A lot of things that people used to believe turned out not to be true: The earth is not flat, and it isn’t the center of the universe. Smoking will not aid digestion, as some doctors paid by tobacco companies asserted in the 1950s. And human sperm does not contain miniscule but completely pre-formed individuals, though what’s called “preformation” was the dominant theory of generation in the 18th century.
Beyond ideas, there are a lot of words and sayings, too, that we don’t use anymore. We don’t store information on a “floppy disc,” nor food in an “icebox.” And nobody wears “dungarees” to a “hootenanny” nor, if we arrive now at such an unlikely event, do we “toke on a doobie” after “scoring a lid of pot.” (If those words sound familiar, you’re old. Sorry.)
In the world of politics, too, it’s hard to give up some ideas and phrases that we’ve long thought were true. Experience is a slow teacher when it has to do battle with either our ideals or our ideology. But if we fail to rethink our language and the notions underlying it, we won’t be equipped to cope with a future that’s so different from the way things have always been.
So consider some of those words and phrases that it’s time to abandon, to unshackle us from ideas that might hamstring our future.
Take, for example, the word “unelectable,” which was what wise political analysts said about Donald Trump in 2016. His supporters couldn’t be more than 30 percent of the electorate, they said. Wrong, obviously. Which is why you don’t hear so much these days that anybody might be “unelectable.” It’s what 16th-century English speakers would have called “beef-witted” — an outmoded term, just like “unelectable” should be. Banish the word, and the faulty thinking behind it.
Another term that deserves retirement is the word “conservative” – because it surely does not describe either major political party these days. “Conservative” was the reputation of what we used to call the Grand Old Party — “GOP” being another term to strike, by the way, since today’s Republicans have abandoned the tenets of such giants as Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.
Prime evidence that we need to strike both “conservative” and “GOP” is the turn against the rule of law of most elected Republicans at the urging of Donald Trump.
Advancing a law-and-order agenda has been fundamental to Republican strategy since at least Richard Nixon’s 1968 campaign. But then our legal system began to catch up to Donald Trump’s behavior – resulting in four criminal indictments on 91 felony counts – and suddenly Republicans began to attack American jurisprudence as unfair and biased and untrustworthy. So when Trump demanded (in his words) “the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” and when you did not hear a repudiation of that call for lawlessness from Republican officials, well, then you would have to conclude that the Republican party is not conservative, and does not stand for law and order. No, people like U.S. Representative Elise Stefanik have abandoned conservatism in favor of radical Trumpism. That’s the correct term.
Of course, as many abortion rights activists have noted, it’s also not conservative to pass laws governing what a woman can do with her own body, nor punishing businesses that consider environmental risk and diversity goals in setting their course. That’s government meddling. Don’t call it conservative; it’s radical.
Yet among these words and phrases that are now outmoded, there’s an old phrase that we might want to bring to the fore. Historians say the Greek philosopher Heraclitus was the first Western thinker to search for moral applications for his philosophies. It was Heraclitus who wrote, “Character is destiny,” suggesting that our fate is determined by our own hand, rather than by any outside force.
Some 2,500 years later, a book with the title “Character is Destiny” was published by John McCain, who is remembered as a public servant of high character. At the end of his life, McCain watched in sorrow as his onetime political allies sank into the morass of opportunism and chaos created by a very different sort of public figure, Donald Trump. In refusing to kowtow to Trump, McCain assured that his legacy would be one that reflected the strength of his character.
It's tempting to look at the success of Trump and other bad players of his ilk in our political system as evidence that Heraclitus and McCain were wrong — that character matters less than cleverness or raw power. But abandoning our faith in the value of character would amount to a surrender to the cynics who want to manipulate society for their own gain.
Both as individuals and as a nation, the choices we make reflect our values and our character. So even as we lay aside notions that clearly have outlasted their time – what “conservative” means, what’s “GOP,” whether anybody is in fact “unelectable” – it’s important for us to embrace those old values that still matter. Maybe none is more useful than our confidence in the ultimate triumph of character. That can, in fact, power our own activism in the face of the harsh realities of the moment — activism, that is, reflecting our own character, and our trust that we can shape a better future.
Rex Smith, the co-host of The Media Project on WAMC, is the former editor of the Times Union of Albany and The Record in Troy. His weekly digital report, The Upstate American, is published by Substack.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.