I was raised by the grammar police. My mother heard every error, no matter how small. “Mom, can I go out?” “I am sure you can, but the question is, will I let you…”.
Pronunciation was also very important to her. Nothing was left uncorrected. I never forget the R in library and February.
As I get older, I see more and more of my mother in me. I’m not an exact copy, but I end my day with the crossword puzzle and I have recently taken up drinking black coffee. While my mother would correct our mother grammar and pronunciation out loud, I (mostly) keep the corrections inside my head.
But today, in the spirit of Clare Elizabeth O’Hagan Higgins, I am going to unload about some of the things people in the public eye say that irritate me.
Let’s start at the top. While the current occupant of the White House is considered by many to be the enemy of all that really makes America great, he is definitely the English language slayer-in-chief, having stolen the title from President George W. Bush. He talks about “the oranges (origins) of the (Mueller) investigation,” “ending the diversary lottery,” and often struggles with the word anonymous.
He was “cocked and loaded,” ready to attack Iran and can’t pronounce Venezuela (another place he’d like to invade). He seems quite challenged by the English language for a man who went to the “best schools” and is “like, smart.” Maybe my mother was right — too much television will rot your brain.
Another phrase that I am ready to strike from the political dictionary is “nothingburger.” It has often been employed by allies of Trump to dismiss things like the Mueller report, or Trump Jr.’s meeting with Russians before the 2016 election.
In 2016, Gov. Charlie Baker used the term when confronted with the fact that his own chair of the state’s elementary and secondary education board donated $100,000 to a pro-charter campaign fund when the charter expansion question was on the ballot. If you hear someone use that phrase, it means that there is red meat on that bun.
Fake news is almost always real news and press secretaries are the new propaganda ministers. Kelley Ann Conway told us that right at the beginning of the Trump era when she talked about alternate facts. The “best people” are actually the worst people and the “worst people” are immigrants and their children, or any of the other targets of Trump.
Now we are moving into the next presidential election cycle and the overused cliches are going to be flowing like sewage after a flood. Since members of the organized Republican Party (with some rare exceptions) have surrendered their brains and moral compasses to Trumpism, we already know what we are going to get from them.
But center and left leaning voters are not immune from cliches that don’t really hold up — for instance “political parties don’t matter.”
One overused trope on the right and the left is the scorn for politicians unless they are really old (Jimmy Carter) or dead (Kennedy and Lincoln). How many candidates say “I’m not a politician…” as they run for political office? Well, I actually want a politician to be the president; we have had the anti-politician “businessman” and that hasn’t worked out so well. I want someone who is “a person experienced in the art or science of government,” the Merriam-Webster definition of politician.
My mother would have hated Twitter; it embodies the constant now of 21st century politics. I enjoy it, but I don’t mistake Twitter for the real work of dialogue, debate and compromise that is necessary for governance.
And I worry about candidates that don’t know history. The Spanish poet and philosopher George Santayana said that, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Cliché, but there is truth there.
We have an historical president now, and he is at the brink of war on a daily basis. He is malignantly xenophobic, despite his serial marriages to immigrants. And his racism has given permission for other racists to say out loud what they were mostly only muttering when Obama was president.
There are 22 (23,24…) people running for president as Democrats and two running for the Republican nomination. (You go Bill Weld)! One of them will win and I hope she is an actual politician with a sense of history and a record of accomplishment in the public sector.
And thanks to the reader for letting me channel my mother as Independence Day approaches.
Clare Higgins, of Northampton, a former mayor of the city, is executive director of the nonprofit Community Action Pioneer Valley. She can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.