Category Archives: anchors

Glossary: Key memes, counterfactuals, dog whistles, canards, euphemisms, innuendoes, insinuations, fake outrages, and obsessions in The Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories and fever swamps, Jan. 31-Feb. 6, 2017

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enlightened nationalism

rhetorical claim: According to the National Review,

Domestically, since the 1960s and 1970s, what the late social scientist Samuel Huntington called a “denationalized” elite in this country has waged war on the nation and its common culture. Conservatives have fought back on issues such as bilingual education, the downgrading of traditional U.S. history in curricula, racial preferences, the elevation of subnational groups, and mass immigration — anything that has been part of the multiculturalist onslaught on national solidarity.

Instead of this denationalization:

Nationalism should be tempered by a modesty about the power of government, lest an aggrandizing state wedded to a swollen nationalism run out of control; by religion, which keeps the nation from becoming the first allegiance; and by a respect for other nations that undergirds a cooperative international order. Nationalism is a lot like self-interest. A political philosophy that denies its claims is utopian at best and tyrannical at worst, but it has to be enlightened. The first step to conservatives’ advancing such an enlightened nationalism is to acknowledge how important it is to our worldview to begin with.

rhetorical effect: conflates patriotism with nationalism; leads to “America First” rhetoric, but frames jingoism as high-minded idealism, as “enlightened.”

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limiting choices

rhetorical claim: the rollback of the fiduciary rule for retirement investors will open up more investment choices for retirees. This is one way to expand the economy.

rhetorical effect: reinforces many lies and mendacities: the market is always right in the long run and should not be limited;  regulation always hurts the economy; retirement advisors’ vested interests in commission-making never get in the way of sound financial advice, etc. It’s like a doctor who orders losts of unnecessary tests because he has a financial interest in the lab. As explained by New York Magazine‘s Jonathan Chait,

“Americans are going to have better choices and Americans are going to have better products because we’re not going to burden the banks with literally hundreds of billions of dollars of regulatory costs every year,” National Economic Council Director and Goldman Sachs veteran Gary Cohn tells The Wall Street Journal.

Cohn is planning to weaken the fiduciary rule, which he believes robs Americans of their freedom to hire financial advisers who might want to rip them off. “This is like putting only healthy food on the menu,” he tells the Journal, “because unhealthy food tastes good but you still shouldn’t eat it because you might die younger.”

Cohn’s metaphor is worth exploring. Healthy food, in Cohn’s example, is equivalent of investment advice that’s good for the client. Unhealthy food is like investment advice that’s bad for the client (but good for the adviser he has hired). Why shouldn’t people choose how much healthy versus unhealthy financial advice to hire? Well, the reason financial advisers are required to follow their clients’ fiduciary interests, rather than assuming that the logic of the free market will naturally produce optimal scrupulousness, is that investing is extremely complex. There is a huge asymmetry of information between professionals who work at investment firms and their customers. A customer at a restaurant might be able to eyeball the menu and guess that the spinach salad is healthier than the pizza, but a customer shopping for financial advisers is not going to know which ones will give them the best financial advice versus the ones who might might be trying to enrich themselves at the customer’s expense.

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failed

rhetorical claim: the mainstream media outlets, as represented by the NY Times,  are failing financially so they should be discounted as legitimate news sources. The public has rejected them.

rhetorical effect: Everyone opposed to Trump is a failure, a loser or, as in the case of the Seattle federal judge, a fake. as Frank Bruni explains in the NY Times:

Trump’s analysis of people and situations hinges on whether they exalt him. A news organization that challenges him is inevitably “failing.” A politician who pushes back at him is invariably a loser. Middle-school cliques have more moral discernment.

He railed against executive orders until they were his. He denounced the coziness between politicians and Wall Street until he was doing the snuggling. He cried foul at presidential getaways that cost the taxpayers millions until Mar-a-Lago beckoned.

During the campaign he demonstrated no special concern for free speech, advocating looser libel laws and barring certain news organizations from events. But he took to Twitter on Thursday to register fury over the University of California at Berkeley’s cancellation of an appearance by the far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos.

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that’s not who we are

rhetorical claim: in defending multiculturalism and globalism, liberals consider themselves to be the moral arbiters of what constitutes the “real” America and the “real” American historical narrative.

rhetorical effect: Islamophobia, chauvinism,  and white resentment become the norm. Manifest Destiny, American exceptionalism, and America First become ubiquitous and unchallenged. The “we” in “who we are” is identified as white, European/Anglo-Saxon, and Judeo-Christian.

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fake news

rhetorical claim: the NY Times and other “failing” mainstream media are the main opposition party to Trump, and every story they run about Trump is biased, distorted, annoying and negative. This “fake news” is nothing but a propaganda machine.

rhetorical effect: renders the term “fake news” meaningless because it has been totally politicized and made it impossible to even agree on facts. Trump is free to concoct his own narrative, metrics, and “alternative facts.” To Trump supporters, lying becomes impossible for Trump, just as the truth becomes impossible for the press to represent.  When the truth can no longer be agreed upon or is subject to change, “lies disappear into the past,” as Orwell explained.

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identitarian

rhetorical claim: Trumpism is a return to identity politics for white people. America has always been a homeland for white Europeans, and Trump is merely restoring that heritage to its rightful place as the lodestone of Americanism.

rhetorical effect: For the first time in a long time, people feel they can express themselves openly on questions of race, nationality, ethnicity and patriotism. This is not necessarily a good thing. Even as the so-called “dominant European culture” of America is being eclipsed by immigration and racial blending, Trump and Bannon are doubling down on white ethnoracialism. This destabilized language of citizenship is much more exclusive than inclusive, and uses national pride as a euphemism for the whitewashing, or obliteration, of racial and ethnic identity. It’s like a nightmare of a melting pot where what really melts down is America’s brain.

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postmaterialist values

rhetorical claim: the liberals’ mantra of personal fulfillment, openness to new ideas, and support for previously marginalized populations has lead to their crushing defeat and marginalization. Their key concepts of globalization, internationalism, multiculturalism, self-expression,affirmative action and redistribution have been repudiated by history.

rhetorical effect: marginalization of the so-called “self expression” values has made it nearly impossible to define national success as anything other than  the predominance of white culture, nationalism, and material well-being. Success is now defined as a zero-sum Darwinian struggle with clear winners and losers, and patriotism defined as adherence to white supremacist, divisive, exclusionary, and populism.

