Category Archives: glossary

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, euphemisms, sneers, innuendos, and metanarratives in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, May 19-24, 2014

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accomplices:Afro-Americans supporting Obamafascism. Unwitting dupes, acting against their own best interests.

amok:as in “bureaucrats run amok”.

bi-coastal: a sneer, especially reserved for the “urban media elite”.  Basically a variation on the old Sarah Palin meme about how the GOP represents the “real America” (aka “flyover America). Bi-coastal clearly implies bi-sexual.

gotcha: any question posed to a Tea Partier by the Dems. Like “science,” questions themselves have no intrinsic value opr demand to be answered–best to just rephrase them or call them an attack. More or less the end of critical inquiry

government control: paired in a false dichotomy with “personal liberty”. Another of these dueling essentialisms is entitlement v. equality. In both cases, the destructive effect (government control, entitlement) is said to drive out the virtuous value (personal liberty, equality).

industry: any organized Dem constituency or cause, as in “The Grievance Industry” or “The Hillary Clinton Industry”.

outfit: a government agency the GOP doesn’t like or wants to eliminate

taming the Tea Party: the meme of the week, masking the fact that all GOP candidates, including former centrists such Boehner & McConnell, have had to move all the way to the right to not be primaried.

taxation: the ultimate form of government aggression; never a force for good.

unreasonable: a regulatory agency or tax the GOP despises and wants to eliminate. In Tea Party logic, all taxes and regulation are unreasonable.

warmism: the central tenet of Climate Change Conspirators.

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, euphemisms, sneers, innuendos, and metanarratives in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, May 13-18, 2014

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exercises in self-esteem:expressions of sympathy or compassion, according to George Will.

government schools: formerly known as public schools.

harrassment: government regulation of Koch industries.

inquisition: a Dem-controlled Congressional hearing

interventionism:  attempts to stymie the free market. Thus, government regulation and taxation are characterized as interventionist, whereas intrusions into women’s reproductive health, gay rights, or union organizing are framed as being pro-life, pro-marriage, or a blow for worker freedom.

liberal fascism:  latest tagline denoting curtailments of free speech or other civil liberties. Implies intolerance and reverse racism or discrimination. Intolerance thus becomes not tolerating racism, sexism or bigotry.

McCarthyism:  now the default modifier/describer of anything related to science, climate change, or political speech. See above, “liberal fascism”.

orthodoxy: any Dem policy or political agenda item. “Progressivism” is always said to be an “orthodoxy”. Implies intellectual straitjacketing and a faith-based belief in the abstract principle of equality.

pals: any Dem “special interest” group (aka, constituency), as in “the Democrats’ labor pals or school teacher pals”.

payback: any Dem policy or legislation–bailout money, Freddie & Fannie. etc.All Democratic politics are cronyism. (see “pals” above)

post-modern and sensitive: sneering characterization of academics.

reparations:  Rush Limbaugh’s shorthand for the Affordable Care Act

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, euphemisms, sneers, innuendos, and metanarratives in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, May 4-12, 2014

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alarmism: any Dem projection of current trends into the future. More or less the same kind of demeaning speech act as saying to a woman, “don’t get hysterical”. Most common usage” “climate alarmism”. When the GOP warns of the corrosive effects of tax cuts or federal regulation, they are being “realistic” or “pragmatic,” but never “alarmist”.

Beltway Boys: any Dem political insider. Part of the GOP spin that the Dems are a permanent DC political class, feathering their own nests whilst pretending to car about the poor.

class hatred: any Dem claim about social justice, redistribution, equality, etc. aka, ‘envy”.

eroded liberty: A self-fulfilling prophecy. Liberty here is taken as a kind of utopian state that has been steadily and persistently undermined by liberal ideology. As an absolute, non-negotiable demand for civil society, any attempts to regulate individuals within that society are seen as “erosions” of this absolute. A permanent state of war between the individual and the state is thus pre-ordained.

exaggerations: any positive claims made for OCare. Such claims, by definition, are thus “inaccurate”.

guarantor: the ultimate effect of Obama administration policy that supports any social services, social safety net or entitlement programs. The gist of this usage is that the Obama administration underwrites and maintains a permanent culture of poverty and dependency.

