Category Archives: rhetoric

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, euphemisms, sneers, and innuendos in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, March 2-8, 2014

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bullying: what Obama does when he “plays” various moral cards: the “race card,” the “class warfare” card, the “inequality” card. Morality is thus characterized as a preening, elitist Democratic power grab.

Carterized: the sad, inevitable fate of Obama’s foreign policy. Turning the US into a “pitiful, helpless giant.” (see below under “feckless, etc.)

dark money: any unregulated Dem campaign funding. On the other hand, Koch Brothers’ money is called “free speech. and even granted personhood.

faculty lounges: the Devil’s spawning ground.

feckless: a Carerized White House foreign policy. Aka, “flat-footed,” “deer-in-the-headlights,” “dithering”, “clueless” and “flaccid.”

jackbooted bureaucracy: mandatory modifier when referring to the IRS.

market-ready: the primary, proper, and very circumscribed role of government is to make the poor “market ready”– that is, make them even more subject to the forces that have made and kept them poor over the centuries.

neutering: what the “Carterized” Obama does to our military.

oppression envy: what gay rights activists suffer from, wishing they had suffered more “systematic, Jim-Crow-style oppression.”

organized homosexuality: the proper name for gay rights activism.

payola: any government funding o green technology initiatives. In fact, the entire alternative energy sector has been reduced to the buzzword Solyndra.

restricting good citizenship: any opposition to GOP state electoral reforms and voting rights limitations.

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. other oldies-but-goodies that have emerged included satrap, atavistic, and vassal state.

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, euphemisms, sneers, and innuendos in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, Feb 23-March 1, 2014

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asset bubble: what a market rally is called when there’s a democratic President.

climate alarmism: the Chicken Littleization of the climate change “debate”.

cultural pressure and insistence:  the Obama admin’s relentless war on traditional, middle-class values. A fancy label for “political correctness”.

dithering: a mandatory modifier for any Dem foreign policy.

decay: the general malaise Obama has mired America in; the result of “cultural pressue and insistence” (see above).  The slow moral rot of the US.

disquisitions: scolding, grandiose Obamaseque pomposities. Lately, the target has been “disquisitions on inequality”.

gender complementarian norm: a fancy-sounding name for marriage between a man and a woman.

host: new GOP synonym for a pregnant woman.

hounding: what any government agency–especially the IRS–does when it enforces regulations, especially against Republicans.

hysteria and misinformation: the by-product of “cultural pressure and insistence” (see above). Whatever arguments and facts Dems muster in any given “debate,” such as this week’s Arizona brouhaha over “religious liberty”.

matriarchal leviathan: the intensifying modifier gives birth to a new monster: Big Mother rather than Big Brother

mischief: the overall effect of Obama’s policies and reforms (aka, “fiats”). All regulations and taxes are seen as “mischief,” as if Obama is Dennis The Menace.

privilege: mistakenly confused for accomplishment by liberals.

sacramentalizing sodomy: GOPspeak for any sex except for missionary-position hetero.

socialism: the secret creed of the Obama administration, closely allied to fascism.

trampling: what liberals always seem to do to religious freedom, especially in the recent Arizona fracas. Inevitably leads to “hysteria and misinformation”–see above.

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, euphemisms, sneers, and innuendos in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, Feb 15-22, 2014

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bitter seeds of anger and mistrust: any talk of race, economic inequality or social justice (see also0 “race hustler,” below)

costly (or “gold-platted) medical coverage benefits: mandatory modifier for any ACA-mandated coverage or standards. The ACA must always be called either “costly” or “gold-plated”.

dignity, standards, and judgement: all the qualities lacking in Obama.A perfect trifecta of character defects.

diversion: the Dem’s’ “war on the rich”. Just as discussion of race become “playing the race card,” any discussion of wealth inequality becomes diversionary “class warfare”. The irony of course is that the GOP use of these prophylactic terms becomes a speech act embodying and encouraging the very thing it is accusing the Democrats of promulgating: racism and classism.

