Category Archives: roles

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 10-13, 2016

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as someone who has a wife and a mother and is the father of three daughters:

Chivalry and patriarchy at work rhetorically. Men as protectors; women as property, only defined by their place in a man’s family.

beyond suspicious: all of Hillary’s behavior in the Benghazi and e-mail cover-ups. She is guilty as hell and all-but-convicted. As soon as Trump takes over the investigations, she will be imprisoned.

Rhetorically this is a ghostly wedge concept, suggesting absolute culpability without any proof, indictment, trial, convictions, etc. It is not the rule of law, but the rule of innuendo and surmise. It makes any defense of Hillary impossible, since she is clearly guilty. It is thus a form of circular logic.

citizen of the world: a citizen of nowhere. In a Hillary worldwide globalist dictatorship, US citizenship will be outlawed and only outlaws will call themselves American citizens.

the Constitution:  a self-authenticating document, to be adhered to, not “interpreted”.

More circular logic: since the Constitution is what it is and says what it means, and deviation from its original intent violates its integrity. Since there is no way to prove this assertion wrong, it is unverifiable and itself self-authenticating just by virtue of its own being.

healthy heterosexual: any male who boasts of sexual assault against women.

implicit bias: pc drivel. If Hillary is elected,  all white people will have to register for re-education classes and Stalinist self-criticism groups because they are inherently racist and don’t even know it!

media hysteria: any sustained examination of Trump; his taxes, his remarks about and treatment of women, his business practices, etc. The lamestream, government-run media only has two gears: full-on attack mode via manufactured stories that damage Trump, and full-on cover-up mode of stories that could damage Clinton.

moderator bias: asking Trump follow-up questions.

nation state: obsolete in the globalist dystopia that Hillary wants to bring about. Sjhe would end US sovereignty and  independence.

Trumpism heralds the return of Fortress America, the nation state as a bulwark against the tyranny of globalization, with all the swagger of protectionist authoritarianism.

neutral standards:  journalistic objectivity and restraint that results in analysis that is harmful to Hillary–as opposed to the government-run lamestream media’s so-called “fact checking,”which is just opinion-mongering and results in daily denunciations of Donald Trump. The liberal media has become a malignancy on the truth and destroyed any lingering sense of journalistic integrity.

offended female virtue: trumped up forms of hypocritical selective contempt.

politics and public service: like government, something to be despised. Public service is really just a euphemism for rent-seeking, social engineering government.

As Michael Gerson puts it: “This is what Republicans get for devaluing the calling of public service. When you have contempt for politics, you often get a politics worthy of contempt”.

swastika: a mere political symbol that “nervous nelly” liberals get hysterical about if spotted at a Trump rally.

 

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 5-9, 2016

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broad-shouldered: Donald Trump’s “muscular” foreign policy.

Other pertinent adjectives: ruthless, brutal, nationalistic, militaristic

genius: anyone who evades federal income taxes.

If Trump is such a genius, why doesn’t he release all of his tax returns? Why did he conceal his “genius” moves until he was forced to defend them?  Also, what kind of a “genius” loses a billion dollars a year owning casinos?

government: an antidemocratic institution.

This anti-government rhetoric is part of the stupendous national disillusionment that the  Tea Party/GOP represents.

immigration: genocide against the white race.

melting pot:  America is a melting pot, not a salad bowl. Anyone wanting citizenship should assimilate, not elbow their way to the front or think they deserve special treatment. They should get in line and enter the country legally., and not play the “identity” politics game. If they want to be an American they should act and sound like one, and have an American name, not some politicized hyphenated or phony-accented name.

This version of what it means to be an American is a nostalgic , moralistic utopianism. Its greatest delusion is that it is objective and non-ideological. It is the hypocritical universalism that is the luxury of the dominant.

narrow party interests: no longer national interests at least when it comes  to the Dems, who will say and do anything to retain the White House, regardless of how much they harm the country with debacles such as Obamacare, the Iran deal, the Russian “reset”, etc.

