Category Archives: rhetoric

Glossary: Key memes, counterfactuals, dog whistles, canards, euphemisms, innuendoes, insinuations, fake outrages and obsessions in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, Sept. 2-6, 2016

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appropriate response: Trump’s revised policy on mass deportation: wait “several years” until the border is secured and criminal aliens are deported, then study how to make “an appropriate response” to the remaining 8-10 million undocumented residents (and their kids). This weasel-talk sounds like the muzzled Trump Lite, and is the diametric opposite of his long-held, hard-edged, “deport all 11 million of them immediately” Trump Classic rhetoric.

civil rights: compulsory integration.

criminal aliens: all undocumented immigrants, who, by definition, “bring crime” to America. As Trump put it in his Phoenix immigration speech, if Clinton were elected, America would be inundated by a new wave of illegal immigration that would result in “thousands of more violent, horrible crimes, and total chaos and lawlessness.”Trump has in effect criminalized immigration.

judicial obstacles: what Trump will not permit when he becomes President. All these politically correct legal niceties around subjects like immigrant rights, civil liberties, free speech, and First Amendment rights, will need to be swept away.

law enforcement OR social justice: the stark choice Trump says that all Americans must make on election day. Never a “both and” possibility, but always a zero-sum game. This false dichotomy undercuts the Black Lives Matter movement.

misconduct: Hillary’s tenure as Secretary of State. Never mind that she has only been accused by the Tea Party/GOP) , not indicted, tried or convicted.

New York City: Jewville, Zooville, Rapetown.

reduce talk of race: Trump’s appeal to get us into a post-race era. What is the line between avoiding incendiary and divisive language and sweeping the issue under the rug?

restoration: Trump will restore law and order in America–and in the first hour of his presidency! The ever-marauding gangs and murderous illegal immigrants will be rounded up immediately on January 20!

State Church: government officials, journalists, and social scientists and other academics.

truthful hyperbole: Trump’s bargaining technique, as outlined in The Art of the Deal.

us:Trump’s silent majority. Aka, “the forgotten people,” “we.” With Trump, it’s never clear whether he’s referring to “we” and or just “me” (himself.)

war on crime: one of Trump’s multi-front wars. others include: the war on trade, the war on political correctness, the war on the press’s right to self-expression, the war on immigrants, the war on Mexicans and Muslims, etc. His “war on poverty” isn’t so much predicated on directly helping the poor as counting on massive tax cuts for the rich to trickle down to the poor.

Glossary: Key memes, counterfactuals, dog whistles, canards, euphemisms, innuendoes, insinuations, fake outrages and obsessions in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, Aug 27-Sept. 1, 2016

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amnesty: any reform that lets any undocumented worker stay in the US under any conditions whatsoever.

anti-white bias: the biggest racial problem facing contemporary America.

black victimization: the faulty of Obama and Clinton policies that encourage crime and dependency on the nanny state. Blacks are the victims of every program intended to help them. By this logic, the less the government does to lessen inequality, the greater the chance that inequality will be lessened.

cadres: Black Lives Matter supporters. Rhetorically links them to Communism.

the Clinton menagerie: any Clinton staff members or supporters.

diversity training: always, inevitably, leads to less diversity and more racial bias.

grandees: any Obama administration officials, especially the Fed.  Rhetorically likens them to an unaccountable aristocracy.

intellectual progress: Donald Trump’s continued evolution on immigration policy. Trump wants to be immune to charges of “flipflopping,” preferring instead to be seen as “presidential” when he changes his policies to fit political realities. His positions are now, in the words of his new campaign manager, “to be determined.”

law and order: protecting the police and White America.

public service:  almost always a hypocritical political shakedown, especially in the case of consumer relief. As with all Big Government programs, the consumers the government purports to help are the most devastated and pay the heaviest price.

the right to education: the guiding principle behind ending teacher tenure and greatly expanding vouchers and charter schools. The right to education turns out to be the right and license to dismantle the public education system.

socialized risk-pit:  Clinton/Obama fiscal policy, especially the inert, non-conducting  “stimulus” packages, forgiveness of student loans, Obamacare, and increases in minimum wages.

softening: Trump’s “pivot” a new, more humane, mass deportation plan. Trump’s revised policy on mass deportation: But  I don’t understand why this story–and many similar stories across the country–say that Trump has “softened.” He wants everyone to go–apparently mostly through self-deportation. Here’s the  money quotation from his speech last night: “For those here illegally today, who are seeking legal status, they will have one route and one route only. To return home and apply for reentry like everybody else, under the rules of the new legal immigration system that I have outlined above. ”  It was a very confusing speech because he actually offered three scenarios: deporting the criminals, waiting until all the criminals are deported before addressing the non-criminals, and deporting everyone.  It doesn’t add up, in the same way his tax and spending numbers can’t be reconciled.

