Sloganization of politics

“Eating Meat is Murder.” 

“Believe All Women.” 

“My Body. My Choice.” 

If you ever want a message to see the light of day among the kaleidoscopic sludge known as a social media feed, the last thing you want to do is to push our goldfish attention spans beyond their limits. Inevitably, our poor message will be forced to wring itself out into a six-syllable soundbite or die trying.  

If COVID ultimately changed anything, it is the manner in which society interacts with social justice movements. Where there were once posters, signs, racketeering, riotous mobs, there are now additional onslaughts of Instagram posts, courtesy of some poor intern being paid her weight in dirt by Lady Gaga. Self-righteous posts aiming to “raise awareness” while remaining delightfully unwilling to lift more than a finger to truly help out a cause.  

Think back to the 2020 Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. The act of posting a black square on Juneteenth or changing your Instagram bio to include the respective BLM slogan morphed into little more than a litmus test trumpeting your political stance. The movement downsized from a somewhat legitimate protest on remaining racial discrimination into three simple words, leading the movement and its followers to ignorance, oversimplification, and unfortunately – ridicule.  

The sloganization of politics, where meaningful movements become dogma, also causes gross oversimplification of otherwise deeply complex and sensitive issues. An incredibly relevant movement here is the abortion debate in the United States. The movement is ironically split into two rival camps: pro-life or pro-choice – being another example of sloganization. The pro-choice motto is the stellar “My body. My choice”, which at face value seems reasonable, perhaps even comprehensive. It hints at an important argument against abortion bans: the autonomy women deserve over their reproductive health. However, it also presents this slogan as an argument and more importantly, as the only argument. This leaves the movement vulnerable to the fruits of debate. When an entire argument is the four words, “My body. My choice.”, it becomes trivial to refute. A simple mention of the fetal body becomes more than sufficient to eviscerate the entire premise. Proponents of the movement and slogan will then commence attempting to defend the claim, perhaps on the basis of their own definition of personhood for the fetus or perhaps any another well-rehearsed rebuttal. Nonetheless, in order to attempt refuting counterarguments, one must irrevocably complexify the issue of abortion into skittish definitions and concepts of life and death. The argument itself cannot be expressed in a rhythmic, catchy slogan because it becomes a gross simplification of itself – a caricature. It reduces nuanced, sensitive, and moving issues into what is ultimately fuel for a destructive political chasm. 

Despite this, slogans are unfortunately prone to becoming creed – a simple way of attesting where one’s loyalties lie. Countless videos have been circling the internet of conservatives asking liberal protestors for commentary on whatever issue they find pressing enough to sacrifice precious free time for only to be  met with silence, the respective slogan repeated verbatim, or once in a glorious while, a pitiful attempt at further explanation heavily referencing the posters and signs present . Condensing a movement into a few words robs onlookers of the complex, detailed arguments and reasoning behind social justice causes, and it leads to a generation lacking in critical thought, abandoned to the general ramblings of a protesting mob. Ultimately, slogans make dogma, which is breathlessly repeated by a movement’s acolytes, who subsequently have little to say when prompted.  

Let’s take another example - “trans women are real women”. Followers of the movement are expected to repeat this phrase like creed as though it signifies anything beyond an individual’s definition of what a woman is. Just as in the previous example, as soon as we begin contesting definitions and asking for the context of “real women” or even mentioning nuance(shiver), many are met with accusations of bigotry. It’s as though social justice movements expect these point-blank statements to stand for themselves. And when they inevitably don’t, they’re left wondering why the mic dropped itself.  

Merit-worthy movements are especially vulnerable to the sloganization of their cause. Let’s take the case study of the #MeToo movement, which served to address deeply significant issues of the silence around sexual harassment. As it became more widespread and repeated, it concurrently became diluted. Under the slogan of “Believe all women” came an entire cohort of liars and pseudo-victims, obscuring the initial goal of addressing legitimate claims of sexual harassment. It became a topic of ridicule when the oversimplified “Believe ALL women.” curved back in on itself, seemingly promoting the belief in shakedown artists and con women. Despite being ever so slightly late to the game, let’s take the trial of Amber Heard against Johnny Depp – as if the example doesn’t speak for itself. Johnny Depp was expunged from the Pirates of the Carribean franchise – nearly costing him his entire, decades-long-acting career because of the outright lies perpetrated by Amber Heard under the guise of the #MeToo movement. Some may argue these are only cherry-picked examples that should not define an entire movement – but I would argue that’s untrue.  The reputation of the movement was distorted by “Believe All Women.”. The oversimplification of the movement removed context, removed nuance, and removed complexity. And worst of all, it removed the need for these three concepts as the two camps – for and against – became even further polarized and mutually villainized. 

Social justice movements such as abortion, veganism, and trans acceptance have become less about raw argumentation and correctitude, and more about public opinion and sentiment. Ergo, the entire right/left, conservative/progressive debate on a platter. The most notable examples are the respective opinions of “woke” individuals and conservatives in the US of each other – even more so when considering the divide between the Democrats and Republicans. The ridicule, resentment, and outright hatred from both camps is an alarming manifesto of the perils of polarized political systems. This extremism trails straight back to a lapse in true understanding and argumentation within political debate, as politics is oversimplified. However, the true crime of oversimplification is that politics becomes as polarized as choosing between right and wrong – when in a vast majority of issues, despite what you might think, is not the case.