Obamacare: the rich subsidizing health care for the poor. Part of the Obama-Clinton master plan for hollowing out the middle class and pandering to the poor in exchange for their votes.

objective morality:  killed off by the liberal notion of moral relativism.

In defense of the indefensible Trumpian license for sexual assault, the standard line of defense goes something like this:

The creep of moral relativism in America has been steady for many decades, increasing in speed to the point that the “slouching toward Gomorrah” has become a sprint. The notion that there is objective truth or absolute morality has been universally panned to the point that everything is tolerated except standards of right and wrong. “Everyone decides for himself what is right, especially when it comes to sex” is the mantra of today’s culture.

For years, Christians in particular have been attacked and silenced as they’ve tried to challenge the immorality that is pervasive in today’s society. When they tell people casual sex is wrong, they get the inevitable, “You have no right to tell me what I can or can’t do.” If they oppose sexual immorality in any form, including adultery, they’re maligned as sanctimonious puritans by lovers of libertinism.

How ironic, then, that a culture which rejects moral standards has suddenly become so pure and pristine, sitting in judgment of someone they deem too immoral to become president because of something he said in private. As a logical person, I have to ask these paragons of newly found virtue where this standard by which they’ve judged Trump is found.

A logical person might conclude that bragging about sexual assault falls within the confines of disqualifying a Presidential candidate on moral grounds, unless the Dems believe that all behavior is permissible. Undaunted, though, in full-on rant mode, these vestiges of the worst strains of censorious American puritanism  conclude:

The fact of the matter is that Judeo-Christian ethics have been driven from our culture and declared a dinosaur from an ancient past. Right and wrong, virtue, morality, goodness—these have been rejected in pop culture, our education system, the media, and politics. We have been told repeatedly that character doesn’t matter because everyone’s values are different. All that matters is an ideological agenda and the power that goes with it.

race, class, and gender: the three Dem pander cards, played whenever they get cornered.

realpolitik: hands-on, muscular  (see “broad-shouldered, above) foreign policy, as opposed to what Charles Krauthammer calls Obama/Clinton’s “pristine and preening disengagement”.

sexual equality: Trump’s “boys will be boys” defense.

It’s OK for Trump to be  a sexual deviant because Bill Clinton is one too.

transnationalism: the Obama-Clinton foreign policy default position that cedes US foreign policy to law professors and global organizations such as the UN and the EU.  The end of American exceptionalism because no nation is allowed to impose its will on others.

truth-telling: Donald Trump is not the average lying politician –he tells it like it is, regardless of what is politically correct.

Of course, truth-telling is not the same thing as telling the truth; it’s more akin to Stephen Colbert’s notion of “truthiness.” By denying that he’s a politician, Trump is using the rhetoric of anti-rhetoric: he’s denying the very thing he has always been.

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. 30-October 4, 2016

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blacks: the original racists who blame the true victims–whites. Blacks in America are automatically granted immunity from racism, especially by their African President, who condones their looting and rioting.

This argument supporting racial hatred and even a new segregation is especially displayed in thoughts like these

It is a great mystery why the least productive thirteen percent of the country, the most dependent on welfare, the most criminal, should be permitted to steal, burn, rape, and beat those who behave in accordance with civilized standards. To shout “kill Whitey” while buying groceries with an EBT card, to expect to be taken care of, to get welfare and affirmative action while attacking the caretakers, does not suggest a crushing burden of mental acuity.

