As the culture war continues to rage in the political arena, conservatives must pay careful attention to the language they use. If we are using the language and the arguments of the left when discussing social issues, we are already on the defensive, already losing. Take Nikki Haley’s abortion comments in last week’s presidential debate. To be fair to Haley, her realism on a proposed federal abortion ban is legitimate: It is easy for federal candidates to use this issue to pander to pro-life voters (as Republicans have been doing for decades), knowing full well that there will never be 60 votes in the Senate to pass it.
But Haley’s language about the abortion issue is troubling: “Let’s treat this like the respectful issue that it is and humanize the situation and stop demonizing the situation.” Respectful issue? Stop demonizing the situation? If we adopt the logic of the left, then Haley is right: This is merely a sensitive matter about a woman’s personal decision concerning her own body. If that is true, we should indeed tone it down, stop “demonizing the situation,” and treat this like any other matter of healthcare policy. But if the child in the womb is indeed fully human, deserving of dignity, respect, and the rights of a citizen, how can we merely treat this like any other policy argument? Should we really stop demonizing the situation when we have a political regime that allows (even encourages) the killing of innocent unborn babies? When we adopt the language and arguments of the other side, we have already accepted their central premises and we are already losing the debate.
On abortion and many other social issues, the left has captured the language that shapes the current cultural narrative. And they have done a very good job. Giving puberty blockers to minors and removing their healthy sex organs is “gender-affirming care.“ Supporting the notion that a woman ought to be able to kill the child in her womb is merely support for a “woman’s right to choose.” Forcing people not only to accept but to celebrate all kinds of sexual orientation and gender identity novelties is merely “nondiscrimination.” Gender-affirming care. Right to choose. Nondiscrimination. Love is love. The left is winning the language war.
There are times where the left’s euphemistic language has become so institutionalized that one can’t really talk about something without using the unfortunate term. Most states have “nondiscrimination laws,” preventing disparate treatment on the basis of race, sex, etc. When those laws include the categories of sexual orientation and gender identity, the effect is not merely the prevention of discrimination, but an attempt to force people in the public square to think, speak, and act according to the new orthodoxy. As we saw this past June, even when such laws are struck down because they are in fact forcing speech rather than preventing discrimination, conservatives are often stuck calling these laws “nondiscrimination laws.” It doesn’t play well to oppose “nondiscrimination,” but that is what the laws are called and it is very difficult to reframe the language without losing a sense of what is being talked about.
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