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non-stop hyperpanic

rhetorical claim: Dems’ hyperventilating over every Trump policy initiative and executive order will shortly lead to resistance fatigue. Dem tantrums only help Trump because they either lack common sense or run counter to what Trump’s supporters want–stopping terrorists from entering the country, for example.

rhetorical effect: makes dissent always seem extreme and hysterical. Favorite verbs and nouns used to describe any opposition to Trump include: hysterical, barrage, hyperventilating, hysterical, unhinged, doom-mongerers,  rancor, dopey, reflexive,  snarling, undifferentiated. Downplays the cumulative effect of Trump’s executive orders by isolating them and belittling any opposition to them. By claiming opposition to each particular Trump policy is foolish and self-defeating, the overall effect is to render any opposition fatuous and juvenile.

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essential benefits

rhetorical claim: the fastest way to ACA reform is through eliminating mandated “essential benefits” so insurers can design economic policies that the public would actually find worth buying.

rhetorical effect: you have to wonder what will be left to cover if the  ACA’S 10 “essential benefits” (see below) are made optional. Let the race to the bottom in terms of reliable coverage begin:

    1. Ambulatory patient services (Outpatient care). Care you receive without being admitted to a hospital, such as at a doctor’s office, clinic or same-day (“outpatient”) surgery center. Also included in this category are home health services and hospice care (note: some plans may limit coverage to no more than 45 days).
    2. Emergency Services (Trips to the emergency room). Care you receive for conditions that could lead to serious disability or death if not immediately treated, such as accidents or sudden illness. Typically, this is a trip to the emergency room, and includes transport by ambulance. You cannot be penalized for going out-of-network or for not having prior authorization.
    3. Hospitalization (Treatment in the hospital for inpatient care). Care you receive as a hospital patient, including care from doctors, nurses and other hospital staff, laboratory and other tests, medications you receive during your hospital stay, and room and board. Hospitalization coverage also includes surgeries, transplants and care received in a skilled nursing facility, such as a nursing home that specializes in the care of the elderly (note: some plans may limit skilled nursing facility coverage to no more than 45 days).
    4. Maternity and newborn care. Care that women receive during pregnancy (prenatal care), throughout labor, delivery and post-delivery, and care for newborn babies.
    5. Mental health services and addiction treatment. Inpatient and outpatient care provided to evaluate, diagnose and treat a mental health condition or substance abuse disorder . This includes behavioral health treatment, counseling, and psychotherapy. (note: some plans may limit coverage to 20 days each year. Limits must comply with state or federal parity laws. Read this document for more information on mental health benefits and the Affordable Care Act).
    6. Prescription drugs. Medications that are prescribed by a doctor to treat an illness or condition. Examples include prescription antibiotics to treat an infection or medication used to treat an ongoing condition, such as high cholesterol. At least one prescription drug must be covered for each category and classification of federally approved drugs, however limitations do apply. Some prescription drugs can be excluded. “Over the counter” drugs are usually not covered even if a doctor writes you a prescription for them. Insurers may limit drugs they will cover, covering only generic versions of drugs where generics are available. Some medicines are excluded where a cheaper equally effective medicine is available, or the insurer may impose “Step” requirements (expensive drugs can only be prescribed if doctor has tried a cheaper alternative and found that it was not effective). Some expensive drugs will need special approval.
    7. Rehabilitative services and devices – Rehabilitative services (help recovering skills, like speech therapy after a stroke) and habilitative services (help developing skills, like speech therapy for children) and devices to help you gain or recover mental and physical skills lost to injury, disability or a chronic condition (this also includes devices needed for “habilitative reasons”). Plans have to provide 30 visits each year for either physical or occupational therapy, or visits to the chiropractor. Plans must also cover 30 visits for speech therapy as well as 30 visits for cardiac or pulmonary rehab.
    8. Laboratory services. Testing provided to help a doctor diagnose an injury, illness or condition, or to monitor the effectiveness of a particular treatment. Some preventive screenings, such as breast cancer screenings and prostrate exams, are provided free of charge.
    9. Preventive services, wellness services, and chronic disease treatment. This includes counseling, preventive care, such as physicals, immunizations and screenings, like cancer screenings, designed to prevent or detect certain medical conditions. Also, care for chronic conditions, such as asthma and diabetes. (note: please see our full list of Preventive services for details on which services are covered.)
    10. Pediatric services. Care provided to infants and children, including well-child visits and recommended vaccines and immunizations. Dental and vision care must be offered to children younger than 19. This includes two routine dental exams, an eye exam and corrective lenses each year.

Glossary: Key memes, counterfactuals, dog whistles, canards, euphemisms, innuendoes, insinuations, fake outrages, and obsessions in The Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories and fever swamps, Jan. 3-6, 2017.

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accountability

rhetorical claim: Donald Trump is only accountable to his supporters, who gave him his mandate.

rhetorical effect: Trump can do and say anything because his supporters are so fanatical and dismiss any critical reporting as “fake news.” Trump has never been accountable to anyone–shareholders, a board of directors, etc.–so why should he start now?

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fear-mongering

rhetorical claim: Liberals are so unhinged over Trump’s victory that they are caught up in a hysterical, irrational, ever-spiraling  anti-Putin campaign that does nothing but spread false fear. It is the equivalent of fake news, and spearheaded by the Washington Post.

rhetorical effect: makes any claim of Russian interference in US affairs sound cynical, panicky, and even dangerous. This could be another step toward making any veiled criticism of Trump dangerous and suspect. Calling news reporting fear-mongering suppresses free speech.

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government watchdogs

rhetorical claim: So-called “government watchdogs” are really just progressives posing as lovers of transparency but actually only advancing their own agendas. They wage fact-free outrage campaigns.

rhetorical effect: marginalizes or even criminalizes dissent. Watchdogs and whistle blowers are considered traitors and will be muzzled at any cost. The foxes will be guarding the hen house.

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wealth creation

rhetorical claim: Trump’s cabinet is the most promising in decades because almost all of them are already wealthy so won’t try and enrich themselves in office (and after they leave office) and so understand that wealth creation is the cornerstone of American society.

rhetorical effect:the American Dream of freedom, equality, and equal justice before the law gets reduced to wealth creation. In a society where everything is reduced to its cash value, there are no longer any moral or ethical values; or, to be more precise, morals and ethics are moot because you can’t price them. Americans’ morals and ethics get bought out by economic prosperity.

