What are you even talking about?!
The left needs to stop using vocabulary as a loyalty oath.
At some point in the last decade, parts of the left decided that vocabulary would function as a loyalty oath. Miss one update and you’re treated like you just proposed a nun perform fellatio on a dog.
Language changes. It always has and some changes are real improvements. “Died by suicide” drops the implication of crime. “Enslaved people” emphasizes that slavery was imposed. Those shifts clarify meaning. When you explain the reasoning calmly, most people slowly adapt.
What doesn’t help is turning terminology into a moral landmine.
There is a psychological reason this keeps happening. Groups maintain cohesion through shared markers. Language is a cheap and effective one. If you know the term, you’re in. If you don’t, you’re out. That boundary feels powerful to the people inside it.
Take “Latinx.” Pew Research has found that only a tiny percentage of Latino Americans use it. Yet online, using “Latino” can earn you a lecture from perpetually online progressives. That’s a password check disguised as inclusion while Democrats bleed support from the community.
And you have no idea how much grief you’ll get for even mentioning it here in Mexico. It doesn’t follow the actual Spanish vocabulary structure and is shunned here in favor of “Latín” or “Latin@.”
There’s also status at play. Using the newest phrasing indicates that you are current and committed. Publicly correcting someone signals it even louder. The correction becomes a performance. The audience is more important than the actual words.
“Food insecurity” is another example. It’s a defined policy term that sounds like it was drafted in a conference room. Most people say they are going hungry or can’t afford groceries. Correcting them for not using foundation language doesn’t feed anyone.
Researchers have written about moral grandstanding. Public moral talk can serve as a form of status competition. That doesn’t mean people don’t believe what they’re saying, but they’re also reaping a social reward for being seen as the most virtuous person in the room.
Then comes the backlash. When people feel publicly shamed or coerced, they resist. Even people who might agree start digging in when they feel humiliated. Aggressive enforcement does not increase persuasion. It increases resentment.
This is where the left keeps stepping on its own rake. They’ve allowed the right to claim to be victims of “cancel culture” while Republicans proudly ban books and erase Black and LGBTQ people from national monuments and government studies.
There is a difference between a slur and stale phrasing. A slur is meant to demean. An outdated but neutral term is usually a habit. Collapsing those into the same category cheapens actual harm.
Take the debate over “breastfeeding” versus “chestfeeding.” Yes, trans men can get pregnant. That is true. Acting as if a well-meaning person using the word they have heard their entire life is committing violence is not.
Movements win by lowering the barrier to entry and making it easier for people to join, not easier for them to fail. Constantly inventing new terms and enforcing them angrily shrinks the coalition. It shifts energy from policy and material change to semantic compliance.
It also hands opponents an easy caricature. The humorless scold who cares more about syllables than outcomes is not a right-wing fantasy. It is a recognizable archetype.
If someone is acting in bad faith, confront them. If someone uses a slur, shut it down. Those are clear lines.
If someone is using yesterday’s language in good faith, explain the update and move on. Don’t turn it into a public trial. Language matters, but strategy matters more.
As I said in a previous essay, do you want to be right or do you want to win?
RELATED: The Mac & Cheese Method is why politics keeps getting worse