 

Glossary: Key memes, counterfactuals, dog whistles, canards, euphemisms, innuendoes, insinuations, fake outrages and obsessions in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, August Aug 24-26, 2016

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academic flights of folly: multilateralism, diversity and multiculturalism, global warming, “rape culture,” gender-based salary differentials, etc. Although these things are real, the GOP/Tea Party “gaslights” them–that is, pretends they aren’t real.

administrative afflatus: the bloated Beltway regulatory monster that kills job growth in America. Any regulation and/or administration is an unnatural construct of big government philosophy.

efficiency: capital will always go where it can be used most efficiently. That’s why US corporations have so much cash stashed in offshore/overseas accounts, subsidiaries, etc. But isn’t “efficiency” actually a tautology in the sense that capitalists can define it anyway they wish? Efficiency can only be used as a means to an end–it is never an end in itself, but, rather, is a handmaiden. So if the purpose is profit only, companies cut corners, engage in cartel-like pricing and stifle competition. Other purposes –social justice, environmental responsibility, equity–require differing definitions of efficiency.

Hillary’s criminality: a given, especially when she ran the State Department as a criminal organization.

humane: the new watchword of the Trump campaign as he softens his image and vows to “not hurt anyone” with his immigration policy. But one wonders how  “extreme vetting” can also be “humane” vetting: either you let undocumented immigrants stay in the country and keep their families intact or you don’t. Also an admission that his campaign has been too “hard” and too eager to “hurt people.”

measured: the new Donald Trump. Aka, mature, discrete, disciplined, presidential. All the things Trump isn’t.

political progress and tolerance: Trump’s flip=flop on immigration, deportation, ethnic screening, and religious litmus tests.

political polls: Dem propaganda.

racist: anyone who’s not a liberal

ransom: any liberal/Dem campaign contribution. Aka, bribe.

reckless: any US military withdrawal, as in Iraq, Vietnam, and Afghanistan

regret: whatever doesn’t work for Trump he now “regrets”–not the thing itself, but the reaction to it. Disappointment, not contrition.

social justice: the leading cause of poverty.

suggests: Hillary and Bill’s “pay-to-play” Clinton Foundation scandal suggests gross corruption. This is the weasel word the Tea Party uses when they have no actual proof of wrongdoing. Synonyms include, “points to,” “hints at” and “almost certainly proves.” The only one doing the suggesting is is Tea Party/GOP.

 

Glossary: Key memes, counterfactuals, dog-whistles, canards, euphemisms, fake outrages and obsessions in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, August 20-23, 2016

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co-conspirator: James Comey or any Hillary defender.

denying upward mobility: opposing charter schools. To do so is to doom millions of Hispanics and African Americans to lives of diminished possibility, if not poverty.

emoting: what Elizabeth Warren does every time she pens her mouth,  shooting from the hip in an unhinged, hysterical and “emotional” way. As if Donald Trump is the voice of reason and constraint.

fake evidence of racism: any evidence of racism, since we live in a “post racial” world.

giving our jobs away: what Obama/Clinton have done to America. (see also “open borders,” below). Trump actually claims that Hillary would rather give a job to a non-US citizen than to a Hispanic or African American US citizen. This is of course an outlandish lie.

information chaos: what the Obama/Clinton political machine create whenever they tell their lies, make their distortions and insinuations, leave out inconvenient facts, etc.

mockery: what Hillary does very time: to foreign policy, to the rule of law, to truth and basic human decency, to the very idea of an honest election.

negative trolls: those who attack Trump.

omnidirectional bureaucratic opportunism: the spoils of the Dems’ entrenched, permanent political ruling class in Washington. (See also “rent-seeking,” below)

open borders: the Obama/Clinton immigration policy.(see also, “giving our jobs away,” above). Never mind that Obama has deported more immigrants than any other US President, or that Hillary has never advocated “open borders.”

pandering to blacks: what the Dems have been doing for decades as they have exploited blacks and only pretended to be interested in them every four years. Any regulation or legislation that promotes racial justice, economic equality or improves the lives of blacks.

