Recent stories about flags at the residence and vacation home of Justice Alito and his family remind me of something broader I'd been meaning to blog about: It's depressing, in our era of polarized politics, how much political attention focuses on interpreting the meaning of phrases and symbols that the other side uses.
The Alito flags raise one recent example, but I see this as a recurring dynamic. What does "from the river to the sea" mean? What is "critical race theory"? What does "all lives matter" mean? A surprising amount of politics ends up being channeled through contested meanings of used phrases and symbols.
I'm sure there's an academic phrase that already describes this. But in the absence of knowing it, I will call this the strange politics of meaning assignment. Here's the idea. In a polarized political environment with little communication between the two sides, you can easily rile up your side by providing an uncharitable interpretation to the other side's symbols or phrases. This is what that means, you announce. Now you can see the real them. Finally, they are saying the quiet part out loud. This is who they are.