industry:  any widespread Dem policy support or advocacy–as in “the campus rape industry” or “the ‘climate change’ industry”. Implies a permanent conspiracy of lobbyists, think tanks, pols, and government officials who care more about their careers than about the issues.

mobility: the preferred word choice to “inequality”.  Instead of talking about difference, tries to shift the talk to possibility. Of course, framed this way, the only mobile part of the population are the rich. With stagnating wages and eroded job growth and quality, most Americans are in fact downwardly mobile.

playing the political process: Dems’ way of framing any issue–Benghazi, OCare, immigration, etc. The Dems always “pander to the base”, “politicizing” everything. In reality, by announcing early on that their chief aim was to make sure the Obama Presidency failed, the GOP are actually the ones who made EVERYTHING political.

“scientific consensus”: the fright quotes are the new way to sneer at all science as a liberal “hoax”. Not understanding what consensus means in this case, the Tea Party folks are ushering in a pre-Enlightenment, faith-based orthodoxy.

unleash: what happens when the Dems write a new law or policy, inflicting it on individuals, and thus “eroding” their liberty.

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, euphemisms, sneers, innuendos, and metanarratives in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, April 26-May 3, 2014

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American possibilities (or promise): The root narrative of America as the “exceptional” City on the Hill–what Obama either doesn’t “get” or is indifferent to.  Apparently, approving the the Keystone Pipeline is the current sure-fire way to promote American possibilities and overcome Obama’s “Opportunity Gap”.

“assault weapons”: Never used without fright quotes, which always mean “so-called”. Maybe “assault” will be the next verb slapped into fright-quote handcuffs, as in “standing your ground” rather than assaulting someone.

base-pandering: what Democrats unfailingly–and primarily– engage in when they issue any policy, opinion, or regulation.

cerebral: one of Obama’s many fatal flaws. Strangely enough, he is simultaneously accused of being “simple-minded” (see below).

cynical promotion of fears:what Dems really do do whenever they attack right-wing ideas or policies. It’s cynical because it’s calculated, disingenuous, and self-serving: no one in their right mind could believe in climate change, the stifling of political speech, racism, or income inequality. Never mind that it’s actually the right wing that is totally dependent on a permanent culture war, enduring political enemies such as Hillary, and the steady blue flame of outrage and fear of “losing the country”.

economic gimmicks: what Dems have to resort to whenever they report (see below, “eke out” ) good economic numbers. The biggest economic gimmick of all is demand-side economic policy.

eked out: very grudging GOP description of any positive economic news–used only when they aren’t disparaging or ignoring  the news altogether, as when they refer to jobs lost rather than jobs gained.

encroachment on states’ sovereignty: any federal law or policy that doesn’t defer to the states.

ensconced: the quality of being any Dem office holder or employee. Subtly undermines the legitimacy of holding a job in public service, as if it’s all due to patronage and (see above), base-pandering.

grandees: especially “ensconced” Dem office holders, lobbyists, lawyers, commentators, etc. Clearly implies that they “think they’re better” than average folks. Republican grand poobahs are instead called “leaders”.

hostage to lobbyists: said to be the defining characteristic of the entire Democratic D.C. establishment; Republicans, on the other hand, are said to be “responsive to constituencies” and respecters of The Market.

obsessions: any Dem policy position that is stated more than once.

one-size-fits-all: the Dems’ ideological strait-jacket and political orthodoxy that is imposed on the American People

simple-minded: part of the tragedy of our fatally-flawed, “cerebral” President is that his ideas are one-dimensional and simplistic: markets are evil and inherently unfair; economic growth is only for the rich and should be regulated and choked at the source, the only way to lead is “from behind,” etc.

“wage gap”: exactly like “the war on women,” this phrase now must always be used with fright quotes because it is purely fictional Dem propaganda. After all, everyone knows there are no glass ceilings, except when there are, and that’s because of obvious “structural” or “inherent” reasons that maybe only men can grasp. Other phrases that right wingers consider insulting or risible: “living wage,” “income inequality,” save the earth”.