entreprenurial federalism: the latest euphemism for playing desperate state governments against in another as a way of wringing out concessions on taxes, regulations, labor laws, pensions, etc. The Democrats call this “the race to the bottom”.

holocaust denial: the new false equivalency for “climate change denial”.

market uncertainty: the mere threat of new taxes or regulations supposedly spooks the business community more than anything else, and stops them from investing in new products, factories, or hiring. “Market certainty” is a kind of imaginary equilibrium, almost surely one of those chimeras, utopias or phantoms of the mind, such as “perfect socialism” or “unfettered free markets” or perptetual motion machines.

the Miles Per Gallon Illusion: “when consumers don’t realize that increasing fuel economy for 15 mpg to 20 mpg saves much more than going from 45-to-50 mpg because the former increase represents a much larger percentage”. Of course, going from 20-50-mpg would be an even bigger percentage.

morass of consequences: the wreckage caused by any Dem policy or law.

powerful: mandatory modifier for  “teachers’ union”.

race-hustler: any Democrat who talks about racial inequality, discrimination, voting rights, or the criminal justice system. The mere act of bringing up race is now called “playing the race card,” but also calling Eric Holder a “race hustler” connotes criminality and deception.

retreat: any Obama foreign policy initiative that doesn’t immediately threaten invasion, coup, meddling or sanctions.

the “so-called” rich: Anyone worth less than $5 million. They also call it envy, but we should actually pity these people because they are so mislabeled as they struggle to pay for their second homes or cruises.

statist: what the GOP calls the Democrats, as in Big Brother. A stand-in word for dictatorial or authoritarian.

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, euphemisms, sneers, and innuendoes in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, Feb 8-14, 2014.

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artiste in search of his muse: (aka, “the butterfly guy”) Krauthammerspeak for anyone with a new health care policy who thus can finally give up a hated job and pursue other paths. Overnight, having an ACA health insurance policy became, in GOP talk, a scarlet badge of shame, a ripoff of America. People with health insurance are suddenly a new generation of Obamacare “poverty pimps”.

assault: (see also “runaway,” below): any Democratic policy initiative, as in “Bill Blassio’s assault on so-called ‘progressive’ unions”.

the dignity of work: Ryanspeak for relegating people to non-living-wage jobs with no benefits, day care, consistent hours or workplace safety enforcement. The hope for a decent human life, in other words, gets turned into what is sneeringly referred to as an “entitlement” (now transmuted from what is due someone based on their human dignity to a “handout” to “the takers”).

dynamism: can only be nurtured by free markets, deregulation, lower taxes, the end of environmental protection laws, etc.

industrial-age unions: the new epithet/slur for unions, akin to “trial lawyers”.

the new opportunity society: a nation of Obamacare-enabled freeloaders (aka, “parasites”).

“Progressivism”:  the emerging rhetorical strategy seems to be to always cloak this word in fright quotes as shorthand for saying that old-fashioned Progressives are really regressive, and are launching all the “wars” (see below) on progress.

runaway: any Dem policy initiative, such as “runaway regulatory reform”. Anything the GOP can’t stop.

teachers’ unions: now directly being blamed for poverty and inequality because of their “war” (see below) on charter schools and education reform.

war on….: a war on jobs, a war on small business, a war on the health care system, a war on America’s international influence and prestige, a war on economic recovery, a war on energy independence, a war on the Constitution, a war on educational reform, and a war on minorities. The mother of all wars is The War on Truth.

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, euphemisms, sneers, and innuendoes in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, Feb 4–7, 2014.

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abortion: now rhetorically relabeled as an iniquitous “inequality”.

assortative mating: one of the reasons the poor stay poor, and why redistributionists are now called antimarriagists.

bonanzas: free trade pacts, Keystone, etc. Always treated as if there are no downsides, externalities, trade-offs, etc. Jobs, jobs, jobs.