The bedrock problem, which most know but none dare speak, is that blacks cannot, or assuredly do not, perform at the level of whites. Exceptions, yes, but the exceptions are exceptions. They never have performed, not in Africa, not in Haiti or Jamaica, not in Detroit. It is a frightful truth, but a truth. They know it. We know it. Liberals know it. Conservatives know it. No amount of pretending can change it. No amount of rabid ideological egalitarianism, of holding our breath and turning blue, will produce different results.

fact -checking: liberal activism.

financial regulation: government-induced systemic risk. As in the case of Deutsche Bank, the government is actually robbing financial institutions, and blaming them for the 2008 crash that was largely government-induced. Washington created the bank panic that its own heroics were later required to staunch.Synonyms for this include: seizure, confiscation, bank raid, political stunt (an election robbery) playing to the Sanders-Warren crowd, turning banks into public utilities, etc.

Most notable in all of this blame-shifting is the Tea Party/GOP insistence that no crimes were committed because no high-level BANK executive has ever been convicted or jailed. They pretend that no one can say what the banks did wrong, except to make decisions that at the time seemed profitable for them, and, in any event, were forced upon them by federal regulators. Axiomatically, the greatest risk to the economy is financial regulation.

globalism: the plot to undermine US national sovereignty by dividing America into warring ethnic groups and sexual “identities” that can be conquered by the global elite.

healing the racial divide: Stop-and- Frisk.

This is the answer to the question, “How do we reduce gun violence?,  not the question “how do we heal the racial divide?” Stop and Frisk actually increases the racial divide, but this rhetorical sleight-of-hand switches the subject from racial discrimination to crime prevention, absurdly proposing racial profiling as a way to heal the racial divide. In fact, the term “racial divide” is a euphemism for racism and bigotry. How can there be a “divide” over race? Either you judge and treat people by their race or you don’t.

Hillary’s election: the start of the war on whites, Walmart, and the wealthy.

immigrants: African, Latin American, and Middle Eastern interlopers-under Hillary, welcome 30 million refugees from the world’s failed states

justice: in the Obama/Clinton world, always comes at the expense of order, as does “equality.” People will choose law and order over justice and equality every time when confronted with the choice.

the Last Election: as Rudy Guiliani has put it,”There’s no next election. This is it. There is no more time for us left to revive our great country. No more time to repeat our mistakes of the Clinton-Obama years.

This apocalyptic fear mongering will only heighten as Election Day approaches, so look for more outbursts like this Rush Limbaugh classic:

Because this corruption is destroying every institution and every tradition that has defined this nation and its greatness. And it sets out to destroy anybody who wants to maintain those traditions and institutions or strengthen them. And I’m like you, I’m fed up with these people prevailing. But this is what the left has wrought.

narrative peddling: what the race hustlers on the left prefer to problem-solving. Ferguson, Baltimore, Charlotte–all of these so-called “citizens’ uprisings” are really just organized thuggery, caused by the collapse of the black family. (see Victimism,” below)

New York Times: The bankrupt propaganda machine that lives on CIA subsidies.

protest: to Dems and BLM, that thing where private property gets invaded, looted, and destroyed. Aka, a riot.

social justice: the politics of victimization that divides to conquer.

values-based behavior: what has ruined America under Obama/Clinton, with their holier-than-thou sense of moral superiority and same-old same old approach to governing. Donald Trump.on the other hand, is unconventional and will shake things up. His unpredictability is what America needs.

Trump’s transactional calculus applied to all political and economic issues also means the US will be ruderless, totally unreliable to foreign allies, and become a rogue state. Putin will be proven correct: all talk of Western “values” is hypocritical balderdash. As Martin Wolf puts it in the Financial Times:

If Mr Trump were to win, it would be a regime change for the world. It would, for example, end efforts to manage the threat of climate change, possibly forever. But even his candidacy suggests that the US role in the global order risks undergoing a transformation. That role depended not only on American economic and military prowess, but also on the values it represented. For all its mistakes, the ideal of a law-governed democratic republic remained visible. Hillary Clinton is an imperfect candidate. Mr Trump is something else altogether. Far from making America great, his presidency might unravel the world.

Victimism: the pernicious liberal narrative that all women, minorities, and sexual deviants (i.e., the LGBT crowd) are due special protection by the federal government because they are victims of racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.

