Have you ever heard an elected official say something so egregiously obvious in its falsehood and/or so nakedly partisan that you want to tear off your own skin with how much it annoyed you?
I have–enough to have coined a new word for it: “flay-tant,” a portmanteau of “flay” as in “skinning” and “blatant.” Given how frequently elected officials say things like this, expect this to become a regular column.
As for this first example, the victory of Representative Mike Johnson (R-LA) as the new speaker of the House (finally) came with a speech by House Minority Leader Representative Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY). In it, Rep. Jeffries said the following:
We faced adversity on September 11th, 2001, when the [Twin] Towers and the Pentagon were unexpectedly struck, killing thousands of lives in an instant. We faced adversity right here in the House of Representatives when on January 6th, 2021, a violent mob of insurrectionists, incited by some in this Chamber, overran the House floor as part of an effort to halt the peaceful transition of power.
Yes, I wanted to rip my skin off too, but how exactly does this demonstrate how “flay-tant” statements work?
As mentioned, the first component of a flay-tant statement is that it is either a bald-faced lie or needlessly partisan. Jeffries here compared one of the most horrific days in American history to people walking into the Capitol building (let in by staff, no less) and possibly goaded into letting hell break loose by implanted federal agents.
But of course, since the people in the Capitol were Trump supporters, they were “a violent mob of insurrectionists,” while the people who just days ago did something similar in support of Palestine haven’t received a word of acknowledgment from Democrats.
So Jeffries’ statement here fits the bill of flay-tant in that regard.
But what really separates flay-tant statements from regular political trash-talk and opinion-spouting is the context and tone in which they are spoken.
If Jeffries said this on MSNBC or CNN or whatever DNC-friendly news outlet (read: much of them) had him, it would still be egregious and worthy of skin-ripping, but expected because that sort of talk is permitted there.
Jeffries made this comparison in a speech that did not really need to be partisan (or laughably false), and his smug, self-righteous tone only makes it look worse.
Former President Barack Obama was (and still is) a master at this. The oldest one that comes to mind is the old “bitter clinger” remark from 2008 when he ran for president for the first time. He was explaining how small-town Midwest-types were frustrated with the lack of community regeneration, and how “they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
If he was trying to get their vote (he wasn’t), he could have said, “they get bitter, they get distrustful of government and wary of people who talk big about regenerating their communities.” But no, he had to make a flay-tant statement about how people who don’t want to vote for him must somehow be racist fanatical gun nuts.
Or how about when he told Christians not to “get on our high horse” in regard to ISIS and how they justified their violence through religion, because of the Crusades, the Inquisition, slavery and Jim Crow? Did he really need to say that? Of course not.
Or how about just recently, when Obama said Israel’s response to Hamas’ acts of inhuman savagery earlier this month is going to “harden Palestinian attitudes for generations”? Israel has always tried to minimize civilian casualties while Hamas intentionally tries to get as many in the crossfire as possible. Did he really feel the need to make people resist the urge to rip their own skin off at how stupid such a statement is?
I could keep going just on Obama alone, but those are old news, and any skin ripped off back then has regrown to be ripped off at what new people have to say now.
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