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white genocide

rhetorical claim: according to the About White Genocide Project, White Genocide includes:

▪ Moving millions of non-White immigrants into traditionally White countries over a period of years. This alone is not genocide, but the next step makes it a part of genocide.

▪ Legally chasing down and forcing White areas to accept “diversity“.This is known as “Forced Assimilation“.

A combination of mass immigration (of different groups of people) plus forced assimilation would qualify as genocide, as defined by Article II, part (C) of the United Nations Genocide Conventions:“Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

▪Government refusal to remove genocidal policiesthat are in place today. By keeping these policies in place, they ensure that the genocide is ongoing.

Society is widely aware that White people are becoming a minority in several countries, but anti-Whites don’t want us to bring an end to the policies which are turning us into a minority everywhere.

National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has re-tweeted posts from this group.

rhetorical effect: whites get turned into the victims and everyone else, or anyone who speaks out against this hate group, is what Trump is now calling an  “enemy” and part of the anti-white conspiracy.

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inequality

rhetorical claim: freedom can’t exist without inequality. When  Obama claims that his presidency  helped reverse inequality in America (“We’ve actually begun the long task of reversing inequality.”), he is being disingenuous. Reversing  inequality inevitably requires reversing freedom–as in all totalitarian countries.

rhetorical effect: intentionally conflates inevitable human difference with systematic prejudice, racism, and exploitation of the less-well-0ff. Claiming the inevitability of unequal outcomes does not axiomatically mean that we should cease all efforts to reverse inequality. In its most extreme form, this rhetorical ploy is the same as saying since we all are going to die, we may as well not use medicine.

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globalism

rhetorical claim: the view that we should regard ourselves as having no greater obligations to fellow citizens than to foreigners.

rhetorical effect: enshrines “America first” as the cornerstone of our democracy–a historically dangerous and short-sighted view that will inevitably lead to displays of American strength in the form of wars or long-term foreign entanglements. Globalism should not always be a pejorative ter, especially when it refers to free trade, international canons of justice, universal human rights, etc.

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politicized intelligence

rhetorical claim: The appointed leadership of the U.S. intelligence community, under Barack Obama in particular, has been politicizing intelligence (downplaying ISIS and Islamic terrorism generally, hyping the extent of al-Qaeda’s degradation, soft-peddling Iran’s intentions, etc.). Skepticism toward what they say on the way out the door is warranted (though perhaps not in the way Trump has expressed it). Even if Russia meddled in the election, Trump was legitimately elected.

rhetorical effect: makes it possible to Trump to cherry-pick intelligence reports that help him politically, and dismiss inconvenient ones as biased. There of course won’t be any inconvenient reports once he gets all his own people in control of all intelligence reports.

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Obama as outsider

rhetorical claim: The Obama presidency has been different from any other administration in the last two centuries. From the start, he has gone out of his way to defy the very essence of the American Republic, our constitutional limits on the power of any single dictatorial individual. Under Obama, the US Congress and even the Supreme Court have failed to assert their constitutional independence, presumably out of fear of this president and the accusations of racism that followed opposition to him or his policies….For Obama, the US Constitution is just an obstacle to be circumvented or simply ignored.

rhetorical effect: Totally undercuts and delegitamizes any accomplishments of the Obama era. Calling Obama a jihadi Marxist may be over the top, but in more subtle ways Trump’s tweets really fall back on this point: that the liberal Dems are so outside the American mainstfream that the real Americans routed them in the election, even though they got three million more votes.

Glossary: Key memes, counterfactuals, dog whistles, canards, euphemisms, innuendoes, insinuations, fake outrages, and obsessions in The Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories and fever swamps, Dec. 27, 2016-Jan 2, 2017

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ruinous

rhetorical claim: Obama’s presidency has been “ruinous” to US interests, especially in foreign policy. We have squandered both our moral and political world leadership, and given our economy over to the nameless, faceless forces of globalization.

rhetorical effect: makes nuanced foreign policy impossible. In a black-and-white world, you’re either defeating or condoning ISIS, Russia, Assad and the Iranians. The only proper response will be either military force or strong economic sanctions against any nation who doesn’t fully support US policies. There is no middle ground for subtle diplomatic or economic pressures, no moral leverage. If America has been “ruined” by Obama, any Trump initiative is automatically restorative

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stunt

rhetorical claim: the US abstention in the recent UN vote on Israeli settlements was a “graceless” “stunt” by the Obama administration, aimed at humiliating Israel. This betrayal cheapens the US.

rhetorical effect: a stunt is hardly a moral act, but, instead, a trick, an act of cowardice and petty political revenge. Makes any Obama foreign policy initiative sound cynical and self-serving and runs the risk of making any policy opposed to Trump’s–such as nuclear disarmament–also be undercut by being labeled a stunt.

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unity

rhetorical claim: supporting Trump. Everyone who doesn’t is a hater and a loser. The only path to unity is to stop complaining about him and rally around him.

rhetorical effect: Trump will only be President to the minority of Americans who voted for him. His opponents will not only have no standing politically speaking, and thus not even get their day in court, but will be subject to endless bullying, distortions, lies, and political repression.

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two-state solution

rhetorical claim: Palestinians can only have a state if it is demilitarized and not free to determine its own destiny. Otherwise, it will turn into another Yemen–a breeding ground for terrorists. The two-state solution has been a fairy tale all along, a two-state narrative, not a workable solution

rhetorical effect: makes a one-state solution inevitable and dooms Israel to forever be an apartheid regime with constant unrest and political repression of Palestinians and all Arabs. Guarantees endless deadly conflict and enmity in the region.

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wins

rhetorical claim: unlike Obama, under whose leadership America kept losing, Trump already has several domestic and foreign wins, and isn’t even President yet. He wins because he puts America first, not his political agenda.

rhetorical effect: makes any opposition to Trump’s foreign or domestic agenda a hypocritical, hyperpolitical ploy. Turns foreign and domestic policy into a zero-sum game, which can only have “winners” and “losers,” and the “winners” are tautologically defined as policies Trump supports. This circular argument is divisive to its core, equating his “enemies” with “losers.”

