Kat Abu (@abughazalehkat) January 17, 2023
Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse
on Facebook and Instagram.And check out my books on Amazon:
Fox Nation vs. Reality:
The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.Thanks so much for your support.
Just another item in the growing body of evidence that Faux Noose personnel are illiterate, unlettered, math challenged, history-challenged, generally ignorant and amoral. But those are their features, not their flaws.
Spot on, AnnieLaurie+Burke, Fox Spews are all of the things you described and then some. This word salad they are spewing sounds like something they may have learned at that Church of Scientology with their cult like agenda. I have heard many horror stories about that place and their rigid ways of controlling people. That L. Ron Hubbard that started that thing kinda reminds me of TUMP and the MAGA cult. I have come to the conclusion that these deranged asshats at Fox Spews, the MAGAT cult, and in general the entire GQP are a hopeless cause as there is absolutely no reasoning with them. They are going to make up things to try and deceive and brainwash the ignorant to suit their needs. There are way too many gullible people in the United States who do not know or understand what critical thinking is all about. I question how these people have gotten through their lives without critical thinking skills. The GQP has people believing that Dems are evil, and they are the good guys, when the opposite of that is really true. They live in an alternate fantasy world where every lie they tell is the gospel truth to them. All i can say is, these nutso idiots are a lost cause and cannot be cured it seems.
Marjorie Taylor Greene uses the word Socialism. Trump, Marxism. Gutfeld, Communism. When will it end?
Socialism Marxism, Communism. Words tossed around by Conservatives, especially MAGA’s to describe us. Maybe Gutfeld has an excuse because he is supposedly a comedian. In my book, they all need to have their brains examined.
I honestly do not think these cretins have much of brain, if they did an MRI on their heads, i assume their brains would be about the size of a hummingbird brain, They may even have to bring out magnifying glasses to even see it on the MRI scan. Even at that size, most of what was left of their brains would show considerable rot.
What is your problem? These persons are quoted in reputable news outlets.