I propose a new verb.
“Jussie” (verb): To promote a bigoted lie about conservative Americans that faithfully supports the liberal narrative while being so transparently false that only the stupidest of the people pushing it actually believe it.
Our society keeps getting jussied, and I’m frankly getting tired of it. It’s not only annoying but it’s evil. It is naked prejudice disguised as fussy outrage directed toward groups who the social justice whiners have decreed are exempt from the standard ban on racial, sexual, religious and cultural bigotry. And it’s dangerous, both because of the cold fury it inspires in those subjected to this kind of grimy okey-doke, and because of how it crowds reason out of the public square.
If you can’t reason, because reason has been rejected as a bourgeois conceit in favor of frothing hatred at the designated target du jour, how do you resolve disputes and differences as a society? The advocates of this lynch mob mentality seem to think that their social media howling is the alternative. They think that if they shout down their opponents, their opponents will simply disappear. Poof!
But their pampered upbringing here in America, especially on college campuses where their fascist antics are rewarded, has led to a failure of imagination. They can’t imagine a society where their targets get mad and rebel. Ignorant of history, and of human nature, they don’t understand that the traditional way a society solves problems when it abandons reason is not abject submission to screaming blue checks on Twitter. It’s violence.
That’s the true danger of jussieing. It puts a significant portion of the citizenry’s collective back against the wall and demands that they give in, without comprehending that an opponent is most dangerous when cornered.
This is the point where I get jussied for this column. Liberals, no doubt with the supporting “tut-tuts” of their submissive Fredocon minions, will gleefully convert my recitation of irrefutable truths into some sort of call of chaos. But I’m not calling for chaos. I’ve seen chaos, and I’m against it. That’s why I’m continuing to warn the fools out there who think they can undermine the foundations of the society the Founders built, one that is very different from the barbarism outside our borders, and still maintain that difference.
They can’t. A free, peaceful society is a system. Reasoned debate, as opposed to phenomena like jussieing, is a key component of that system. You can’t just remove the components you find inconvenient and still expect that system to unction such that you get to take advantage of the components you do like. It’s all or nothing.
But I don’t think the jussiers will listen. Remember, mobbing is fun, and for a long time it’s been rewarded. So why would they stop?
They did it to Brett Kavanaugh, latching onto skeevy stereotypes about young males to condemn a man whose only crime was genuflecting to God instead of to liberal ideology.
Jusssied, because of his race, his faith, his daring to think forbidden thoughts.
They did it to that kid who was bewildered by the Frigidaireborne ranger with a drum, again joyfully engaging in the same style of bigotry about that kid’s race, religion and culture that would have made the Democrats of the KKK clap their paws.
Jusssied, because of his race, his faith, his daring to think forbidden thoughts.
And there is Jussie Smollett himself, with his astonishingly inept lie about – get this – a couple of white dudes wandering around arctic Chicago at 2:00 a.m. in MAGA hats with some bleach n’ rope who knew who he was and watched whatever Empire is, and attacked him shouting, “This is MAGA country!”
Sounds legit. Hey, it checks all the narrative boxes! In fact, Smollett’s silly story did that so perfectly that anyone saying he believed it was either flat-out lying or so mind-bogglingly, Ted Lieu-level stupid that he’ll start gasping for air if someone doesn’t remind him to breath.
All of the prominent liberals joined in the festival of jussieing – politicians, stars, media jerks. But when Jussie’s shack of lies collapsed, as everyone knew it would, none of them said, “Gosh, I bought into a bunch of bigoted stereotypes about people who are different from me because I wanted them to be true to reaffirm my prejudices, and that was wrong, and I want to say that I’m sorry to all the Trump supporters who I helped slander.”
Think of the positive effect that would have had from someone of prominence confessing and repenting of his bigotry. Think of how that could be a first step toward ridding our culture of the only kind of bigotry that’s tolerated today, the bigotry against the designated villains of leftist ideology. But none of them will do it. In the off chance they wanted to, they can’t, because their own supporters will devour them.
So they keep on jussieing, with each seedy rerun of this shameful cycle of lies further poisoning our culture.
Hands up, don’t shoot. A lie.
Duke Lacrosse. A lie.
UVA rape frat. A lie.
Countless alleged scrawling of swastikas, snatched hijabs, and carefully placed nooses – all lies.
The good news is that this country is so essentially unbigoted that the professional alleged anti-bigots have to leverage their own bigotry to manufacture something for them to oppose.
But it’s wreaking our country. It’s a sepsis in our cultural bloodstream.
It has to stop, because if it doesn’t, our country may not recover. And the jussiers won’t like what happens next.
To experience the full horror of an America built on jussieing the citizenry, check out my novels People’s Republic, Indian Country and Wildfire, which explore an America split in two between red and blue in the early 2020s. Hey, they’re more plausible than Jussie Smollett’s fiction!
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