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The War on Israel

rhetorical claim: the Obama administration waged an eight-year war on Israeli sovereignty and even Israeli democracy. This war will end on Jan. 20. Israel is surrounded by enemies whose fondest wish is its elimination. Obama used the smokescreen of “negotiations” to advance the illegal Palestinian claim to disputed territories.

rhetorical effect: hardens the Israeli right-wing, marginalizes and demonizes the Palestinians, completely justifies illegal Israeli settlements and expansionism, and makes a two-state solution impossible. Any criticism of Israeli actions reveals how much liberals hate the Israelis.

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the freedom to fail

rhetorical claim: Liberals and progressives like socialism because it eliminates the notion of personal responsibility by eliminating the freedom to fail.

rhetorical effect: removes the social safety net on the way to creating a zero-sum, Darwinian world of winners and losers (those who fail). “Responsibility” is really a euphemism for laissez-faire society in which people can choose whether to succeed or not, and the only “freedom” the disadvantaged or discriminated against have is to “fail” without any government help.

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Pax Americana

rhetorical claim: until Obama undid it, American military strength controlled the world and made possible a productive peace with stable institutions. We need to return to these notions of “America first” and “peace through strength.”

rhetorical effect: justifies military intervention anywhere in the world; assumes that America is always morally in the right; glosses over America’s military and political failures–Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. Will make the world safe for US corporate exploitation–call it “cash Americana.”

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climate religion

rhetorical claim: “climateers”–professional scolds, really–are incapable of discovering truths inconvenient to their theories about man-made climate change because they a dogmatic cult based more on faith than evidence.

rhetorical effect: belittling climate change science as a “religion” equates it with crackpots, fanatics, and zealots, and is an attempt to emasculate the scientific method. Once canons of scientific evidence and objectivity are discarded, truth becomes hostage to politics and reason gets reduced to being a “theory.”

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comprehensive workforce strategy

rhetorical claim: the Labor Department should be renamed the Workforce Department to set the stage for a new, comprehensive workforce strategy to make American business more competitive. The current Labor Department keeps American workers from finding jobs and holds them back once they are employed.

rhetorical effect: entirely eliminates workers’ rights from the formula of what qualifies as fulfilling work and a thriving economy and society. Redefines workers as cogs in a machine rather than human beings with inalienable rights.

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American retreat

rhetorical claim: Obama’s foreign policy of American retreat has left the world’s authoritarians advancing aggressively. We need to return to a realpolitik of carrying a big stick.

rhetorical effect: justifies an aggressive US foreign policy that will replace diplomacy with bullying, corruption,and intimidation.

Glossary: Key memes, counterfactuals, dog whistles, canards, euphemisms, innuendoes, insinuations, fake outrages, and obsessions in The Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories and fever swamps, Dec. 3-8, 2016

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reversion to the norm

rhetorical claim: that the pro-growth, pro-business moderation of Trump is a reversion to the historical norm of American political life, and a rebuke to the ahistorical multiculturalists, sexual deviants, economic freeloaders and social justice warriors. The American Left simply can’t stand the fact that they are not the vanguard of American beliefs and practices.

rhetorical effect: labels any criticism of the Trump administration as socially deviant and extreme. This is all part of the demonization and criminalization of dissent, as well as part of the effort to normalize Trump’s racism, sexism, xenophobia, authoritarianism, and political repression.

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finishing a war

rhetorical claim: that Dems don;t know how to win a war, as evidenced in Iraq and Afghanistan. James Mattis will see to it that Trump gets as many troops as he needs to win a war.

rhetorical effect: normalizes a massive military buildup and reinforces the myth that wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were winnable.

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disciplining health care costs

rhetorical claim: Obamacare should have included consumer involvement in disciplining health care costs, rather than unlimited amounts of health care

rhetorical effect: ultimately will shift the blame for rising health care costs for inadequate insurance from the insurance companies or government to consumers.  This blame-the-victim approach, ostensibly based on personal responsibility, will penalize consumers for any outcomes or behaviors that “discipline” corporate profits.

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America haters

rhetorical claim: the George Soros-funded  ant-Trump “protestors” can’t stand Trump’s success and are damaging America.

rhetorical effect: political protest itself gets branded as damaging rather than protecting America. In this rhetorical climate, dissent becomes politically toxic  because it is stripped of any moral underpinnings and only seen as an existential threat to America.

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Trump tantrum

rhetorical claim: mainstream media criticism of Trump is a kneejerk response to badly-needed social, political,  and economic change. Instead of automatically undercutting Trump when he saves jobs or stand up to china, the lamestream media should be supporting him and not making up fake news stories or criticisms.

rhetorical effect: again, dissent is treated as unpatriotic, unthinking, and unprincipled. Every opposition stance or statement is rendered childish, like a “tantrum.”

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repealing Obamacare

rhetorical claim: repealing Obamacare will immediately lead to more competition, more choice, and cost awareness.  Here’s a vision of the promised land:

If much of ObamaCare is repealed, there will be room for more choice, competition and cost awareness. We can see a return of catastrophic health insurance with lower tax-deductible premiums, high deductibles and more payment up front, with government-run clinics for those who lack insurance.

 Those with pre-existing conditions or at the greatest risk of getting sick can pay a higher price for a more-comprehensive plan or use government-subsidized high-risk pools. Tort reform, including doctor-review panels to block frivolous suits, will put the brakes on doctors overtesting and overtreating patients.

rhetorical effect: the new norm will be high-deductible, high-cost, high advance payment policies, inadequate barebones catastrophic coverage, or restrictively expensive coverage for pre-existing conditions. The only remaining government program will be a high-risk pool for the sickest people, and it will offer almost no coverage at all. Note the ominous and telltale buzzwords: competition, cost awareness, catastrophic coverage, high deductibles, high payments up front, government-run clinics, much higher premiums for patients with pre-existing conditions, major tort reform limiting malpractice suits, etc. This is a veritable Christmas tree full of long wished-for GOP health care reforms. Don’t say we haven’t been warned about what’s coming.