“capitalists”: having some to see that this is now a pejorative term, GOPers are now starting to put it in scare quotes, as if to say, we aren’t mean old unfeeling capitalists, we’re just warm and fuzzy “job creators”.

cocoon: previously known as that benign, benighted thing called “the social safety net”, but now seen as a refuge for ne’re do-wells.

envy: the bedrock emotion underlying any calls for social justice or redistribution.

flake socialist: the new mandatory description of Mayor De Blassio.

the grown-ups in the room: in Congress, anyone opposing Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi. The “grown-ups” are the only people you can “trust”.

“losing your job”: exactly what the CBO appendix in their Obamacare report did NOT say people were doing. On the contrary, people are giving up some or all of their jobs in some instances because health care (or, rather, the fear of losing health insurance),  no longer has the power make cowards of us all.

the New Class: rich and highly-educated people who didn’t vote Republican.

Obamafascism: No wonder they’re engaging in Perkins’ version of Krystallnacht. Also refers to the “mobs” who are giving Wall Street “the pitchfork treatment”.

parasitic and malignant: bureaucrats, who are also always modified by the adjective “stifling”.

political pluralism: the kind of inclusive, consensus building that the Obama admin supposedly has by-passed in all of its “imperial” hauteur. When the GOP says pluralism, though, they mean just always getting their way–their way to “compromise”.

wealth-shaming: see “envy”, above.

the workers’ party: the latest laughable GOP effort at re-branding. This time they align themselves with the workers because they want to do away with Obamacare, workplace safety, environmental regulation, financial reform and union rights–all of which are, of course, “job-killers”.

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, euphemisms, sneers, and innuendoes in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, Jan. 30–Feb 3, 2014.

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America’s calming presence: it’s worked so well in Iraq and Afghanistan–both part of the new Pax Americana.

bureaucrats: formerly known as public servants. Always an invidious condemnation in GOP rhetoric.

democratic freedoms: invoked as being endangered any time Democrats call for new laws on guns, voting rights, right to life, women’s health care, or campaign finance. (See “rights, liberty and justice”, below).

efforts to improve competition: any GOP reform that shield business from competition, regulation, scrutiny, or litigation.

evidence-based science:  any study that undercuts the ‘theory” of climate change. Doesn’t matter what the quality of the evidence is, just that there be the whiff of some.

extreme and muddled beliefs: climate change, women’s rights, voting rights, financial and environmental regulation, workplace safety, Endangered Species Act, immigration amnesty. “Extremism” is always portrayed as “muddled”, as in not clear or “rational”.

green indulgence: any environmental protection regulations or legislation. “Indulgence” does double rhetorical duty here, suggesting both naivete (as in indulging a child), and a nefarious payoff.

imperial presidency: Any attempt by Obama to act by executive order. Never mind that he has issued fewer executive orders or signing statements than any recent President.

private investment: doing anything to undermine this is always absolutely unacceptable.

protectionism (and poison pills): labor rights and woprkplace safety, environmental laws, minimum wage, childhood labor laws.

rationally balancing risks and benefits: hint: in this “rational” exercise, the benefits of deregulation always outweigh the risks. When the GOP uses the word “rational,” they have their thumb on the scale.

reform:  used to mean protection against harmful effects of unfettered capital markets, now, in GOP/Tea Party parlance, means removing those protections.

rights, liberty and justice: the core sustaining rhetoric of the libertarian-leaning, “don’t tread on me”  Right. Includes “freedom from” being told what to do and “freedom to” do whatever you want. No implicit sense of obligation, communitarianism or social contract. The “justice” dimension is derived from getting what is due you, not from a Rawlsian theory of distributed and balanced outcomes. Sometimes called “democratic freedoms”.

sacrifice: what the GOP pays lip service to but only the poor and middle class seem to actually have to make.

unilateral action: any Obama policy; the only way an “Imperial President” can govern.

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, euphemisms, sneers, and innuendoes in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, New Year’s edition, January, 2014.

