Remember that scene that stood out for its creepiness even in the deeply creepy Silence of the Lambs in which the kidnapper-killer is trying to get his newest victim to rub lotion on her skin to be suitable for his female skin suit, saying, “It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again”?

Elsewhere in the movie, FBI trainees talk about how smart it is for the victim’s mother to keep using her name in the media so as to get the killer to see her as a person rather than a thing.

That objectification of a human being came to mind when I saw this series of tweets from progressive Democrat State Senator Kendra Anderson (Warwick, Cranston), with key words bolded and italicized by me:

Since it’s disgusting descent down the escalator in 2015, I’ve been imploring people to stop obsessing about it& it’s family. NEVER POST ABOUT THEM. Just stop! I don’t want to see a disgusting t-shirt, slogan, a murdered animal, a new media outlet, cartoon or anything …

about them! What we pay attention to gains strength. The media is still going to hang on to the ratings that it generates but WE have to stop consuming & elevating these stories! Instead be aware of the marketing messages coming from Fox, OANN and Newsmax then…

find ways to counter those in our messaging This is friggin marketing 101. They are fueling the fervor and fear and people are jumping on that train. In VA McAuliffe was the wrong candidate to reach the voters & his anti-tfg message instead of telling folx how he…

would augment & support policies that work for people especially people most impacted by years of abuse & neglect is what lost the election. There are Dems who have solutions! We gotta get the message out, instead of obsessing about a thing that will eventually self destruct!

So, yeah, yeah, you might say, “She’s talking about Donald Trump, for crying out loud, not one of her actual constituents.”  True enough, but this bespeaks a deliberately cultivated mentality, and she’s an elected member of the Rhode Island government, for crying out loud.

My objection is particularly relevant in this very context, because Anderson is talking about marketing, indicating that dehumanizing President Trump is a messaging decision.  Who else do the imperatives of her marketing plan require her to un-person?  Republican candidates?  Business owners?  Me?  You?

I’ve been putting emphasis, recently, on the degree to which the local news media, Democrats, and progressives have given themselves permission to simply ignore people with whom they disagree or stories or issues that might benefit those people and their causes if they become widely known.  That is, let’s just say, very much in keeping with Senator Anderson’s attitude.