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 limited sue-and-settle practices

rhetorical claim: federal building and land use regulations have strangled the economy and need to be streamlined and repealed to unleash market forces. (Repealing Davis Bacon would be a good start.) Limiting liability awards and frivolous lawsuits will be a key factor in this streamlining.

rhetorical effect: paves the way for “fast track” permitting, with little legal recourse. Could potentially lead to a massive infrastructure spending spree with unprecedented avoidance of all environmental laws. Any “green” lawsuits are said to kill economic development.

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right-to-work laws

rhetorical claim: Labor unions are the primary obstacle in the way of worker freedom. Right-to-work laws are the wedge issue to  increase workers’ rights.

rhetorical effect: justifies the destruction of labor unions. Portrays them as the worst thing ever to happen to workers.

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ending the peace

rhetorical claim: Obama did not “end the war” in Iraq but ended the peace.The surge worked and won the war for us, but Obama lost it by bot sticking it out–just as lost our resolve in Vietnam.

rhetorical effect: paves the way for a re-invasion of Iraq, so we can once again engage in a perpetual war.

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hate speech

rhetorical claim: liberals call all Trump supporters extremists, and accuse them of hate speech, whereas the actual hate speech comes from the liberal-progressives’ open hostility to Christianity, traditional marriage, Republicans, conservatives, white people, and the police.

rhetorical effect: bigots, homophobes, mysoginists, and neo-Nazis are feeling emboldened to step out of the shadows and openly spew their bile. This doublespeak maneuver allows them to claim that they are the victims whenever anyone criticizes them.

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free markets

rhetorical claim: Mike Pence has already said that Trump is opposed to the free market, and this is evident in the opening “managerialist” maneuvers of the new administration, according to the National Review:

Trump may be culturally attached to the Right — or, more precisely, the Right may be culturally attached to Trump — but everything he has said and done thus far points to his being a progressive in the ancient mold of Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and, yes, George Wallace and Theodore Bilbo. He means to put trade, and probably much more than trade, under political discipline. He means to stand between buyers and sellers with his hand out, making demands. He has expressed a longing for Keynesian stimulus projects, mercantilism, income redistribution, Bismarckian welfare-statism, and the consolidation of political power within the executive. He may talk like Archie Bunker, but politically he is Barack Obama rebranded for talk radio.

rhetorical effect: maintains the split between traditional conservatives and Trumpians, but also serves to make Trump sound like a Progressive.

 

 

 

 

 

Glossary: Key memes, counterfactuals, dog whistles, canards, euphemisms, innuendoes, insinuations, fake outrages, and obsessions in The Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories and fever swamps, Nov. 28-Dec. 2, 2016

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consumer protection

rhetorical claim: Borrowers need and want payday lenders, and the federal government should completely deregulate the industry,  and eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  (editorial: “Consumer Financial Protection Rewrite”).

rhetorical effect: the belief that consumer “protection” distorts the free market and only protects the vested interests of progressives. Consumers are best protected by no protection laws whatsoever, since the market always sorts things out.

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Castro

rhetorical claim: to the Dems, a liberator for the ages. Actually, a brutal dictator who killed millions. Dems consider Gitmo the ultimate symbol of moral barbarity, but what Castro was doing in the rest of Cuba was far worse.

rhetorical effect: relativizes the torture and mass violation of human rights going on at Gitmo.

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privatization

rhetorical claim: the Dems’ all-purpose pejorative for everything bad.

rhetorical effect: excuses any private sector, for-profit public works. Pull up a chair and watch how fast the US economy gets privatized, Thatcher style. Roads, bridges, Medicare, prisons, water supplies, etc. will all be run by private companies. Government oversight will be minimal.

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power grab

rhetorical claim: any progressive law or regulation based on theories of global warming, inequality, racism, etc. In the name of these fabricated boogie men, Dems use the law to exercise power, while all the while claiming the moral high ground.

rhetorical effect: undermines any moral authority for progressive causes, reducing them all to hypocrisy or an insatiable will to power. Dems are said to “grab” power, whereas the Tea Party/GOP  is said the exercise the will of the voters.

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 collective bargaining

rhetorical claim: mandatory collective bargaining makes the government the unions’ automatic dues collector. In right-to-work states,  where collective bargaining has been all but eliminated, economies are thriving. Unions, especially public workers’ unions,  are the worst thing that ever happened to workers, state finances, educational quality, and economic growth. Cutting back public unions also guarantees that state taxes won’t rise every year. There is a nexus of of public-union donations and government officials.

rhetorical effect: demonizes public unions by making them sound as if their ultimate aim is to cripple the economy and bankrupt the states. This rhetoric never mentions union members’ benefits, and the tremendous gains unions have made for workers’ rights over the decades. This rhetorical technique is akin to only discussing the cost of environmental regulations without considering the benefits, such as health and safety. It’s a form of reductio ad absurdum argument.

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meddling

rhetorical claim: as with school choice and vouchers, any top-down, government control over the choice of the people leads to disaster. Any coercive public policy that runs counter to the will of the people is a form of meddling.

rhetorical effect: attempts to unionize teachers, give more support to public schools, avoid the privatization of education, or set educational standards is now defined as meddling.  How long before policies based on principles of equity, justice, and social responsibility are themselves characterized as meddling?

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social justice warriors

rhetorical claim: liberals, aka social justice warriors, champion tolerance and open-mindedness, yet are among the most intolerant of Americans, especially towards Christians.  They ostracize and demonize Christians; replace right and wrong with healthy and unhealthy; steadfastly maintain that the state, not God, defines marriage;  and consider faith to be worse than racism. As memorably explained by David French in the National Review:

With their trademark combination of arrogance and stunning ignorance, they’ll tear down your faith and replace it with a philosophical dumpster fire, a belief system that’s four parts emotional and physical impulse, two parts junk psychology, and one part corrupted intellect. It’s about desire and ambition only partially modulated and limited by consent. Do what you want with your body and your life, so long as you’re not harming anyone else and have the consent of your partners. Wait, that’s not entirely right. You can harm and kill your unborn child. You can rip your family to pieces pursuing your heart’s desires. You can leave spouses in the dust and children in their cribs if you decide you love a different person — especially if that person is of the same sex. Then you’re brave and courageous. At the end of the day, I suppose, the Left believes there’s really only one relevant rule of sexual conduct: Don’t rape.

rhetorical effects: legitimizes  religious intolerance of LGBT; assumes Christians are morally superior to non-believers; makes all progressives seem soulless and morally dissolute, caring only about desire and ambition; assumes social justice is inherently immoral and unchristian, and renews all the culture wars–abortion, gay marriage, even divorce and birth control–as once again fair game for social control rather than settled law or custom.