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. 27-30, 2016

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bad science: the so-called “research” behind the so-called theory of “climate change.” Liberal academics purposely rig their research so it reaches a preordained conclusion.

How do the critics of “bad science” even know what science is? What puts them into a position to criticize scientific research? If you handed them a scholarly article supporting some aspect of climate change theory and asked for their explanation of what, exactly, constituted the “bad” part, what would or could they say?

Dodd-Frank: the government caprice that constitutes the greatest threat to the global financial system. Its settlement raids on big banks are political highway robbery. This plundering is done at the behest of the Bernie Sanders-Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic party.

FDA: a drug cartel.

grievance-minded grouser: Hillary, who is always quick to play the victim card whenever she’s challenged

mainstream media: Coalition of Liberal Narrative-Benders For Hillary

NATO: one of the many ridiculous foreign alliances the Obama-Clinton-Kerry team has gotten us into. After trump is elected, these countries will have to pay up to deserve an alliance with the US.

The absurdity and myopia this whole notion of”paying up” is perfectly captured by Thomas Friedman:

How in the world do we put a man in the Oval Office who thinks NATO is a shopping mall where the tenants aren’t paying enough rent to the U.S. landlord?

NATO is not a shopping mall; it is a strategic alliance that won the Cold War, keeps Europe a stable trading partner for U.S. companies and prevents every European country — particularly Germany — from getting their own nukes to counterbalance Russia, by sheltering them all under America’s nuclear umbrella.

offhand remark: incidental, off-the-cuff remarks that Donald Trump made decades ago and are blown up by the Dems into major policy announcements. Even though he made these remarks in passing when he didn’t hold public office, he is being unfairly held to them as forever binding. The best example is Trump’s  so-called “admission” to Howard Stern that he supported the invasion of Iraq.

Of course, Presidents don’t get do-overs, loose lips sink ships and can start wars, and nothing a President says is “incidental” or “off-hand.” Trump’s Achilles’ heel is his thin skin and resultant unrestrained blurting. It’s hard to imagine what four years of cleaning up his verbal poop would be like, especially since he never apologizes. No one wants their imbecilec , low-information, sclerotic drunken uncle who spouts off at Thanksgiving to be President.

political correctness: the mainstreaming of intolerance and bigotry. In a Hillary administration, any non-pc thought, reading or speech will be criminalized.

This is a classical rhetorical ploy: blame the victim (in this case, free speech in the name of tolerance, inclusion, and diversity) for the crime being perpetrated against the victim. In other words, undo or undermine all the values protecting against the very crime being perpetrated. To this rhetorical end, the phony “war on political correctness” aims to stigmatize or repress the free opinion of tolerance by being totally intolerant, dismissive, and derisive of such speech.

sexism: in Hillary Land, any time she’s interrupted or corrected or confronted with anything less than complete obeisance. Hillary is grievance-minded grouser, always quick to play the victim card whenever she’s challenged

shilling: what lamestream “moderators” such as Lester Holt do when they “fact check” Donald Trump and give Hillary a free pass.

suckers: people who pay taxes.

Only Donald Trump would argue that we need to rebuild roads, bridges and the military, and help our veterans, yet call for tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, and then brag that never paying taxes is the “smart” thing to do.

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. 23-26, 2016

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angry:  The anguished voice of left-behind white voters, especially men. This is the year of the angry voter, and they will prevail on election day, much to the surprise of the self-satisfied liberal elites who only lok down on them. 

Anger is OK for whites; dangerous, sometimes even life-threatening,  for blacks. (see also, “open carry”).

Black Lives Matter: new free Nikes matter. Burn baby, burn.

crony capitalist: Anyone who made money under the Clintons or Obama.

