Our Lonely War On Pronouns Continues...

...because both Republicans and the Beltway media never stop trying to diffuse responsibility for their catastrophes by "we"-ing the rest of us into their shame circle.

As you probably know, we here at the DGBG Productions (driftglass blog, The Professional Left Podcast, etc.) have been waging a long, lonely war against the promiscuous use "we", "us", "The American people", "The Congress", "Washington D.C." and any other language deployed by the media and by Republican politicians in the service of pretending that somehow everyone and all institutions are collectively and equally culpable for explicitly Republican cowardice, Republican barbarity, Republican racism and Republican sedition.

Or that, conversely, the energetic and resolution opposition to explicitly Republican cowardice, Republican barbarity, Republican racism and Republican sedition is something that "we" are all in together.  That, for example. stripping tens of millions of Americans of their health care in order to pay for tax cuts for plutocrats with something up with which "the American people" would not put.

No, no and no.

Because other than geographically, there is no such critter as "the American people".  This is the unhappy truth which the Beltway media damn well knows but would rather pull its own head off rather than speak aloud, which is why the word "we" has been so brutally abused by everyone with something to hide.

Exhibit A:  Raving racist deadbeat liar and former Republican congressman from IL08 turned belated Never Trumper, Joe Walsh.

We all deserve this. All of it.

— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) December 13, 2018

Goons like Walsh never actually change.  They just shift with the prevailing wind.  And along with the rest of the Never Trumpers, current weather conditions have temporarily knocked him off the GOP dungheap, but the minute conditions improve, you can bet the mortgage that Deadbeat Joe will go right back to pounding his little tin wingnut drum.

Exhibit B:  At the other end of the respectability spectrum we find that bastion of relentless Beltway Both Siderism, The New York Times, and a lesson in how applying pressure to pressure-sensitive Both Siderists can sometimes yield happy results. 

Here is the Times' headline about the rise of far-right extremists before Liberals starting yelling at them on Twitter.

Here are a few example of Liberals yelling at the NYT on Twitter

Thank you, Jesus.

— Lisa Glass (@LMplusG) December 13, 2018

The Southern Poverty Law Center has been warning of this rise and documenting it in detail and often resisting it successfully in court.

— George Wolff (@Wolfflak) December 13, 2018

No one makes the word “we” work harder than the NYTimes headline and tweet writers.

— Xay (@xayide) December 13, 2018

And here is the same NYT headline after Liberals starting yelling at them on Twitter.

Lesson:  If it gathers enough momentum (and enough support from Bluechecks), sometimes publicly shaming Both Siderists actually works.

For example here is a small and almost-forgotten skirmish in our lonely war on pronouns from January of this year: Ms. Joy Ann Reid setting Ezra Klein straight on the abuse of the word "we".

Not “we.” Republicans. And not fear. Indifference, since they are getting what they want out of him, including direct monetary gains for themselves and their estates through the tax code. https://t.co/7Em46240Ho

— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) January 3, 2018

Today you can still click on Joy Ann Reid's Tweet and see it in its original state.  But Young Ezra's original Tweet now exists only as a memory -- trapped in the amber of my post from January 2018, because he has since deleted it :-)

So however maddening it is to be right all along and ignored all along, never let anyone tell you that holding Both Siderists publicly to account doesn't work.

Because sometimes it does.

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