 

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, euphemisms, sneers, innuendos, and metanarratives in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, April 19-25, 2014

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arcane dogmatics: (see below, “ideological screeds”). What counts as evidence in liberal policy analysis, especially climate change “science”.

crushing:mandatory modifier for “regulation”.

greens as the new reds: the reign of terror of “radical environmentalist” Commissars, with their “diktats”, sense of privilege, and elitist snoberies.

ideological screed: any liberal speech, policy analysis, op-ed piece or research. See below, “nostrum,” “overheated”.

minimum-wage laws: creeping socialism

nostrum: any Dem rallying cry, policy position, or slogan–e.g., “afflict the rich”. Republicans are said to have reasonable, market-driven  ideas, not overheated nostrums or screeds.

overheated: mandatory modifier for any principled or impassioned Dem speech or analysis.

“poverty”: increasingly being undermined with fright quotes, indicating that, as some commentators have put it, the term itself is relative, and that even poor people have indoor plumbing. Poverty is only in the eyes of the statistician.

race, endless fixation on: the Tea Party’s fixation with the Dem’s so-called fixation. Just bringing up the subject now is either evidence of a “fixation” or of “playing the race card”.

regulation, litigation, political consensus: the DNA of liberal politics; the opposite of efficiency.

sluggish and lackluster: automatic modifiers for any improvement in economic recovery numbers in the Obama administration.

statism: pejorative term for government regulation.

tax breaks: cronyism at its worst, these bonanzas are always said to be “carved out”. When the GOP does it, they’re called “tax relief,” and offered as a public service rather than a “carve out”.

war: a force that gives Republicans meaning, thus their constant need for enemies: Obama, Putin, the Clintons, Iran, etc.

welfarism: a noted “Negro” lifestyle, according to new Tea Party icon Cliven Bundy. Apparently he thinks the “slavery” lifestyle was a better deal.

 

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, euphemisms, sneers, and innuendos in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, April 4-11, 2014

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collectivist: the opposite of “American,” according to Charles Koch.  Wonder where that “We, the People” stuff came from?

confiscatory tax policy: redistribution of capital returns rather than wider distribution of capital ownership. (The latter, of course, an ever-elusive panacea).

disincentives:  Anything that doesn’t promote individual rights or private property. Any form of social solidarity or democratic structures. Any regulations, taxes, notions of common property or resources, or public utilities.

economic growth: the best environmental policy; the best social safety net policy; the fastest way to social justice; the best rationale for tax cuts.

the gaystopo: see also, “thought crime,” “totalitarian liberalism”.

indoctrination: college courses, especially in the humanities an social sciences.

moral clout: super-aggressive foreign policy.

obsession: any principles of Democrats: inequality, social justice, environmental protection, women’s rights and equal pay, gay rights, racism.

playing politics: what the losing side on a policy issue always accuses the winning side of doing.

Soviet-style repression: what the supposedly clueless and limp Obama administration is also somehow said to be capable of. (see also, “totalitarian liberalism”). Yup, Obama’s Amerika is exactly like the Soviet Union, except no one is jailed for political dissent, the economy has little or no central planning, we are not annexing any surrounding countries, and the government does not control the media. Believe me, we’ll all know totalitarianism long before we actually get it.

totalitarian liberalism: a near-cousin of “Soviet-style repression”.  See also, “thought crime,” The New Intolerance.

 

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, euphemisms, sneers, and innuendos in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, March 27-April 3, 2014

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abdication: any regulatory retreat by the Obama administration on an issue important to the GOP. Even though government and regulation are routinely demonized, they sometimes come in handy–most recently when it comes to internet registration.

“affordable housing”:  now always put in fright quotes, to denote the hypocrisy and nefariousness of anyone  supporting such a position. The “affordable housing crowd” is of course still being blamed for the financial meltdown.

broadened opportunity: prosperity for the few, by reducing opportunity for the many. See also, “upward mobility”).

creative destructionism: outsourcing, corporate takeovers, globalization.

crowd: any Dem interest group, however broadly defined. Not exactly a mob–more like a suspect group, with parochial self interests. A good recent example is  “the affordable housing crowd” (see above).

devolution: an oldie-but-a-goodie from the Thatcher era. The kissin’ cousin of privatization, its latest avatar is one of the centerpieces of the latest Ryan budget (aka, the race to adversity): devolving all safety net programs to the states, in the form of a lump sum payment. (David Cameron is also trying this one on for size in Britain).

