“Failed gun legislation is the norm,” reads the headline at Axios, “after mass shootings like Buffalo tragedy.” Further down in the story, we read that an October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas “prompted fresh calls from lawmakers on both sides to pass gun control legislation.”

Also relating to the Buffalo shooting, the Sunbury, Pennsylvania Daily Item reports that it “prompted GOP legislative leaders to call Monday for the reinstatement of New York’s death penalty law for murders fueled by racism and hatred.”

I read a lot of news stories each and every day, and I’m always surprised at how often I see various events characterized as “prompting” calls for action — the same calls, for the same actions, from the same people who were making exactly the same calls for exactly the same actions long before the events in question.

In context, use of the word “prompt” COULD be correct in the theatrical sense: A cue for an actor to read well-memorized lines at the most opportune time.

But in context, most of these stories seem to use it in a different sense, per the 1913 edition of Webster‘s: “To instigate; to incite …. To suggest; to dictate.”

That is, the stories would have us believe that the “prompted” politicians and activists weren’t pushing for Policy X before Event Y, but are doing so now because of Event Y. They once were blind but now can see, see?

In reality, most of us don’t change our minds very often, or about very many things. And politicians and activists  resemble that remark on steroids.

They got where they are — whether it’s the US House of Representatives or the leadership of the Brady Campaign to Encourage … er, “United Against” … Gun Violence — by advocating for or against Policy X. Abandoning that advocacy isn’t a sound job security move; doubling down on it is.

Politicians and activists genuinely changing their minds is  extremely rare. When a politician even pretends to do so, it’s usually at a glacial pace and in an effort to get more in step with his or her party or faction so as to receive promotions (for example, see the correlation between Joe Biden’s presidential campaigns and his positions on abortion over the decades).

In most cases, claims of Event X “prompting” calls for Policy Y should be understood to mean “Supporters of Policy Y Seize Opportunity to Grandstand on Event X.”

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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“Word choices by politicians and activists matter,” writes Matt Yglesias. “[S]wing voters tend to self-identify as moderate, and as a result, people who want to win should try to portray their ideas as moderate, common-sense reforms rather than sweeping vehicles for change. At the same time, words are not magic.”

I disagree, but context matters. Yglesias is discussing whether terms like “Medicare for All” and “pro-choice” can do the heavy lifting for candidates and activists if the policies they’re used to promote aren’t as sound  as the slogans are catchy. He’s correct as far as he goes. “Free ice cream” sounds great, but if it comes with a “minimum $10 tip” disclaimer in the fine print, it probably won’t get quite so many takers.

But words ARE magic. Well-chosen words — especially words that poke at our existing inclinations or fears — can move the individuals hearing or reading them that first and most important step down one path or another, after which the path is like as not to become a set of rails that tend to keep one moving down the same track.

As Mark Twain noted more than a century ago, “the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter — ’tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.”

There’s a reason why the two major sides of the abortion debate call themselves “pro-choice” and “pro-life” (who could be against either “choice” or “life?”), but come up with less flattering names for their counterparts. The devil is in the details, and once you’re committed the details tend to matter less.

Put to their worst use, words become “black” rather than “white” magic.

See what I did there? Those terms don’t seem to have arisen from racial stereotypes, but to, say a late 19th-century “white” American the term “black magic” would have evoked Haitian Vodou and other African or African-adjacent practices. That’s the lightning. “Low magic” or “left-hand path” are just lightning-bugs.

One current (and related) example of “black magic” verbiage is “Replacement Theory” — the claim that suspect elites are behind a plot to replace “white” Americans with voters of darker skin hue for nefarious political purposes.

In reality, “Replacement Theory” isn’t actually about “replacement.” It’s about people moving from one place to another, members of various groups inter-marrying, things changing as they always have and always will.

But with the word “replacement,” its advocates bottle some big-time lightning by triggering a basic insecurity. Who considers being “replaced” a positive thing? Those who buy the initial premise are stepping onto the path marked “Now Boarding: Crazy Train.”

Words ARE magic — powerful magic. Be careful how you listen to them and use them.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Why did Payton Gendron (allegedly, but he live-streamed it, so it’s not like there’s much doubt) murder ten people at a Buffalo, New York grocery store on May 14?

The pat, and at least partially correct, answer, is that Gendron subscribes to something called the “Great Replacement” theory.  That’s mostly what we hear about in mainstream media descriptions of his 180-page “manifesto”: He’s a “right-wing” racist who believes that political elites are conspiring to replace him and his fellow “white” Americans with people of color.

What most mainstream publications don’t do is link directly to the manifesto itself so that members of the public can easily access it, read it, and form our own opinions on its contents. They’re telling us what they want us to know about it in the hope that we’ll think what they want us to think about it.

I was able to find the manifesto — not via a major US newspaper, but linked from a “white nationalist” publication by a prominent racist writer — after a short search.

On a quick read, the only real conclusion one can reach (other than that a shower sounds like a great idea) is that Gendron is, well, crazy, very much in the Unabomber vein. He’s got a bunch of grievances, and for some reason he decided that walking into a store and gunning down a bunch of people was the best way to call those grievances to our attention — and, per the “Great Replacement” stuff, to reduce the non-white population directly, and perhaps indirectly scare other members of that population into leaving the US.

But there’s more to Payton Gendron and his grievances than the “Great Replacement.” For example, he describes himself as in the “mild-moderate authoritarian left” category politically, complaining that under “conservatism,” the “natural environment is industrialized, pulverized and commoditized.” Some of his opinions fit comfortably into the 21st century “progressive” mold.

Mainstream media’s reluctance to show us the whole sordid thing is self-serving in that sense, but also part and parcel of the notion that “de-platforming” crazy ideas reduces crazy conduct, particularly of the violent sort.

That notion has never worked out in practice. In fact, the opposite seems to be true. For example, the Weimar Republic made liberal (sic) use of anti-hate-speech and “insult” laws to suppress Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party. And the Nazis used that attempted suppression to paint themselves as martyrs and inspire their base to action.

Attempting to suppress Gendron’s manifesto doesn’t stop those who want to read it because they’ll likely agree with it from finding it. It just makes it harder for the rest of us to engage his terrible ideas and steer the impressionable away from them with better arguments.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY