artificial: any mandated increases in minimum wages. Low minimum wages, on the other hand,  are deemed “natural” because they follow the iron laws of supply and demand, and the market is always right, right?

coercive diplomacy: a Tea Party euphemism for getting what you want through the threat of force. Diplomacy by bullying rather than compromise.

corporate cronyism: any Dem spending on “green” initiatives or regulations because, by definition, any firms awarded these contracts are Dem supporters and climate-change hustlers. When the GOP awards contracts or accepts the wording of corporate lobbyists on legislative drafts, it isn’t “cronyism”, just responses to constituents’ wishes and needs.

evangelical witness: the future of democracy, which lies in the hands of Christian America to stem the tide against the NEw Normal (see below).

hand-wringing: having  a conscience.

looming apocalypse: the ever-present (ever “looming”) threat to America so long as Obama is in power. Whenever a world leader, “rogue nation” (see below), or social/political movement unilaterally does or says anything counter to American interests, the apocalyptic Right moves the doomsday clock one tick closer to midnight. The storm is always “looming”.

natural- law-based ethics: the foundation of any Tea Party political position or legislation. By contrast,  Dem policies are either unnatural or “artific-al” (see above) because they are rooted in “cynical politics,” not natural ethics.

the New Normal: a society without any way to define aberrant behavior; an extension of “let it all hang out” Hippie culture.

rancid racial essentialism: the central philosophy driving the Dems’ default strategy of “playing the race card.” By claiming race to be a mere essentialism–a social construction not anchored in anything “real”–the Tea Party unwittingly makes the case that race is in fact mental but not physical. What they want to say here is that the Dems always reduce everything to race, thus immunizing themselves from charges of political exploitation.

rogue nation: any country that questions America’s hegemony or moral authority. Of course, when American foreign policy runs counter to that of most of the rest of the world–for example, if we insist on maintaining sanctions against Iran–we are never called “rogue.”

state-sponsored murderers: Planned Parenthood.

unelected: what judges who rule against the Tea Party are characterized as, thus undercutting their authority and legitimacy; when the Tea Party is pleased with their opinions, these very same judges’ legitimacy is never questioned.

crow: what Dems do when they refer to a favorable legislative or judicial outcome. Tea Partiers, on the other hand, are restrained and reflective.

discretionary spending: almost any bill dealing with social services, public assistance, family support, unemployment benefits, environmental protection, voting rights, or alternative energy development

investment provisions: in trade bills, protection of capital and property rights.

in your face, traditional America: Obama’s message to flyover country.

objects of hatred: Christmas, the Confederate flag, the American flag

progressive aristocracy: the elites who support Hillary.

regulatory harmonization:  in trade bills, a race to the bottom in terms of labor and environmental standards. Regulations are often characterized as non-tariff trade barriers.

religious freedom: freedom from the law. Nullification theory lives on as the Tea Party refuses to recognize unfavorable Supreme Court decisions such as marriage equality. When they claim that public officials aren’ t necessarily subject to federal law and can deny anyone public services, they are actually extending their powers in the name of religious liberty. (see “robust”). Sometimes called a “generous pluralism.”

retrogression towards barbarism: what liberal welfare policies have done to the black community.

robust: the powers that the Tea Party grants public officials who want to deny public services in the name of religious liberty.

staggering: any costs related to Dem regulations or policies. An intensifier, like “soaring”.

alleged: any claims of police violence. Other “alleged” (discredited) memes include climate change, racism, inequality, poverty and the pay gap for women.

body cameras: the ultimate panacea and non-sequitur whenever police violence is discussed. Ditto for “Broken Windows policing”. As Matt Taibi writes in Rolling Stone, “you can’t put body cameras on a system,” in this case the Baltimore criminal justice system. Nor can you expect body cameras to be a corrective to decades even more insidious and damaging institutional policies, as enumerated by Frank Rich:

from Robert Moses–style “urban renewal” to discriminatory mortgage practices, that perpetuated poverty, blighted neighborhoods and families, thwarted homeownership, and fostered a cornucopia of inequality, from financial to environmental….The notion that black leadership from the White House on down, however strong, can ipso facto clean up the mess that white people compounded over centuries and usher the country into some postracial nirvana is absurd. Those who profess to believe it are looking for an excuse to absolve themselves of responsibility and do nothing.

the Dark Ages: what would come to pass, according to The National Review, if any of the Bernie Williams/Elizabeth Warren communitarian, redistribution schemes came to pass. Any notion of regulatory oversight of the finance industry, minimum wage laws, enhanced workplace safety, consumer protection laws, etc. immediately get lumped together as naive, fascistic attempts (by the “would-be masters”) to destroy the economy, enslave the populace, and return the world economy to the Dark Ages. Only the unfettered free market an bring the light.

demonization: any criticism of the police.

flunky: anyone who works for Hillary.

minding our own business:  taking the fight to ISIS. By Tea Party reverse logic, America again becomes Fortress America, the World’s Policeman, so minding our own business means minding everyone else’s.

morality: in Dems, always “in the service of politics.” In Tea Party ideology, Dems either have no moral center whatsoever or have an squishy moral idealism that does not stand up to “the real world”.