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banning Islamic refugees

rhetorical claim: immigrants from”jihadi states” should ber banned from the US because of the risk of their being terrorists. Otherwise, you are arguing that the inevitable human death toll in America is the price we have to pay for compassion toward immigrants. Immigrants from jihadi states should have to prove that they are not terrorists.

rhetorical effect: demonizes all immigrants as terrorists-in-waiting, and places all Muslims in America under suspicion and scrutiny.

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regulatory clarity and predictability

 rhetorical claim: infrastructure spending will be unleashed if there is regulatory clarity and predictability. The private sector will only take the investment risk if the government gets off their back

rhetorical effect: the overall strategy of privatizing public works and turning everything into a concession (toll roads, airport fees, etc.) depends on massive tax credits to lure the private sector. In order to loosen the reigns, government agencies are going to have to overlook or abrogate environmental, land use, and equity considerations when granting permits, as well as relinquish all oversight. “Regulatory clarity and predictability” has always been GOP shorthand for doing away with government regulation.

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banking regulation

 rhetorical claim: Dodd-Frank turned banks into public utilities.It needs to be repealed to unleash the “animal spirits” of the market.

rhetorical effect: Making this exaggerated claim  requires the belief that any regulation of the financial sector is destructive and robs banks of any choice or agency. Consumer protection is just another form of socialism.

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a functioning marketplace

rhetorical claim: American health care is teetering because it relies too much on government coercion. A functioning marketplace can deliver high-quality care at lower cost.

rhetorical effect: a “fully functioning market” presumes a fully dysfunctional government and regulatory apparatus. “Fully functioning” means fully unregulated.

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 school vouchers

rhetorical claim: a market-based approach to improving the schools, give parents the choice over their own children’s school, and make public school teachers actually teach.

rhetorical effect: undermines teachers’ unions; guarantees the continual decline of public schools via underfunding; privatizes the education system.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Glossary: Key memes, counterfactuals, dog whistles, canards, euphemisms, innuendoes, insinuations, fake outrages, and obsessions in The Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories and fever swamps, Nov. 23-27, 2016

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alt-right:

rhetorical claim: “white identity” is under attack by multicultural forces using “political correctness” and “social justice” to undermine white people and “their” civilization. Universalism, globalism, redistributionism, and egalitarianism are the common enemy, as represented by Beltway insiders, academics, social scientists, media pundits, entertainment elites, and policy professionals. Traditional conservatism, with its beliefs in liberty, freedom, free markets and capitalism, is an  inadequate response to today’s hyper-racialized world, which is eating away at America’s moral core.

rhetorical effect: euphemism for neo-Nazism, justifying racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, xenophobia, and white nationalism. Messianism wrapped up with Manifest Destiny.

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activist-connivers

rhetorical claim: critics who will, in knee-jerk fashion,charge Trump with conflicts of interest. They connive, via conspiracy and ideological dogma, to demonize Trump no matter what.

rhetorical effect:  Renders any criticism of Trump as conspiratorial and self-serving. Invites the question: in the eyes of the alt-right, is there any ethical way to criticize Trump?

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orthodoxy

rhetorical claim: any conventional form of tax, regulatory, and welfare policies is inherently self-defeating and thus doomed. Trump will “drain the swamp” and shatter all post-war orthodoxies. All that is solid melts into air.

rhetorical effect:  undermines any current shared assumptions about the rule of law, economic justice, human and civil rights, government regulation, women’s rights, etc. Characterizing these prevailing assumptions as inherently self-defeating is itself to argue for natural rights (and, of course, the inevitability of free markets).

******

zeroing-out the greens:

rhetorical claim: getting out from under Obama’s crushing environmental rules will end the take-no-prisoners reign of terror of the greens and ultra-liberal environmentalist elites. We need to compete with other energy-rich nations in taking advantage of our natural energy abundance, while still maintaining clean air and water.

rhetorical effect: makes any opposition to canceling Obama era environmental regulations, treaty agreements, clean-energy subsidies, bans on drilling or mining, building pipelines, etc. seem unpatriotic and economy-crushing. In actuality, zeroing out the greens means zeroing-out the environment. The claim that unlimited drilling can be done while maintaining environmental quality is fanciful at best, and dangerously misleading at worst. Trump’s zero-sum politics–his us-vs-them approach–guarantees a Total War on the environment, a scorched earth policy.

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moralizing

rhetorical claim:  Obama energy policies that protect the environment at the expense of energy production are already outdated, and will be quickly erased in the new Trump administration. Imposing any bans on energy exploration and production turns out to be nothing more than a form of moralizing by preening and self-satisfied green elites. In a realistic world, as understood by the Russians and Chinese, there is no room for moralizing.

rhetorical effect: neuters any moral defense of climate change mitigation, reducing the subject to a matter of opinion, with the reality to be determined by whomever is in power. Thus any kind of environmental regulation is a “politicization” of a supposedly neutral, “natural” process. In this world of outcomes, there is nothing more naive and impotent than idealism.

More broadly, the whole charge of moralizing covers over the moralizing assumptions behind the Tea Party’s nationalist, populist, statist,  law and order identity, their defense of cultural traditions not shared by everyone.

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civility

rhetorical claim: anti-Trump protestors intolerant sore losers who have nothing but scorn for Trump defenders.  Their disruptive protests undermine the common good and are inherently uncivilized.

rhetorical effect: One key step toward criminalizing dissent and defending censorship. The irony is that it was the Fox News hate machine that long ago destroyed civility in American political discourse. As Sofia MccLennen argues in Salon,

 Calls for civility are often a cover for censorship. While we don’t want to give up on the idea of civil society, we should recognize that it is often those in power who use the idea of civility to threaten the very idea of civil society itself.

It gets even messier. We also live in an era of mass-mediated manufactured anger. Trump couldn’t have come to power without tapping into the legacy of the Fox News hate machine. What used to pass for news is now just a bunch of angry vitriol that alternates between scaring viewers and getting them riled up.

