Dan GillmorBig Journalism's relentless use of the word "conservative" to describe vicious right-wing extremism is one of the trade's laziest -- and damaging -- practices. It puts a mask of moderation on the vile nature of the people and ideology that it describes. This, from NBC, is a sad example: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/was-childfree-woman-enjoying-saturday-came-culture-warriors-rcna103581
Richard Grant@dangillmor I agree! But also I’ve been thinking about this from the standpoint of evolving language, and I think one thing that will happen is “conservative” acquiring all the connotations you’ve just named. It’s like the obverse of what happened when republicans started screaming “Socialism“ about every little modestly helpful economic thing Obama tried to do. The result was that “Socialism” lost its sting, so only progressives use it now, and proudly. “Conservative” will become a curse.
edgeoforever 🍎@richardgrant @dangillmor True. I am old enough to remember “liberal media “. After a while, they had to change it to “mainstream “ because it became too absurd.
Tim VerstynenImagine how broken of a person you have to be to do this to a random stranger simply to satisfy your own ego.
AnotherGrumpyDayInHell 💙🇺🇲🇺🇦@dangillmor The second laziest thing about this NBC post is the fact that the author only included a three sentences about M**t W**sh (I'm sorry. I don't want type his name) and his ilk. Why aren't journalists digging into the people who are driving the culture war? Oh, I know. NBC doesn't employ very many actual journalists, and Universal/Comcast makes a lot of money from viewer/reader outrage.
Voron@dangillmor it’s not lazy, it’s done to mollify the damn big money right wingers that run shit, it’s done on purpose
Sir Thomas Goodwin, M.S.@dangillmor - It's kinda wild how words change depending on where you are. Like, in the U.S., some folks might mix up "conservative" with "extreme," but in other places, especially the Middle East, anything extreme gets called terrorism. Feels like labels just change to fit someone's story, right?
ex or current IDF unwelcome@dangillmor In the UK Conservative (big) is the name of our vicious right wing extremist ruling (for a short while longer) political party. I an see how it crossed the Atlantic to you.
Steven Heywood@dangillmor
One of the tragedies of the age is the international agreement between big media companies to use the innocuous sounding word "conservative" to describe the activities of viciously extreme misogynists and their fascist friends.
Lucas B. Cohen 🍇@dangillmor Interesting observation. In France I tend to deplore the opposite: journalists overlook the conservative component of what they lazily label “the right-wing”—fully ignoring the existence of a politically liberal and progressive strain of thought on the right.
Heloisa Pait@dangillmor I never understood the use of the term.
Sieva 🚴🚇🏙️🌹@dangillmor To me, conservatism means exactly what this article is about: a bunch of people who want back to the “good” ol' days when “women knew their place”. Viewing politics as a left-right line is too simplistic; as someone in the replies said, there are plenty of socially progressive people on the right side of the economic policy.
Phil Landmeier@dangillmor Yes, I've been complaining about this for years. The right-wing co-opted the term and the press lets them get away with it. At the very least they should put it in quotes, "conservative".
There's nothing conservative about neo-cons or the current crop of Trump supporters.