As if the GOP/Tea Party doesn’t ultimately cater to narrow business interests.

facts: biased, when pertaining to Hillary; “piling on” when pertaining to Trump. “Fact-checking” indicates an anti-Trump bias.

narrative repairmen: Hillary’s spin doctors.

national interest:  the sole (thus narrow) criteria for Donald Trump’s foreign policy.

But what about existing alliances, international rules or shared values? Trump’s is above all a transactional universe, not rooted in enduring allegiances, multilateralism,  or principles. To him, all foreign affairs will be an isolationist variation of the Art of the Deal.

open carry: Common sense law allowing Americans to protect themselves and their families. A fundamental second amendment right.

Actually OK for whites, but life-threatening for blacks.

political dysfunction: what Obama has created–gridlock, low trust in government, racial divisions, the politics of envy, etc. What Trump will end with his decisiveness and bold moves forward.

This typically Rovian reversal of field meme works perfectly in the rhetorical sense of blaming the Dems for conditions the GOP has created.

power: domination, especially in a zero-sum game such as foreign policy. Power is always a “winner-take-all” proposition.

Talk of “inequality” only undermines the power paradigm of social dominance, which ignores the unequal capacities of wealth, influence and organizational resources to make their own domination possible and inevitable. It also ignores coercion in social exchanges, monopolization of resources, and coercions of consent.

propensity toward criminality:  an innate condition in almost all Afro-American males, who by and large are a species of criminal filth.

protestors: Black Lives Matter=George Soros-funded thugs.

public sector: government needs to get out of people’s lives because bureaucrats are inherently incompetent and corrupt.

Of course, the GOP/Tea Party has undermined government’s capacity to perform its vital functions

tax cuts: a form of altruism, not greed, because the explosive growth in an “unleashed” economy will lift all boats. Just have faith in the wisdom and efficiency of markets.

white violence: the last thing Afro-Americans should fear. They are their own worst enemy.

 

 

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. 10-17, 2016

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American exceptionalism: goodness through strength. Never apologize. Never use ideals to justify dominance in the zero-sum game of international diplomacy. With Trump, it’s aggressive US nationalism vs. the world, as explained by New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait:

He poses as a barbarian chieftain, promising spoils of war from zero-sum conflicts pitting tribes against one another, both domestically and abroad. He has lamented the Bush administration’s failure to steal Iraq’s oil after the invasion, insists NATO allies should pay more for protection by the U.S., and maintains that he can force Mexico to pay for a border wall it does not want. Trump’s veneration of strength not only fails to rely upon American ideals as justification but also treats those ideals with contempt, which is why the leaders he lavishes with the most fulsome praise are ruling from places like Moscow and Beijing. Trump’s America is like Russia, but bigger and stronger and richer.

backing down: what a US President should never do. Always dominate, never apologize.

bullying: what Hillary does when she attacks the “deplorables”.

ending wars: losing wars, under Obama/Clinton

equality of outcome: the holy grail to liberals, who are economic levelers.  Tea Party/GOPers prefer equality of opportunity, and figure that outcomes will take their natural course as the winners separate themselves from the losers.

love of country: justification for violence at Trump rallies.

Obama: money launderer-in-chief for ISIS.

people: The voice of the people (aka, “the deplorables”) will prevail in overcoming political correctness and electing Donald Trump. “People” are also,Trump’s information sources–almost always unnamed. aka, “some say”.  They almost always traffic in innuendoes and rumors.

cultural condescension: Hillary’s attacks on “the deplorables”. Part of her relentless moral superciliousness and Obama’s political narcissism.

political carve-outs: any Dem patronage.

politics: to Hillary, a market to be conquered.

reducing war. Under Obama, making war more likely. A key Tea Party/GOP meme: peace leads to war.

retreat: Obama/Clinton’s foreign policy. Aka defeat, failure, hobbled, etc. (see “American exceptionalism,” above.)

rules of engagement: onerous shackles making it impossible to win wars any more. Total war a more viable concept.

slush fund: any Dem foundation or political cause.

the truth: what the mainstream media never tells you, so the whole notion of “truth” doesn’t matter any more.