disrespecting the citizens:apparently, according to Charles Koch, any form of government regulation. Government regulation, in the Koch Brothers’ universe, is nothing but a form of “collectivization,” always a pejorative term. In simple Kochean terms, “more government equals less liberty”. Why bother, then, to have any government at all?

effective safety net: as in the latest Paul Ryan budget, the only acceptable funding levels for social services presume draconian cuts in current budgets. “Effectiveness,” like its cousin, “efficiency,” is not defined by human well-being but by how little the government ends up doing or providing.

elites:educated, critical thinkers. (Thanks for that definition to Mike Lofgren, in his book “The Party Is Over”).

expeditions:semantically related to “fishing trip”, these are Dem forays into policy issues or initiatives, always with a hidden agenda.

fidelity to the law: what Obama, as Imperial President, is said to lack.

improving access to college: turning colleges and universities into voc tech institutes.

introducing competition and innovation into Medicare:a key element of the new Ryan budget. “Competition” in this case of course means privatization.”Innovation” (sometimes called “modernization”) in this case of course means new ways to get seniors off the federal budget. “Competition and innovation” together are the black hole at the center of the GOP political economy: they suck every human service into their vortex, never to be seen again as federal expenditures.

markets and merit: the only definition of, and way to, any concept of prosperity and well-being. Only made possible by “competition” and “choice” (though this is NOT a “pro-choice” position).

modernizing health care:  privatizing and deregulating.

one-sixth of the economy: an epithet, or mantra, for the Affordable Care Act. Most commonly used in the phrase “trying to transform one-sixth of the economy”, as if the very idea of trying to do so is laughable.

real world president: obviously not the space alien incumbent we have in the White House. of course, the last “real world” President we had got us involved in two “real” unwinable wars in the Middle East and supported po0licies that directly lead to a “real” financial meltdown.

restoring the value of work: assumes right off the bat that “some” Americans (Paul Ryan can tell you which ones), are lazy freeloaders and need to be “restored” to the American Dream.

state power: in the Tea Party world, it’s almost always better to let the “laboratories of democracy” decide national issues, except when it isn’t. For example, the Republican mantra of making it possible to sell insurance across state lines, thus taking insurance regulation out of the hands of the state. Of course, when you think about it, if the states can’t do and the feds shouldn’t do it, then maybe there won’t be any regulation at all! A pure experiment in Social Darwinism!

a straightforward matter of statutory construction: any legal position held by the GOP/Tea Party.

upward mobility: Ok for those who’ve got it. Made ever more impossible by Tea Party economic policies.

worker flexibility: if corporations are people, my friend, why not let Walmart run the Department of Labor? Then we’ll see just how “flexible” and Gumby-like US workers can be.

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, euphemisms, sneers, and innuendos in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, March 21-26, 2014

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Bambi: Obama, over matched by Putin. Aka, wimp, eunuch, Neville Chamberlain, a “shrinking violet”.

cakes for gay weddings:just the start of Obama’s state-sponsored coercion and terrorism aimed at the religious right.

culture of license:what elite America has been fighting since the Mayflower; the essential licentiousness that threatens to undo American resolve and hard work. Also linked to the hippies in the 1960s; part of the general theory that the advent of the birth control pill hijacked rock-ribbed Republican America. We are now said to be entirely given over to “the political-sexual whims of those who hold power”.

hordes:never a good thing–always has a kind if “barbarians at the gates” feel to it. The latest manifestation is Paul Ryan’s obsession with hordes of black youth just hanging around, aka “a culture of license”.

innovation and entrepreneurship: the animal spirits of capitalism. Terms reserved for the kinds of business and industries the GOP approves of. When it comes to alternative energy startups for example, the “innovation” becomes “hoodwinking” and “entrepreneurship” becomes “crony capitalism,” and a “boondoggle”.

mandate for social justice:non-existent in the US Constitution, yet wrongly assumed to be a fundamental driving force in government, at least in Obamaland. The rallyoing cry of “the noble deserving”. (see below)

the noble deserving:always used ironically to describe the “takers,” the sanctified poor who, as beneficiaries of redistribution policies, are to blame for the financial/housing bubble, Benghazi, Crimea, and probably even Flight 370.

overweening:mandatory modifier for “state”; in Obamaland,  all government actions and policies are by definition smug, presumptuous, arrogant, and excessive.

 property rights: the bedrock American rights. Always said to be “freedom-advancing”.

prosperity by trade and contract: what the government exists to guarantee. The business of America is business.

the supposedly benevolent state:maybe they’ll just start using “supposedly” instead of air quotes to establish irony.

willful:(see also “overweening,” above): any principled stand or policy of the Obama administration. The alternative to being “willful” is capitulation, aka, “putting aside partisan political bickering”.

