"Targeting"
"Targeting"
anti-discourse discourse has fallen in love with a word
You do X. I say that I disagree with X, and would prefer for you to do Y. Maybe I also tell other people that you do X, and that I disagree with X. This means that I have targeted you. Hereās a letter from medical industry groups to Attorney General Merrick Garland, offering a distinct echo of last yearās NSBA letter. Look at the second and third paragraphs:
The accusation that dark actors are engaged in provocation and ātargetingā is a response to people posting videos of doctors at childrenās hospitals talking about gender-affirming surgery, including hysterectomies. Social media companies are aggressively removing those videos, so watch one here if you havenāt seen them. The fact-checkers, doing what they do, have staggered to the fainting couch, insisting that itās an insane far-right conspiracy theory to claim that childrenās hospitals provide gender-affirming surgery to children ā a claim that followed the discovery of videos showing doctors at childrenās hospitals talking about the gender-affirming surgery they provide. At the childrenās hospitals. WHY DO PEOPLE BELIEVE THESE CRAZY CLAIMS, they shout, watching actual video of the exact thing being claimed.
Man posts video of himself tending his geraniums; social media account posts the video and says that the man tends his geraniums; news media reports that social media account is targeting man with extremist geranium theories. The tediousness of this maneuver canāt be exaggerated. Hereās the ātargetingā language again, in a message from professional lunatic Taylor Lorenz:
āWe also say you intend to continue to target hospitals.ā By posting the actual content of internal discussions between doctors and hospital administrators. Saying whatās happening is targeting. These stories hang fear-adjectives all over every sentence, signaling far more than theyāre describing:
Fanatical far-right extremist wreaks havoc with vicious claims suns rises in east!
But hereās the pinnacle of the adjectival-assumption signal-narrative, from Amanda Marcotte at Salon: āHow children's hospitals became the right's newest target of hate.ā Hereās the lede, and read this carefully:
Amid all those cuing adjectives, what is the stunningly cruel and unhinged subject of this story doing? Sheās āpointing at.ā Thatās it ā thatās the identified action. Sheās crazed! Sheās engaged with the unhinged! Sheāsā¦.pointing at. What is she pointing at? Actual discussions.
Argue what you want to argue. If you think childrenās hospitals should provide gender-affirming surgery, say so. Iāll say in response that theyāre mutilating children, but you make your argument and Iāll make mine. Itās an argument. The tactic of preventing argument by calling disagreement ātargetingā is stupid and lazy, and not enormously difficult to see through.
Last year, the National School Boards Association did the same thing that the medical associations are now trying, calling on federal law enforcement to investigate and prosecute critics. The result is that the the NSBA is falling apart, and parents are suing school districts that actually took Merrick Garland up on his subsequent offer and reported disagreement as a crime.
Related, Mollie Hemingway notes that the New York Times debunked a bunch of insane conspiracy theories from election deniersā¦.then reported the next day on the arrest of the person the insane election deniers had targeted with their bizarre lies:


āExtremist targets leader with bizarre claim emperor has no clothes.ā
It doesnāt work.