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repeal and replace

rhetorical claim: Obamacare will be replaced with a totally privatized insurance market relying on tax credits, savings accounts, competition, and caps on liability payouts.

rhetorical effect: covers over the fact that the new Ryancare (or Trumpcare) will offer restrictive, watered-down policies that will leave millions in bankruptcy or with no coverage at all. Just because the ACA has been replaced doesn’t mean it’s been improved.

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patriotism

rhetorical claim: to the progressives, the very idea of borders and national interests is reactionary and inherently racist. The New Globalization will lead to the eclipse of America.

rhetorical effect: renders any criticism of American power unpatriotic. This is the way the Tea Party/GOP  takes ownership of the word.

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cosmopolitan broad-mindedness:

rhetorical claim: the identity politics of the contemporary Left is counterproductive, standing in the way of a genuine liberalism of principle and cosmopolitan broad-mindedness. Their implacable intolerance, all in the name of tolerance and multiculturalism, is steadily marginalizing the Dems

rhetorical effect: Makes any progressive moral stance on equity, tolerance, and justice seem unprincipled and self-serving. Thus, he only way progressives can prove their “cosmopolitan broad-mindedness” is to accede to Tea Party policies and principles.

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polarizing and divisive

rhetorical claim: when educators and commentators  call the election “polarizing” and “divisive,” they are masking their contempt for Donald Trump. The Dems are the ones polarizing the country with identity politics.

rhetorical effect: cuts any criticism of the Trump administration off at the source by equating dissent with subverting the nation. Rhetorically, another step toward criminalizing dissent.

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undocumented immigrant

rhetorical claim: really means “illegal alien.” Dems refuse to use honest, clear words such as “illegal” and “alien” out of fear of offense.

rhetorical effect: “others” all immigrants as illegal and “alien”. A major step toward regarding all migrants as criminals and as permanently “alien”–as if they are from a different planet.

Glossary: Key memes, counterfactuals, dog whistles, canards, euphemisms, innuendoes, insinuations, fake outrages, and obsessions in The Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories and fever swamps, Nov. 15-18, 2016

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anti-discrimination laws: ironically named because they most often discriminate against religious liberty, and the freedoms of speech and action. The real victims are those conscientious objectors who want to live out their faith in the marketplace without fear of prosecution for doing so.

arming yourself: being morally serious because you take others’ welfare into account. The innocent and law-abiding should be armed.

bigots: demonstrators now out in the streets protesting Trump. They are the haters.

Black Lives Matter: cop haters.

Common Core math: always favors the progressives; book-cooked.

Confederacy: a patriotic and idealistic cause, according to Steve Bannon.

democracy export: the progressives squishes’ recipe for American foreign policy weakness; a fatal and debilitating idealism. President Trump has already shown he can do business with the world’s strongest leaders,and our improved relations with Russia, China, Turkey, etc. will make America great again.

Instead of exporting democratic ideals, Trump will export xenophobia, nationalism, racial animus, suppression of free speech and the media, and a natural bias toward propaganda and outright lies.

detainees: what he Dems call terrorists in Gitmo. Right up there with calling terrorist attacks “workplace violence” and refusing to identify terrorist as radical Muslims.

the economy: to progressives, the daily life of work, profit, and loss that sends them revenue they can then redistribute to their constituents via bureaucratic rules and laws. Some might call it redistribution.

green gravy train: taxpayer funded indulgence so condescending, smug climate crusaders can feed their moral vanity.

law school liberalism: the inbred creed of the Ivy League-tinged  bi-coastal elites who so disdain  the citizens of “flyover country.”

protestors: undemocratic, out-of-control hooligans.

rule of law: law and order and stop and frisk.

In the case of Hillary, guilty until proven innocent. The Trump administration, in its headlong rush to obliterate the Obama legacy,  will attempt to repeal the rule of law by ignoring statutes, regulations, and precedents.

safety pin generation: like to wear government-issued diapers.

sexism: calling women who voted for Trump sexist.

slacker mandate: The ACA provision that employer-based health plans cover employees’ children until they turn 26 years old. Another piece of cradle-to-grave candy; another unfunded mandate.

terrorists: Obama’s biggest supporters.

treachery: working with Democrats.

Trumponomics: the new order of a market economy unleashed from regulation and the “oversight” of lifer bureaucrats.

In reality, as Matthew Yglesias argues in Vox:

The larger risk, however, is that Trump’s lack of grounding in ideological principles or party networks will create a systemically corrupt government. Such governments, Wallis writes, “are rent creating, not rent seeking, governments” that operate by “limiting access to markets and resources in order to create rents that bind the interests of the ruling coalition together.”

This is how Vladimir Putin governs Russia, and how the Mubarak/Sisi regime rules Egypt. To be a successful businessman in a systemically corrupt regime and to be a close supporter of the regime are one and the same thing.

Those who support the regime will receive favorable treatment from regulators, and those who oppose it will not. Because businesses do business with each other, the network becomes self-reinforcing. Regime-friendly banks receive a light regulatory touch while their rivals are crushed. In exchange, they offer friendly lending terms to regime-friendly businesses while choking capital to rivals. Such a system, once in place, is extremely difficult to dislodge precisely because, unlike a fascist or communist regime, it is glued together by no ideology beyond basic human greed, insecurity, and love of family.

 

 

 

 

 

Glossary: Key memes, counterfactuals, dog whistles, canards, euphemisms, innuendoes, insinuations, fake outrages, and obsessions in The Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories and fever swamps, Nov. 12-15, 2016

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bank deregulation:  Freeing up the “animal spirits” of the market, especially in terms of loosening mortgage lending regulations.

Trump’s first move to support the common man!

big government: the opposite of the Constitution. Constitutional law will be great again, which means making it once again resonate with this nation’s heritage—not abstract principles divorced from our lived experience and accumulated wisdom as a people.

consumer-directed health arrangements: at the heart of the “replace” part of repealing and replacing Obamacare. Innovations such as health saving accounts and tax credits will replace Obamacare’s byzantine maze of subsidies, mandates, and penalties. The newly-freed market will drive prices down as consumers get more choices.

This is Orwellian-speak for insurance industry-driven health care policy. Consumers will be forced to do anything except “direct” the health care market, since there will be no price controls, lowered state regulation, a slow drowning  of Medicaid via state block grants, and, if Paul Ryan gets his way with “premium support” (aka, vouchers), the privatization of Medicare. The only thing re-formed will be consumers’ soaring net health care expenditures, as the vouchers and tax credits are inevitably unable to keep pace with rising health care and insurance prices. Calling it premium support, not premium reimbursement means that it will be at best partial.

defenders of freedom: Trump supporters. Trump haters would take away freedom of speech and thought.

