The good news is that most Americans aren’t swayed by the relentless propaganda of the “anti-woke” mob. The bad news is that quite a few are; and sometimes a handful can determine utter control of the government, especially in this age in which minority rule is so deeply entrenched. And the other bad news is that USA Today, like just about every mainstream media outlet in the U.S., has an irresistible compulsion to indulge in bothsidesism — in this case, framing the matter as a question of how people “view” things, rather than just correctly stating that 56 percent of Americans actually know what “woke” means. They just can’t help themselves. And note the conjuring up of “political correctness”, another formerly respectable term that was brutally co-opted and perverted by right-wingers, in the same manner as “woke” , “fake news” and “weaponize”.

In fact, it’s absolutely certain that any perfectly reasonable term is going to be, sooner rather than later, stolen, twisted and defiled by right-wing propagandists. You may have noticed, for instance, that purveyors of misinformation are generally just about the only ones who stake a claim to the word “truth” anymore. (See Truth Social, Project Veritas, etc.). Thanks to their tireless efforts, and the linguistic laziness of the population in general, there are quite a few words that no longer mean what they once did. Here are a few terms whose current popular usages are questionable.

1. Tolerance

When we speak of being tolerant, most of us mean that we are accepting of other people who are different from ourselves. But there is another way of looking at this word, a meaning often at least hinted at by bigots who protest that they are actually “tolerant” because they’ve never killed a black or gay person so far.

In its strictest sense, to tolerate means to put up with. You may have arthritis of the hip, and while you can’t make it go away, you can learn to put up with it. Similarly, bigots “tolerate” people they don’t like by simply allowing them to exist on the same planet, as long as they don’t get too close.Tolerance, even when used in the most benign fashion, carries somewhere on its underbelly the implication that there is some reason the object of the tolerance should not be tolerated. We really need a better word.

2. Mother

No, no, there’s nothing wrong with mothers. Where would we be without them? But there’s something very wrong with the way the word is so often applied these days. It has become standard practice to refer to any pregnant female as a mother rather than as, more accurately, a mother-to-be. Motherhood, however, is defined by either giving birth to or adopting a child — not by simply being pregnant.

It’s probably not just by chance that the application of the word has devolved in this manner. But whether it’s been deliberate or not, the misappropriation has contributed to the depersonalization of pregnant women (and girls), treating them as merely (in the words of one right-winger) childbearing “vessels”. And by classifying a pregnant female as a “mother”, you imply that she has a child; and that aborting her fetus constitutes killing a child. You’re playing right into their hands.

3. Populism

This was supposed to mean an appeal to blue-collar folks who feel marginalized and ignored by the Powers That Be. But nowadays, it’s most often applied to elitists who try to pass themselves off as champions of hoi polloi, and really just want their political support — and their money. It has become, in other words, synonymous with demagoguery.

4. Liberty

Hard to believe, but originally liberty was just another word for freedom. But that was so very long ago. In recent decades, the word has been given a drastic makeover by right-wing fanatics who’ve emblazoned it on their banners and invoked it in their efforts to harass gays and transgenders, and to suppress books that teach anything about history that might make some white folks uncomfortable. In other words, it now most often means exactly the opposite of its original meaning. For that reason, it’s probably best avoided altogether.

5. Bias

As noted above, the media often perform indecently grotesque contortions in an effort to avoid appearing biased — which often ends up with their avoiding a bias toward truth and accuracy. You’re not going to get truth and accuracy if you give “both sides” an equal footing, for the simple reason that one “side” is far more willing to lie and distort. So “unbiased” media really isn’t. Incorrectly conflated with ideological balance, Bias has become the Schrödinger’s media sin.

6. Justice

When the two men who abducted, tortured and murdered 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955 were acquitted, many people considered it a horrific miscarriage of justice. Many people still do. Certainly it was horrific. And atrocious and infuriating and inexcusable. But whether justice was served depends on how you define justice.

In a narrow sense, justice means the system of laws and courts we’re stuck with, for better or for worse. If an offense has been fed through that system, then one can say that justice has been done, no matter how unsatisfactory the outcome. The problem is that laws are often flawed, and the courts are not infrequently corrupt and/ or incompetent (See Court, Supreme). Justice, in other words, is sometimes unjust. Not so very long ago, it was considered an act of justice to arrest women for trying to vote. The system still has plenty of room for improvement. In the meantime, perhaps we more accurately could refer to bad rulings — or the absence of convictions or even arrests in many cases– as inequitable, unfair, or something else that does not cause justice to be confused with justness.

There are no doubt many other words we could think of that should be used cautiously, but you get the idea. Meanings are sometimes fuzzy, either inadvertently or by design. And there are plenty of people out there waiting to exploit that problem to influence public perceptions.