Maybe you’ve heard people say, “Come again?”, when something somebody is saying is puzzling or incomprehensible.
Have you been hearing the term: ‘cancel culture’? I sure have, and I’ll be darned! Hearing those words, more than ever lately, and not really knowing what they mean, I’d have to ask someone mentioning ‘cancel culture’ to please come again?
I’d have to ask someone like Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan, for example. He’s been talking about ‘cancel culture’ quite a bit.
As a matter of fact, he suggested, just recently, that battling cancel culture is “the number one issue for the country to address today,” according to a Huffington Post article. But before working myself up about such an issue, I’d have to ask him, “Will you please come again, Congressman Jordan?”
I’d have to ask others in his political party, as well, since many GOP congresspersons and many GOP Senators have been opining about the cancel culture.
I don’t know… maybe you, like me, aren’t quite sure what this whole brouhaha is all about. And from what I hear, we’re not the only ones who are confused. Polling results, noted in Huffington Post, bear this out, even though ‘cancel culture’ is “a major Republican talking point,” according to the article.
And apparently, ‘cancel culture’ will be the theme of the Conservative Political Action Conference this year.
A HuffPost/YouGov poll, “in late January, found that 52% of Americans had heard of the term ‘cancel culture,’ a number that’s virtually unchanged since last fall. Only 22% of those who’ve heard the term – roughly a tenth of the public – say they’ve ever used it themselves… Conservatives use the term to describe what they see as a wave of uproars in recent years, aimed at silencing public figures for breaking with progressive orthodoxies, arguing the political left is aiming to silence conservatives and stifle public debate.”
Come again? That seems a bit hazy.
One of the first things I learned, in the early days of my PR career, was that talking points are the essence, the crux, the core, the nuts and bolts of the PR profession. They are powerful, impactful words and phrases designed to shape opinion.
Hazy talking points may very well waste everyone’s time.
Harvey Radin is former senior vice president in charge of corporate communications and media relations, Bank of America Western Region. He makes his home in Redwood City, CA.