By Hal Brown
I had nothing to write about this morning. After all I assumed everyone would be writing about the GOP convention which I didn’t watch preferring to watch this instead.
Then watching MSNBC this morning I heard Sen. Tim Scott say this:
"We live in a world that only wants you to believe in the bad news, racially, economically and culturally-polarizing news," Scott said. "We don't give into cancel culture, or the radical - and factually baseless - belief that things are worse today than in the 1860s or the 1960s." He added that Biden would turn the U.S. into a "socialist utopia."
It sounded like a strange description to me. Why not say a socialist nightmare? Instead he used a word that is defined as an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect.
I wonder whether the typical less educated RNC viewer even knows what the word utopia means. Maybe lots of them think it is something horrific. It isn’t exactly a ten dollar word, but then again I suppose if one is predisposed to equate socialism with something dreadful and is vocabulary challenged the word could have an ominous sound.
I doubt the typical Trump fan knows that “Utopia” was the title of a Thomas Moore novel published in 1516:
A little, true book, not less beneficial than enjoyable, about how things should be in the new island Utopia") is a work of fiction and socio-politico satire by Thomas More (1478–1535), written in Latin and published in 1516. The book is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society and its religious, social, and political customs. Many aspects of More's description of Utopia are reminiscent of life in monasteries. Wikipedia
Yesterday in my diary I wondered why Kellyanne Conway used the word cleavage in this context:
For all of its political differences and cultural cleavages, this is a beautiful country filled with amazing people.
I wrote:
Also noteworthy to a psychotherapist like me is the phrasing in her statement about the “political differences and cultural cleavages” in the country. The word cleavage isn’t in common usage to describe sharp divisions of opinions. I wonder why she chose a word that I am sure her boss only uses to describe the female anatomy.
Tim Scott knows what socialism is. There’s a chance he knew the following when he decided to use the word utopia:
Utopian socialism is the first current of modern socialism and socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet, Robert Owenand Henry George. Utopian socialism is often described as the presentation of visions and outlines for imaginary or futuristic ideal societies, with positive ideals being the main reason for moving society in such a direction. Later socialists and critics of utopian socialism viewed utopian socialism as not being grounded in actual material conditions of existing society and in some cases as reactionary. These visions of ideal societies competed with Marxist-inspired revolutionary social democratic movements. Wikipedia
My puzzlement is why he used this word rather than one which would convey a readily understood as a dark and ominous picture of what a President Biden would turn the country into. This would have fit in with the tenor of the entire first night and with what the focus of Trump’s campaign will be. If I was writing the speech, like I noted above, I would call it a socialist nightmare or alternately for the evangelicals, a socialist Hell.
Tuesday, Aug 25, 2020 · 3:38:35 PM +00:00 · HalBrown
The Daily Beast title says Marxist Hellscape but doesn’t have quotes from the RNC where anybody used this term. It would have been a much better description for Tim Scott to use than socialist utopia.
On Night 1 of the 2020 Republican National Convention, acolyte after high-profile acolyte lined up to lavish praise on President Donald Trump for standing tall between the American people and a Marxist, politically correct hellscape.
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Trump was alternately touted as a true champion of the Black community—but also as the only person standing in the way of the death of the “suburbs” at the hands of “low-quality apartments” and radical Marxist mobs.