Plantation politics: the end result of Dem social safety net, redistributionist social policy, in which blacks become total dependents,

real people: Tea Partiers and GOP voters. These real people (aka, “free human beings) have a grasp of reality and of the iron law of the market place that lesser lifeforms (Dems) lack. Idealism is axiomatically “unreal” in this rhetorical universe. They always think that they know “how the world actually works” because they are “objective,” whereas Dems are always subjective, self-centered, and self-aggrandizing.

stability: the utopia that never existed in Iraq. Constantly harkened to as the crowning achievement of the “Surge,” and used as the high-water mark of US presence in Iraq, a mark that Obama is always said to have “squandered,” this Potemkin Village was an unsustainable facade based on bribes, shifting allegiances and animosities, and wishful thinking. It was no more sustainable than any of our other Ozymandias-like Iraq projects.

transactional institution: the Democratic Party, which, in Tea Partier caricatures, is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Clinton/Snopes Perpetual- Motion Money Machine.

Note: GOTP=Grand Old Tea Party

abortion: now called “the new Black holocaust.”

anti-American stain: what you get for life whenever you criticize American foreign policy. See: John Kerry.

capital: when Thomas Piketty talks about it, it’s a neo-Marxist take on income inequality and a thinly-veiled call for “redistributionism.” When the GOTP uses the term, they’re always referring to investments.

cynical class warfare: what the Dems get accused of whenever they talk about income inequality. Presumably, it’s always “cynical”  or sometimes, “cheap”) because it isn’t based on any moral principles, but only designed to placate the poor and keep them voting Democratic. When the GOTP talks about class, as in tax cuts for the rich, they call it “reform” or “relief”, and want to be perceived as speaking out of core conservative values, which are always “sincere” and never “cynical.”

drive-by: any federal regulation, such as when HUD, EPA or Justice take any action against the private sector or Tea Partiers.

extraneous political context: basically, any political context used to frame a particular issue. For example, it’s “extraneous” to cite the political motives behind our invasion of Iraq whn discussing the “heroism” of our soldiers.

fixation: any Dem policy consistently promulgated. For example, Obama’s determination to close Gitmo is characterized as “cheap moral umbrage”, and a dangerous fixed idea.

legal firewall to protect investments: a euphemism for the deregulation of all financial activity and immunity from persecution for financial shenanigans. The “legal firewall” they seek is impunity/immunity

modernizing entitlements: cutting, means-testing or ending them.

overregulated: basically means regulated at all. On the other hand, it’s not possible, in GOTP terms, to be underregulated.

poses no human risk:  what they always say after a nuclear “incident” or “accident.” Why is this phrase so unnerving, apart from the fact that it always sounds like a bald-faced lie?

racial discrimination: now called mere “racial disparity” by the GOTP. “Racial disparity” is just human nature playing itself out, and nature is used as a rhetorical cudgel used to counter “disparate impact” legal theory.

regulatory certainty: this sounds innocuous, but really means certainty that there won’t be any government interference. The GOTP does not want the certainty of more government regulation, only the certainty of less.

simplified tax code: fewer taxes and less overall tax on the wealthy

standing up (to Iran, Putin, ISIS, etc.): what Obama never does. His flaccid foreign policy is represented as cowardly, self-destructive, and a direct threat to US sovereignty. Obama thus either gets criticized for “lying down”, as in this case, or for tyrannical “overreach”  or “grandstanding” when he “stands up” for anything the GOTO doesn’t like, such as immigration reform, combating climate change, supporting the Voting Rights Act, etc.

the undeserving poor: basically, the poor, aka “the takers”. Acccording to George Will, they supposedly live in a “culture of dependency,”  and are totally devoid of personal pride, ambition, self-reliance, or any sense of personal responsibility. In the GOTP’s eyes, to be poor is to undermine American exceptionalism and destroy the national fabric. Will even uses the disease model to characterize the poor, calling it an ‘epidemic” of entitlement and dependency. This is obviously a long way from National Socialism rhetoric in Germany in the early 1930’s, but resembles the Nazi’s key intermediate rhetorical step of “othering” Jews by calling them “vermin”. An alternative to the disease model is implying that they are not a part of American exceptionalism, but an exception to America.