rent-seeking: how the Clintons use private gain for political purposes.

something that needs to be addressed: any of the Bill-Hillary shenanigans–the Clinton criminal cartel’s conduct. Basically, in Trumpland, anything that challenges him or any allegations he makes, however wild and crazy. Always has a tone of ominousness and paranoia. One of Trump’s first instances of this were of course his “birther” charges against Obama in 20008.

a stable and predictable regulatory system: the end of government overreach, so that businesses and ordinary citizens can finally break free of the nanny state. The key predictability and stability factors here are that there won’t be any  more regulation. This much wished-for panaceas has been at the heart of GOP dreams forever, and part of Grover Norquist’s injunction to make government so small that it drowns in the bathtub.

unstable, unhinged, unbalanced: Hillary. Also referred to by Sean Hannity as Hillary’s “seizuresque” moments.

what do you have to lose?: since blacks have been pandered to, why they should support Trump. For a definitive answer to this question of what African Americans have to lose, see Jennifer Rubin’s Washington Post column :

Let’s count the ways.

Trump has championed a strict law-and-order agenda that rejects the suggestion there are legitimate complaints in the African American community about policing. He is a lightning rod for racial animus and tension, falsely accusing cities with large African American populations to be crime havens. With Trump, we’d lack a president who had any conception that there is a problem with policing in minority communities or any desire to bring communities and police together.

This is someone who declines to speak at African American gatherings (e.g., the NAACP). He’s someone who just brought on to lead his campaign the former head  of a website pandering to the alt-right — that means white supremacy. Only after prodding and a growing controversy did he figure out that he should denounce David Duke and the KKK. And, of course, this was a man heavily invested in birtherism, asserting the president was born in Africa, not in the United States. It’s ironic that in the very speech asking what minorities have to lose, he pits African Americans against immigrants. And let’s not forget his shout-out at a California rally: “Look at my African American.”

Glossary: Key memes, counterfactuals, dog-whistles, canards, euphemisms, fake outrages and obsessions in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, August 2-12, 2016

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artificial: government regulations or price controls or anything that inhibits the pure, natural functioning of Mr. Market. Always an innovation killer and jobs/growth inhibitor. One notable area of the effects of artificial barriers to economic growth are the environmental rules, zoning laws and building restrictions that plague the housing market.

the Constitution: null and voice starting Jan 20, 2017 if Hillary is elect3d.

demonizing police officers: criticizing their conduct.

economic distortions: corporate taxes.

justice: law, order, and safety at home. In his convention acceptance speech, Trump seemed to conflate justice (a Rawlesian combination of equality and liberty) with law and order and political suppression. A particularly Orwellian passage indiscriminantly equated justice, progress, an enhanced police state, economic prosperity and “The American People” (all capitalized):

Our goal is justice for every American. If we are to have respect for law in America, we must have laws that deserve respect. Just as we cannot have progress without order, we cannot have order without progress, and so, as we commit to order tonight, let us commit to progress.

The American People will come first once again. My plan will begin with safety at home – which means safe neighborhoods, secure borders, and protection from terrorism. There can be no prosperity without law and order. On the economy, I will outline reforms to add millions of new jobs and trillions in new wealth that can be used to rebuild America.

Apparently anyone who disagrees with these false equivalencies and glib causal chains is not entitled to be part of “The American People.”

going fetal: what the police do when their hands are tied by DOJ oversight, which punishes the police rather than rewarding them. In Tea Party/GOP logic, the answer is less policing, not better policing. Police passive resistance and work slowdowns are just another form of their abuse of power.

lies: Trump’s form of marketing, as explained by the WSJ’s Holman Jenkins:

He tells an excitable part of the electorate what it wants to hear, on guns, trade and immigration. When you tell the public untruths, in Mr. Trump’s understanding of business, that’s marketing.

pussies: Democrats and liberals, according to Clint Eastwood.

selective smear: any Obama administration report critical of the police, restrictive voting rights laws, or financial industry misconduct.

They: anyone not supporting Donald Trump, especially the media. A fifth-column.

unaccountable, unelected officials: any Obama agencies or appointees. In GOP administrations, they are simply called “Dept of Justice” officials or whatever.

