"Authentic" - Word of the Year

“Authentic” may be the word of the year because people crave it over Leftist lies

By RICH ROSTRON
The Response
11/28/2023

Every year, about this time, we all find ourselves on the edge of our seats waiting to hear Merriam-Webster tell us which word earned the honor of ‘The Word of the Year’ – the word, out of approximately 500,000 in the dictionary, that was looked up most frequently this year. I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say that I was waiting with bated breath for the announcement.

And the envelope, please: “AUTHENTIC!”

There you have it, the word of the year. Apparently, people looked up the word ‘authentic’ more than any other word this year. Is it just me or does anyone else find that a peculiar word at this juncture of our cultural and political history?

The way our world is going, ‘authentic’ seems to have fewer and fewer applications that make sense. What is an authentic boy or girl? Isn’t that entirely subjective today? Aren’t we told that all it takes to be a boy or a girl is the latest whim of the one choosing their pronouns?

The president is bragging about the ‘success’ of Bidenomics while anyone going to a grocery store knows there’s nothing “authentic” about that claim. If inflation isn’t going up as fast as it was, the effects of inflation, since Biden took office, have left us all poorer for the experience.

Record-setting numbers of illegal aliens are pouring over our open borders, while Alejandro Mayorkas, the chief of staff to Department of Homeland Security, and the Biden administration tell us that they have the border under control. Which statement is “authentic?” If the numbers we receive from the DHS itself are “authentic,” how could Mayorkas' and the administration’s claims have any ‘authenticity?’

No former president has ever been charged with a crime after leaving office, yet former President Donald Trump is facing 91 felony charges. Is there any ‘authenticity’ to the charges? If you look at them individually, and the motivations of those making the charges, it’s difficult to believe that there is any ‘authenticity’ at play in terms of an “authentic” pursuit of justice.

What is clearly “authentic” is that the charges are all politically motivated by a Leftist-controlled Democrat party that has no reluctance to abusing the government for its own ends.

We just went through a multi-year COVID pandemic. To what degree did ‘authenticity’ play a role in the government’s handling of the pandemic? The government’s pandemic spokesman, Dr. Fauci, is a proven liar. Only a fool would take anything he said or says as “authentic.”

Claims about the vaccine have proven, and are still proving, false. Claims about the need to ‘distance’ from others lacked ‘authenticity.’ If you don’t think so, just look at the statistics from the pandemic for Sweden, which did not shut down their economy or social distance. And the efficacy of face masks has also proven to have, at best, limited ‘authenticity.’

In Florida, they passed laws denying the Left all the usual tools when indoctrinating children. Since this included restricting access to pornographic-LGBTQ material, the Left has claimed conservatives are “banning books.” Is that claim even remotely “authentic?”

Maybe this explains why “authentic” is the word of the year; in this fabricated, pretentious world the Left is creating, people long for authenticity. And they know they won’t get it from Leftists who promote a senile old crook as president, push 69 different genders, and give us equity that serves only the elite looking down on the masses.