European-Americans: the single most discriminated against group in the recent )and now past) “pc” era of American history. Note: does not include jews.

fear: a good thing, according to Steve Bannon. As he put it in 2010, “Fear is going to lead you to take action.”

feeling good: the liberal-progressive, baby boomers’ mantra. How eclipsed by  Trumpism, with its return to morality, responsibility, patriotism, social mores, and discipline.

feminism:  a needy, demanding, touchy-feely form of attention-seeking.

justice: to progressives, Hillary somehow winning the election.

the multicultural raj: the pc crowd that was voted out Nov. 8. Multiethnic is good because it doesn’t engage in victimhood-mongering and balkanization. Progressives need to get over multiculturalism because there is only one culture: the American culture.

popular vote advantage: Clintonistas’ form of denial of the election of Donald Trump.

progressive agenda:  having the government govern the people, as opposed to the people governing the government.

snowflakes: media slime and feinting-couch progressives calling in sick and hovering in safe places under their beds — the dopes marching in the streets demanding civility as they shout threats to grab Trump by his genitals.

Steven Bannon: a controversial figure who ran a provocative website. Also a patriot who only wants what’s best for America.

Also a misogynist, xenophobic, racist, anti-Semitic bomb-thrower.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Glossary: Key memes, counterfactuals, dog whistles, canards, euphemisms, innuendoes, insinuations, fake outrages, and obsessions in The Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories and fever swamps, Nov. 4-8, 2016

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business: to the Dems, another arm of the state, rather than being driven by the free market. (see “public service,”below)

fact-checking: to the Dems, a vehicle to do partisan politics.

Hillary supporters: Inside-the-Beltway, trust-funded supercilious snots from third-tier Ivy League wannabe schools who, as Victor Davis Hanson put it, “sound quite clever without being especially bright, attuned to social justice without character. Their religion is not so much progressivism as appearing cool and hip and ‘right’ on the issues … . Well-connected and mediocre … . They write and sound off about the buffoon Trump and preen in sanctimonious moral outrage … .”

market distortions: public safety, public health, financial regulation rules and laws, welfare, environmental regulation–all the ways the Dems distort the free market’s natural outcomes.

As Karl Polanyi argued,  the “Market Society” substitutes utility and self-interest for reciprocity and redistribution. Economic policy decisions intended to ameliorate the Darwinian/Hobbesian aspects of the “free” market actually are the free market, not distortions of it. Without them, there is no market.

minimum wage increase: Teenage Job Elimination Act

the press never talks about it: the rising murder rate, global cooling, immigrant murderers and rapists, the Clinton Foundation’s shakedown schemes, Hillary’s lying about her Benghazi coverup or her e-mails, the millions of immigrants pouring over our borders, etc.

The press never talks about these things because they aren’t true.

public schools: Dem dropout factories. By protecting the teachers’ unions, the Dems are sentencing millions of black kids to academic failure.

public service: to the Dems, deferred compensation, as they move to the meeting place of government and business.

redistribution: Dem buzzword/smokescreen for redistributing political power–to the Dems!

rigged system the insider elites who control Washington and “rig” the system so the free market is never set free.

As Paul Krugman, paraphrasing Robert Reich, argues, the opposite is actually true: the elites make sure the playing field is always “predistributed” to tilt in their favor:

there’s a feedback loop between political and market power. Rising wealth at the top buys growing political influence, via campaign contributions, lobbying, and the rewards of the revolving door. Political influence in turn is used to rewrite the rules of the game—antitrust laws, deregulation, changes in contract law, union-busting—in a way that reinforces income concentration. The result is a sort of spiral, a vicious circle of oligarchy.

The Tea Party/GOP’s faux populism is intended to cover over, and perpetuate, this “vicious circle of oligarchy.” Donald Trump, of course, has been at the center of this circle for his entire life. The system has actually been “rigged” for him via tax breaks, write-offs, lawsuits over property and contract rules, cheap foreign labor, free publicity, etc. He’s right-the system is rigged–but he’s done the rigging, and his phony populism–“the blue collar billionaire” meme– shouldn’t fool anyone.

 

 

 

Glossary: Key memes, counterfactuals, dog whistles, canards, euphemisms, innuendoes, insinuations, fake outrages, and obsessions in The Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories and fever swamps, October 29-Nov. 3, 2016

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authenticity and authority: Donald Trump is succeeding because voters think that everything he says is “real” and unvarnished. He does not hypocritically say one thing and believe another. He “tells it like it is,” even if the pc crown and corrupt media don’t like what he says.

Trump’s “authority” is really authoritarianism. He doesn’t say things because they’re right, or command an action because it’s good. Rather, what he says is right just because he says it, even if it’s clearly a lie or distortion, and what he commands is good, even if it is morally heinous (torturing, banning Muslims, seeing Mexicans as murderers and rapists, punishing women for abortions, etc.). The only shared meanings in Trumpland are meanings he creates. Even authoritarianism is preferable to liberalism.

Election Day: Judgment Day, when the lib-Dems get their comeuppance.

ending a war: what the Dems confuse with walking way from a war.

go-between governing: the Obama/Clinton usurpation of representative government via unaccountable executive orders, bureaucracies, various “czars” , and the courts. This workaround solution to avoiding direct tyranny.

governing: in Hillary’s mind, complicating Americans’ lives with more rules, more legal pitfalls for citizens, and more mandates for business. Her regulatory model is to destroy businesses while doling out favors to political constituents, billing the taxpayer all the while.

lamestream media: inbred, conflicted, morally-challenged. Loyal lapdogs of Clinton, Inc.

lost American jobs: due to affirmative action, government regulation,  immigrants, China and Mexico, etc.

mutual respect: Kumbaya political correctness.

pollution: the sacrifice we make for capitalism.

Along with premature death, environmental destruction, gaping inequality, etc.

sympathy fatigue: Being sick of pc culture: the feeling that the liberals love everyone but you, including criminal immigrants, Afro-Americans on welfare, shorebirds, college students with “trigger” issues, transsexuals, etc.

welfare: theft from the American people.