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. 7-9, 2016

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blood: character, which explains why Afro-Americans lacking character and the work ethic, have let their culture degenerate into the law of jungle, and why Hispanics have so many rapists and murderers.  As Chauncey Devega argues in Salon,  these racial slurs are part of Trump’s white supremacist pseudoscience, and the mainstreaming of white racism.

economic opportunity: the tide that will lift all boats in a Trump administration, and the reason African-Americans and Hispanics should vote GOP. This magical myth of sudden upward mobility for the left behind is a key Tea Party/GOP ploy, designed to cover over the economic realities of their positions. As Chauncey Devega argues in Salon,

The Republican Party’s policy proposals for dealing with inner-city poverty, “race relations” and “civil rights” are tired and tedious. They consist of vague promises about “economic opportunity” that fail to address wealth and income inequality, and neglect to mention how right-wing policies created many of the problems that afflict poor and working-class American communities on both sides of the color line. Republicans — and too many Democrats who have also been bitten by the neoliberalism bug — believe that charter schools, privatization and “choice” will provide a path to economic uplift through improved public education. Like most right-wing economic policies, this too is a lie. Charter schools often provide worse educational outcomes compared to public schools and exist mostly to transfer increasingly scarce public resources away from the commons and into the coffers of rich elites. Most importantly, Republicans also hold onto the delusion that by ignoring structural and institutional white supremacy the specific problems it causes can be magically cured.

enemies of the police: blacks and Latinos, according to Maine Governor Paul LePage.

investments: to liberals, any government spending

leadership:  the heart of Trump’s strategy: appear to be a natural leader. As Frank Rich explains:

the strategy of Trump’s candidacy: that by acting the role of commander-in-chief with alpha-dog bluster and cartoonish command, he can bamboozle voters into believing that there is some content to go with his performance of “leadership.”

Hillary needs to say something like this:

the oval office is no place for foreign policy apprentices, let alone swaggering braggarts whose approach to diplomacy seems akin to that of a pugnacious 12-year old boy: crush Isis in the first hour of the presidency, make Putin back down, tear up  the Iranian agreement, take all the Iraqis’ oil, abrogate all trade agreements and all US pledges to NATO, allow Japan and South Korea to get nuclear weapons,  punch the Mexicans and Chinese in the nose, etc.  In fact, Donald, if you were applying for a State Department internship, you would be rejected–not only because of your callow ignorance of the nuances or even the facts of international diplomacy and your total ignorance of how the machine of power actually works, but also because of your arrogant certainty that you know more than people who have spent their entire careers grappling with these nuances.

obstructionists: Congress, to Obama.

paranoia: to the Tea Party, any opposition to Trump, which is all based on distortions of his character and an unjustified fear of his leadership qualities. In truth, the real paranoids are Trump’s supporters, who see this election as the last chance to save America from a looming apocalypse and have no conception of how the world works. As Richard Hofstader explained in his 1964 work, The Paranoid Style In American Politics,

The situation becomes worse when the representatives of a particular social interest — perhaps because of the very unrealistic and unrealizable nature of its demands — are shut out of the political process. Having no access to political bargaining or the making of decisions, they find their original conception that the world of power is sinister and malicious fully confirmed. They see only the consequences of power — and this through distorting lenses — and have no chance to observe its actual machinery. A distinguished historian has said that one of the most valuable things about history is that it teaches us how things do not happen. It is precisely this kind of awareness that the paranoid fails to develop. He has a special resistance of his own, of course, to developing such awareness, but circumstances often deprive him of exposure to events that might enlighten him — and in any case he resists enlightenment.

questioning: giving Trump the chance to be Trump. Never asking follow-up questions or probing for details.

stakeholders:  In Clintonland, campaign donors.

to the victor belongs the spoils: the heart of Trump’s foreign policy. Neocolonialism in its purist form.

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.