 

Glossary: Key memes, counterfactuals, dog-whistles, canards, euphemisms, fake outrages and obsessions in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, July 28-August 1, 2016

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Birkenstock and Granola Wing: Bernie supporters among the Dems. Aka, composters and tree-huggers. These golden nuggets from at least 25 years ago come courtesy of Karl Rove, who, ironically, seems stuck in the past while all the while belittling Hillary as a possible agent pf change.

community activist: any prosecutor who brings charges against the police. (see “rush to judgment,” below)

courts working as they should: judicial outcomes supported by the Tea Party/GOP. (see “rush to judgment, below)

Europeanizing: Obama’s weakening America by cutting the military in the name of social redistribution programs. It doesn’t seem to matter that the defense budget has grown under Obama, since he has only slowed the rate of growth. (see “public utilities, below).

failure: a matter of personal choice.

governing: about attitude, rather than experience, practicality, evidence, or reasoning. Anything that stokes tribalism, fear, and hatred fuels the Trumpinistas’ aim of political tyranny and endemic political repression.

gutting the First Amendment: any restraints on campaign financing.  Any weakening of Citizens United puts the government in charge of who precisely can speak in elections. This hyperbole works by setting up a black vs. white dichotomy: either unregulated spending (and thus unregulated speech) or totally controlled spending and speech. Thus attempts to keep big money out of politics and bring more transparency to political spending get reduced to a totalitarian clampdown on free speech.

hard-working: white.

increased minimum wage: surefire way to increase youth crime and gang activity. This classically counter-intuitive GOP/Tea Party claim is held aloft by supposition and  correlation: the unsupported assumption that higher wages lead to greatly increased youth unemployment.

public utilities: under Obama, any sector of the economy subject to federal regulation. For example, the banks are now answerable to the government first. There doesn’t seem to be any middle ground in GOP/Tea Party ideology between no regulation and total regulation.

rush to judgment: any brutality charges brought against the police.

uninformed: anyone under 30 who votes against the Tea Party/GOP.

Glossary: Key memes, counterfactuals, dog-whistles, canards, euphemisms, fake outrages and obsessions in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, July 21-25, 2016

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America’s best days are behind us: according to Hillary Clinton, adhering to the Obama status quo of no growth or slow growth. This is a straw-man argument if there ever was one: no politician would ever argue that America is a has-been country.

the art of the deal: a zero-sum game.

campaign contribution financial disclosure: harassment and intimidation.

desert: what the real Americans have coming to them again: respect and opportunity. (See “respect,” below.). Migrants, liberals, the “pc” crowd, the media elite, etc. all have gotten respect they don’t deserve. This assertion of entitlement is however based on a fabled country that, paradoxically, at once has passed and never existed in the first place. Trump’s cruel conjuring trick is to summon the djinn of  hope to people who need anything but magical thinking and a false messiah.

elitist:  the default attitudinal starting point  of any Dem argument against Tea Party/GOP ideas. By definition, Tea Party opponents are not only wrong but “othered” as effete, condescending fools. “Elite” here doesn’t refer to quality, but to attitude: they only think they’re better than everyone else, but there is nothing distinguishing about them except their smug ignorance of how the world really works.

grating: Hillary ‘s voice any time she opens her pie-hole. Aka, “shouting,” “hectoring” and “scolding”.

gutting: what Dems want to do to the First and Second Amendments–see “muzzling, ” below.

justice: law and order. On the surface, Trump’s invocation of the need for law and order seems self-evident.  But, rather than being reassuring and inclusive, in Trump’s hands, “law and order” becomes threatening, ominous and divisive. The “order” Trump refers to is the old order of white privilege, and his “law” is Old Testament law, based on outrage, retribution and revenge. Old Testament law and desert are unaccommodated things without the restorative cure of New Testament love and healing.

mocking: the Dem elites’ attitude toward average Americans. Every Dem criticism of Tea Party dogma is  a case of “mocking, “moralizing” or talking down.”

muzzling. Any Dem attempt at campaign finance reform. The pc crowd wants to muzzle free speech.

progress: part of Donald Trump’s vision of order:

Our goal is justice for every American. If we are to have respect for law in America, we must have laws that deserve respect. Just as we cannot have progress without order, we cannot have order without progress, and so, as we commit to order tonight, let us commit to progress.

respect: Donald Trump’s promise to those who feel marginalized or dispossessed that they will get their country back. As David Frum argues,

Trump’s country is divided in a different way: between those who have lost a status they deserved—and those who have gained a status they do not deserve.