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agitprop: any Democractic policy statement or any op-ed piece criticizing Tea Party positions. Anything the Dems say is propaganda; anything the Tea Party says is public policy and common sense.

anticapitalists: environmentalists.

card: any Democratic moral position. Always a cynical ploy, as in “playing the race card”. which currently characterized as being in the same suit and hand as other Democratic “cards”: fairness, victimhood, equality, justice. Away to demean all of these moral claims, and demote them to self-serving propaganda status.

civic courtesy: the indecent lack of grace Democrats exhibit every time they criticize the GOP.

consequences: often used by the GOP as a pejorative term for outcomes. “Consequences” are almost always connoted as negative–as in the phrase, “truth or consequences”. Thus, for example, the ACA is said to have nothing but “negative consequences,” whereas tax cuts have nothing but stimulative effects and positive economic outcomes.

cooperation: the new euphemism for competition.

crowd: any Democratic or liberal advocacy group,  always a nefarious, corrupt, and self-serving. e.g.: “the global warming crowd”.

disincentivizing: the overall effect of any government aid programs the GOP opposes, from unemployment benefits to food stamps. Government “handouts” are the opposite of the only force known to truly incentivize: the “free” market. Only regulation and social welfare are holding back a truly Darwinian social, moral and economic golden age.

envy: the main motivating force behind any attempts to raise taxes, regulate markets, bring charges or fines against financial institutions, or offer any form of social welfare.

favoritism:  the main motivating force for any policies helping unions and teachers. Tax breaks for Big Oil, on the other hand, are seen as neutral or even rational ways to stimulate the “free” market.

gambit: any Democratic policy initiative. Dem public policy is always propagandistic, thus nothing but a ploy.

gliding:  the aloof, “lazy” trait of Obama (when he isn’t actively trying to overturn the capitalist system). In foreign policy, Obama is said to be “gliding” when he refrains from potentially counter-productive  interventions, as in “leading from behind”. In political policy terms. he is accused of this whenever he defers to Congress, takes a vacation, or uses any of the perks of office.

hand wringing: any criticism of aggressive, interventionist foreign policy, or of any “sentimental” attempts to help the poor or needy.

lesser mortals: always used sneeringly in reference to Obama’s  hauteur. Obama is always accused of aloofly “talking down” to us “lesser mortals” whenever he makes a moral assertion, especially when pointing out inequalities. Synonyms in this word family include aloof, grandiose, preening, and arrogant.

moral relativism: a perennial GOP rhetorical meme, still employed to attack government policies protecting free speech, religious diversity, and human rights. Thus, for example, the so-called “War on Christmas” is seen as a leveling attempt at relativism, whereas Christmas itself is an absolute–just as Santa is, of course, a white man. The current debate over mandating birth control insurance coverage by Catholic  employers is also contextualized as a form of moral relativism, as if a belief in a woman’s right to choose is not a “moral” position.

narcissism: one of academia’s main character traits, (along with “an obsession with victimhood” and the drive to reduce everything to race and class politics). Rhetorically linked to “moral relativism”. What society’s “takers”are indulging in when they try to redress “oppression”.

rogue: an adjective used to describe any deviation from Tea Party orthodoxy.

steadfast resistance, refusal: any principled moral stand on an issue opposed by Democrats. Called recalcitrance or a “gambit” or “hand wringing” or “agitprop” when the Dems do it.

unrestrained growth:   a very bad thing when it comes to things the GOp opposes (such as entitlements), but a very good thing when it comes to the “animal spirits” of corporate profits and unfettered market.

victimhood: said to be one of the main Dem rhetorical meme or “card” (as in, “the race card”).  Linked in a complex semantic web to “envy”, “redistribution, “oppression”, “grievance”, “obsession with race and class,” and “fairness”.

