Activists

I'd love to know what the focus groups and polling have to say about the word "activist" but I imagine I already do. I was flipping through The Seattle Times this morning and came across an AP article titled: "A month later, activists still challenging vote in Ohio." In my day job, I run across wealthy women and men, donors to our PAC who call themselves activists. These are layabout folks who donate money for a living. The term is no longer imbued with the meaning from the 60s...or maybe it is and that's the problem.

Between activist judges, and rich activists, and activist as a term for those at meetups, the word no longer seems to connote energy and passion but rather disconnected, ineffective pitiful liberal fighting an already lost battle. For whatever reason activist now seems to speak to a person's capacity to whine. Unfair, sure. But I think we need to stop helping the right by using it. Or at least apply it fairly---Evangelical activists, Southern activists. I realize it's only one word, but I no longer see it as a neutral one, nor as a descriptive one.