restless: what the blue-collar voters are this year, which is why Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan are in play.

 servant: what Donald Trump will be to “the people,” of whom he is the “voice.” More likely is that he is the puppet-master and his followers the puppets, being jerked around by a phony populist (a so-called “blue collar billionaire”) and someone pretending to not be political.

speaking from the heart: Trump’s straight-ahead, ‘tell it like it is” style that differentiates him from”the politicians” and their “political correctness.” Actually a euphemism for Trump’s unfiltered vendettas and racist, sexist or xenophobic insults. As Virginia Heffernan puts it in the NY Times,  “Casting Mr. Trump’s incitements to xenophobia and violence as heartfelt evidently makes them slightly less terrifying,” going on to add:

It’s become impossible for Mr. Trump’s supporters to lend reason or logic to his vendettas, daft misogyny, thoroughgoing racism and bloodlust. Instead, they advertise it as lovable.

theory: Dems’ “facts.” In John Oliver’s already-classic characterization, in which Trump supporters claim that candidates can create feelings,  feelings are as valid as facts,and thus candidates can create facts.

unelected judges: those appointed by Dems. Any Tea Party/GOP (unelected) appointees are called just that, never “unelected.” This rhetorical sleight-of-hand implies that Dem picks are always elitist and not the will of the people. This flirts with the argument that such judges are illegitimate because they are “unaccountable.”

unleashing innovation: the free market unleashed, the animal spirits of capitalism, unabated creative destructionism. But when has innovation ever been leashed? More likely is that fraud, greed, and

the very survival of the American Dream: imperiled by Hillary. Part of the apocalyptic , hyperbolic, baleful rhetoric of the 2016 GOP Convention.

 

 

Glossary: Key memes, counterfactuals, dog-whistles, canards, euphemisms, fake outrages and obsessions in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, July 15-19, 2016

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Black Lives Matter: anarchy and thuggishness.

contest of ideas: The ascendancy and domination of Tea Party rhetoric. This favorite phrase of Paul Ryan’s appears to champion free debate, with the best ideas winning out. In But there actually is no debate in the sense of presenting evidence and counter arguments, only dismissal of  straw-man liberal ideas. Nothing is “contested” because the fix is in.

haters: Trump’s critics. As Wesley Morris recently argued  in the New York Times:

Trump has taken “hater” further than any rapper, because he’s attained a power no rapper’s ever had. He can exploit the concept of hateration against investigative journalism, the legal system, pollsters, facts and establishment Republicans, while also being a practicing hater who can deflect the charge by making haters of his critics. He’s rubber; the rest of us are glue.

identitarians: see “race realists”, below.

justified: what the police are called when they are exonerated for committing “justifiable” homicide when killing unarmed or retrained suspects. These killings are judged to have been “by the book.” Why is it then that Hillary Clinton is not considered exonerated, or her acts “justified,” even when she is cleared by the FBI, Congressional committees, special prosecutors, etc., thus in essence determined to have gone “by the book” in terms of the rule of law?

kababs: Muslims. Aka, “rat people”.

national decline: the erosion of family values, patriotism,  respect for the sanctity of life, sexual restraint, etc. (see “personal character,” below). Also, America’s loss of respect around the world.

Negroid gun thieves: Black Lives Matter. Prehistoric cop killers.

persecution: (see “haters,” above). The establishment’s default attitude toward Trump.  Trump, acting as the persecuted, actually becomes the persecutor; posing as the victim, he becomes the bully; posing as the wronged, he becomes the avenging man on the white horse setting things right. Playing what Bill Maher calls the “whiny little bitch,” he becomes the attack dog, the insult king.

personal character: a rapidly declining quality, thanks to attitudes of victimhood, therapeutically-induced  self-justification, sloth, “identity” politics, political correctness, etc. Goes part and parcel with “national decline” (see above.)

public health threats: pornography, according to the GOP  Platform. Somehow, though, coal mining, carbon emissions, and military assault rifles are not considered threats to public health.

race realists: white supremacists.

socialist statist collectivism: life and rule under the ObamaClinton regime.

thugs:  both black teenagers and government; “thuggish government” is a redundancy, much like “legitimate government powers” is an oxymoron.

Glossary: Key memes, counterfactuals, dog-whistles, canards, euphemisms, fake outrages and obsessions in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, July 8-14, 2016

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above the law: the Clintons. Especially when ‘the law”–that is, the FBI, the Attorney General, Congressional investigations–find no criminal wrongdoing by the Clintons, they are considered guilty. There is no room in this moral universe for innocence.