 

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, euphemisms, sneers, and innuendos in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, March 16-20, 2014

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analysis paralysis: Obama as Hamlet–unable to act, lost in the labyrinths of his thoughts and ideals. (see also, “humiliation”).

civilization standards–always in decline. “Norms and habits” are said to be in a “moral decline”. (see also: “tearing down mores”).

eradication of biological parenthood: the ultimate outcome and agenda of gay rights.

humiliation: the result of “analysis paralysis”.

the poor are better off than ever: every day in every way being poor gets better and better.

real world solutions: (aka, “common sense solutions”). For women, NOT equal pay for equal work, day care, or reproductive health. Apparently the only “real” world is the market. Anyone who complains about its outcomes is a “whiner”.

revanchism: one of several archaic terms taken out of the Cold War archives and dusted off to beat Obama over the head about Putin and the Ukraine, joining such other oldies-but-goodies as satrap, atavistic, and vassal state.

tearing down mores: the Obama administration’s ultimate affect and agenda. Moral catastrophe looms.

thugs: spelled EPA, IRS.

tyrant: Obama, though he might be a sissy instead.

unchecked: a mandatory modifier for any “power” exercised by the Obama administration. (see also “tyrant” and “thug”)

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, euphemisms, sneers, and innuendos in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, March 9-15, 2014

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corporate career success: aka, “giving up your womb”

culture of work: Paul Ryan’s code language for “lazy black folks”. (see below: “inner city,” “human society”, “middle class” and “real conversation about race”.

decisive: another of the qualities Obama is said to be lacking. His indecisiveness “emboldens”(see below)  the Russians, Syrians, Iranians and jihadis. (see also “muscular foreign policy” and “projecting strength”)

emboldened: the overall effect of any “feckless” Obama foreign policy on any opf the “bad guys” opposed to that policy.

feminism: in the approaching “empowered world” of “women only”, this “perfumed jargon” of relationship-building, collaboration, and encouragement will supplant the rhetoric of competition, thus fatally weakening America.

freedom of choice: it turns out that abortion rights’ activists are not arguing for a woman’s right to choose how she controls her own body, but, rather are “Satan-loving worshipers of the savage culture of death”.

human society: entirely made up by people with jobs, according to Peggy Noonan’s March 14 WSJ column.

inner city: yet another Paul Ryan euphemism for “lazy black folks”.

Keystone:  every further day it goes without approval is Obama’s way of “conducting economic warfare against the United States,” and constitutes a “blockade” of US natural gas exports.

middle class: Santorum calls this term a form of “class-envy, leftist language”

muscular foreign policy: the imperative for Obama to “man-up” in foreign policy by 1) intervening militarily in Syria, 2) intervening militarily in Iraq, 3) intervening militarily in Cuba, Venezuela or, 4) opening up all US land and water to oil and natural gas production to drive down the price of energy as a way of punishing Russia. (see also, “projecting strength”)

muzzle: a verb that should only be used to describe Democratic attempts to end or dismiss a policy discussion. Free speech, for example, is always “muzzled” by Democrats (especially the IRS).

projecting strength:  non-consequential but symbolic foreign policy bluster and bullying–what Obama fails at. (see also “muscular foreign policy,” above)

“a real conversation about race”: topics include: how and why Afro-Americans are lazy and have no habits of work, thrift, or self-discipline; how Republicans are the real progressives and liberals the real racists, and how entitlement is no substitute for accomplishment. (see also “human society,” above). Underlying sentiment to always keep in mind: “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them other people’s money.” (Rick Santorum)

regulatory assault: any government regulation or policy.

“stop being poor”: essentially, Paul Ryan’s nostrum to end poverty in America.