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, phrases and obsessions in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, Dec. 19-20, 2013

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big government:  any government. “Big” serves a mandatory modifier of neutral-sounding “government”. “Big government” leads to a “federal takeover” (see below); also is he opposite of “self government” (see below)

college education as an investment: the reductionist view of education that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. This is the wedge strategy for doing away with tenure, academic freedom, and the social sciences.

commitment: what Republicans value in sexual behavior. Democrats, on the other hand, prefer one-night stands, promiscuity and, and irresponsibility.

federal takeover: any government

guilt:  Obama’s core emotional appeal, said to be ” vast, vague, and unanswerable”, also insatiable. Always used derisively, as when belittling “crippling white guilt”. Without guilt, and its sense of moral obligation, no social mitigation of inequality is necessary.

honorable self-government:    Ideally the equivalent of no government in the perfect libertarian state in which individuals would be entirely self-determining.The modifier is a key part of this equation when it refers to states’ power (as opposed to federal power) because the states (or certain states) are inherently honorable and can be trusted with power.

identity politics: (see the “race, class and gender industry” entry, below). A card played whenever Dems address issues of social equity. When the GOP appeals, say, to Tea Partiers, it’s called “playing to the base.”

man’s work: timbering, mining, drilling

the political class: used derisively to refer to any democratic-leaning journalists or analysts.

the productive engines of the economy:  nurturing  (i.e., “coddling”) undermines these; only the “unfettered” free market releases these animal spirits. Overt attempts at equity or qwlfare re automatically defined as “unproductive”.

the race, class, and gender industry:  the social sciences in higher education. As if the only motive for addressing discrimination and inequality is an economic one.

reeducation:  In true Stalinist fashion, the technique the so-called liberal “thought police”  use to silent dissenters and force them into  ideological compliance.

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, phrases and obsessions in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, Dec. 16-17, 2013

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bureaucratic bloat: a redundancy, because, from the GOP perspective, government is inherently excessive, toxic, and unnecessary.

class warriors: anyone arguing for economic equality, equal opportunity, or the end of tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.

credibility and deterrence: everything the Obama/Kerry foreign policy lacks, no matter the content or the result. credibility comes from the barrel–or at least the direct threat–of a gun.

fawning: any pro-Obama editorial.

full-bore democracy: akin to “perfect Marxism,” a political ideology and practice not yet tried in America, due to liberal intransigence and re-distribution schemes. In a “full-bore” democracy, corporations are people, my friend, and corporate rights have precedence over human rights or civil rights.

half-truths, misdirections, puffery: any Obama policy statement. Everything the administration says is to be suspected of mendacity and subject to interrogration.

runaway spending: any spending; see “bloat”, above. The point is that Democrats have no self-control when it comes to government spending.

winners and losers: most characteristically used in the phrase “there are always going to be winners and losers”. A naturalizing phrase,  always used by the winners, to justify not helping the losers.

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, phrases and obsessions in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, Dec. 11-13, 2013

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corrosive: all-purpose intensifing adjective for all Dem policies, laws & initiatives; most often used to alliteratively modify “controls”.

famous: a term of derision and ironic deflation for a largely mythic Democratic claim, as in “the famous Keynesian multiplier”.

the Greater Good: in Ayn Randian terms, the pernicious and ludicrous shibboleth/fantasy that undermines individual initiative, self-interest, and success.

hammering: any Democratic attack on GOP laws, policies or politicians.

market pricing: whatever business can get away with–or, rather, could get away with if government restraints (“shackles”) were “unleashed”. This is of course a core mantra of the Right.

passivity: in foreign policy, anything short of boycotts, invasions, bombings or assassinations. Also used as a translation for “restraint,” which in foreign policy is always a euphemism for passivity.

stranglehold: any Democratic attempt to govern or legislate. Since total government, all the time, is seen as Obama’s ultimate aim, any domestic policy –be it health care, energy, financial regulation or education–is a smokescreen for a total power grab.

trample: what Obama’s policies do to human rights, the free market, personal liberty or religious freedom. Strangleholds are especially prone to trampling.

the war on men: The GOP answer to the Dem’s War on Women. Especially applicable to rape and sexual assault & harassment cases in which women’s testimony leads to conviction or censure.

Washington gimmicks and games: any Democratic political maneuvering or policy making. GOP law- and policy-making, on the contrary, is always transparent and based on bedrock principles of the free market and individual initiative. Note: “Washington” gimmicks are the most virulent kind; in general, “Washington” serves as a shorthand pejorative, much like “trial” in “trial lawyers”.