Amexit: the withdrawal of America from global leadership under President Obama.

animus against police: any criticism of policing practices. This hatred of the police has led to falsehoods about police violence, and made it open season on police officers.

Black Lives Matter: inherently racist and anti-American. According to Rudi Guiliani, parents ought  to  tell their kids to fear black protestors rather than fear the police.

bribes and payoffs: any donation made to the Clinton Foundation. Any contribution, no matter how used or how intended, is thus considered guilty until proven innocent.

chaos: the result of “corrosive rhetoric” (see below). See also “disrupter,” below. Somehow, through the alchemy of rhetoric, Trump can get away with being perceived as a “disrupter” of the status quo, but Dems’ calls for political or social reform inevitably  lead to “chaos”.

civilization vs. chaos: what’s at stake when the police are unfairly criticized in “relentless” attacks. (See  also “corrosive rhetoric,” “Black Lives Matter,” and “animus against police”). Note the false dichotomy thus created: there is no middle ground between accepting police brutality and criticizing it. Any criticism of the police starts you down the moral slippery slope to “chaos” .

corrosive rhetoric: any mention of race or any criticism of the police.

cosmopolitan America: the sneering coastal elites who mock and devalue Flyover America. Donald Trump is the candidate of Flyover America.

disruption: Trump’s brand: the Lord of Misrule. When the Dems talk about expanded environmental regulations, women’s health services (including abortion), police restraint, background checks on gun ownership, family leave, etc–that is, any domestic programs that would disrupt the status quo–they aren’t praised as disrupters, but condemned as being “politically correct.”

Liberal racism: the racially divisive, politically correct rhetoric that is killing people. As explained in The American Spectator:

Liberal dogma requires that no matter what terrorist act or crime is committed the motivation of the perpetrator — if it is a black person, a Muslim, or any other protected minority — cannot be stated truthfully. That rule is obeyed even when it is obvious that the motivation is religion, race hatred, or politics.

Thus this p.c. rhetoric becomes the master trope connecting all news stories over the past eight years:

From Henry Louis Gates’s arrest to five assassinated cops in Dallas is a chain of events caused by eight years of racially divisive liberalism. That liberalism, expressed in politically correct rhetoric, abandonment of the rule and letter of the law, has torn our social contract to shreds. Everything from Hillary’s escape from criminal prosecution to the Dems’ insistence that gun control is the answer to mass murder is traceable to that single cause.

inflammatory rhetoric: any mention of race.

moral condescension: the hallmark of the liberal ruling class: contempt for the lumpen proletariat. Having a moral position at all opposed to Tea Party doctrine makes someone a self-righteous, moralistic hypocrite, just as merely bringing up the subject of race makes one a racist.

political correctness: not being right, but being hypocritical and blindly doctrinaire. Should actually be called lockstep or knee-jerk ideology.

postmodern progressives: moral anarchists, totalitarian to the core. For postmodern progressives, seemingly unobjectionable concepts such as justice, inclusiveness, diversity, and equality are actually barely-disguised wills to power. (see “moral condescension,” above.)

rigged: the only reason Hillary wasn’t indicted is because the liberal elites have “rigged the system” to protect her. There is a sinister media conspiracy to prop up the liberal state, based on its sense of moral superiority and the resultant condescension (see above). Nearly every elected official is part of this “rigged” system–only Donald Trump is telling the truth. Meanwhile, back in the real world, the real rigging: gerrymandering,  restricted voters’ rights laws, bailouts of Wall Street and the big banks–goes on unimpeded and even celebrated.

 

Glossary: Key memes, counterfactuals, dog-whistles, canards, euphemisms, fake outrages and obsessions in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, June 29-July 7, 2016

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anti-trade: pro worker. As Paul Krugman argues, this is the the ultimate Trump sleight-of-hand, part of his phony populism:

No matter what we do on trade, America is going to be mainly a service economy for the foreseeable future. If we want to be a middle-class nation, we need policies that give service-sector workers the essentials of a middle-class life. This means guaranteed health insurance — Obamacare brought insurance to 20 million Americans, but Republicans want to repeal it and also take Medicare away from millions. It means the right of workers to organize and bargain for better wages — which all Republicans oppose. It means adequate support in retirement from Social Security — which Democrats want to expand, but Republicans want to cut and privatize.

Is Mr. Trump for any of these things? Not as far as anyone can tell. And it should go without saying that a populist agenda won’t be possible if we’re also pushing through a Trump-style tax plan, which would offer the top 1 percent huge tax cuts and add trillions to the national debt.

Sorry, but adding a bit of China-bashing to a fundamentally anti-labor agenda does no more to make you a friend of workers than eating a taco bowl does to make you a friend of Latinos.

debt: the key to success, according to Trump, the self-styled “Kine of Debt”. Apparently, though, US government debt and trade deficits are not OK, so Trump wants it both ways.

dishonest: what the media is whenever they claim Trump is lying. Thus, by definition, Trump is incapable of lying and the media is incapable of honesty–it’s all part of the “rigged” system.

Freddie-Franny Clintonite crowd: the crony capitalists who get rich by pushing sub-prime loans onto unsuspecting minority borrowers, and then bail each other out when the loans go belly-up. These were also the instigators of the 2008 market crash. To the Tea Party, anyone who advocates non-discriminatory loan practices for minorities falls into this category.

gradualism: Obama’s foreign policy; aka capitulation, disengagement, surrender, appeasement. The opposite of gradual is Trump’s threatened sudden and tumultuous changes to the world order.

pay-for-play: the Clinton way of governing, always maximizing privilege, power, and class.

political correctness run amok: lefty charges of Trump’s racism, sexism or anti-semitism  Even though Trump re-tweets these memes from proto-fascist and white supremacist websites, he’ll take the tweets down when criticized and then take credit for being such a steadfast champions of “the blacks,” the “Jews,” etc. This is a classic rhetorical ploy of innuendo and dog-whistle to his base–it’s all between the lines and has built-in plausible deniability. The fact that it keeps happening though, and that the material is always lifted from these heinous websites and web forums seems like proof that the Trump campaign knows exactly what it’s doing.

puritanical alarmism: any opposition to Trump. It’s called “puritanical” because liberals are characterized as being sanctimonious and hypocritical, pretending as they do to only noble, lofty ideals and censoring Trump for any of his foibles or failures. It’s called “alarmism” because Trump is not nearly the threat to civilization that they make him out to be. This works so well rhetorically because any criticism of Trump is deflected as being “alarmist”. It’s akin to calling Hillary “hysterical” whenever she speaks at all stridently about Trump.

race baiting: bringing up the subject of race, since racism is officially over in the US, according to the Supreme Court in Obergfell. Accusations of racism are the instinctive and cynical Dem response to any Tea Party candidate or policy. This rhetorical ploy turns any race-baiting Tea Partiers into the victim, and astonishingly talks about the GOP/Tea Party as the true home of Blacks and Hispanics, even though the party is against affirmative action, does everything it can to suppress minority voting rights, defends mass imprisonment of minorities and police violence against minorities. tries to get every social safety net program whenever possible, supports elitist white charter schools, etc. Here’s a typical counter-intuitive rant that turns the world upside down:

For too many years Republicans have acted helpless in the face of Democrats scapegoating us as racist.  Because we are then rejected by blacks, we allow Dems to claim that we are against blacks.  In reality, it is our values and our policies that would benefit blacks, while Democrat policies destroy them.  Blacks who join Republican or Tea Party ranks are welcomed with almost delirious enthusiasm.  We would love blacks to join us in our defense of freedom and prosperity for all, but scapegoating works.  We have let ourselves be marginalized as racists.

reckless: crooked Hillary has also become reckless Hillary, lacking the judgement to be President. Thus the Clinton Derangement Syndrome makes yet another pivot, as explained in the Financial Times:

Clinton scandals never end. They continue long after their purported original sin is forgotten and multiple investigations prove that there was nothing much there to begin with. We are still talking about the Vince Foster scandal, the allegation that the Clintons murdered their aide in 1993. That scandal is now into a third decade of groundless innuendo.

The email inquiry is a perfect example of this scandal-industrial complex and its capacity for perpetual motion.

resilience: deregulation, particularly in the financial sector. A resilient, robust economy releases the animal spirits, the unseen hand of the market–constraints removed, Atlas Unchained!

rights: constitutional rights, not human rights. Constitutional rights, like the right to bear arms, or the right to do whatever you want in the name of your religion,  are sacred, whereas human rights, like the right to health care, or the right to be free from discrimination, are not.