Lies, Distortions and Doublethink in the Wall Street Journal, Dec. 22-23, 2016

“The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink.” (Orwell, 1984)

Trump is right in by-passing the so-called “official” intelligence briefings because they consist of sheer propaganda from the Obama administration.

Obama’s only legacy will be the abuse power. He has not offered or passed any policy or law that has not been rejected by the American public.

The FDA is a totally politicized agency, and has nothing but contempt for private innovation.

Most people in the world do not want either democracy or free markets. Instead, they want strong leaders with dictatorial powers, such as Putin.

Business people have been treated as pariahs by Obama, but that is about to change.

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, Dec. 15-23, 2016

suitable financial products

rhetorical claim: the Labor Dept’s new Fiduciary Rule should be replaced with the “suitable product” rule,  a looser standard for the products financial advisers offer to retirees.

rhetorical effect: the Fiduciary Rule simply says that financial advisers must offer retirees financial products that are in the clients’ best interests. “Best interests” are not necessarily served by one-size-fits-all products, whose “suitability” is thus defined by the financial firms, not the clients.

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global warming scare

rhetorical claim: To the extent that the global warming movement has anything to do with “science,” EPA is supposedly where that science is vetted and approved on behalf of the public before being turned into policy.  In fact, under Obama, EPA’s principal role on the “science” has been to prevent and stifle any debate or challenge to global warming. The US will no longer cripple its economy with meaningless fossil fuel restrictions.  All of the money spent on alternative “green” energy under Obama was completely wasted on things that are uneconomic and will disappear as soon as the government cuts off the funding spigot.

rhetorical effect: belittles any fact-based, scientific theories of man=made climate change, calling it nothing more than a “scare” tactic. (Just as during the campaign, Trump called climate  nothing more than a Chinese conspiracy to weaken the US economy.) Scare tactics are hyperbolic fictions created to make something that doesn’t exist appear to be real. Thus this rhetorical tactic aims at entirely undoing even the theory of climate change as the Trmp administration agenda, as defined by Eugene Robinson, is to “fire up the smokestacks, stop collecting all that annoying climate data and marginalize federal employees who best understand global warming.”

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school choice

 rhetorical claim: school choice vouchers are the most effective way to improve US educational outcomes. Teachers’ unions are the main obstacle in the path of the voucher revolution, and Betsy DeVos will be the death knell for teachers’ unions.

rhetorical effect: makes the conversation about school choice rather than improving school quality. This emphasis on choice is a political agenda, not an educational strategy. Choice and quality should be pursued in tandem.

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neo-Confederate arguments

rhetorical claim: sanctuary cities are making an illegal, neo-Confederate claim of sovereignty from US law. They also talk of secession in order to protect violent alien criminals.

rhetorical effect: undermines any attempts to protect the human rights of immigrants by branding them all as potential or actual criminals, and likens the urge to protect human rights as akin to the Confederacy’s defense of slavery. The GOP wants it both ways: to say very power should devolve downward from the federal government to the states, but then to attack any state or city policy they disagree with as “neo-Confederate.”

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emperor-has-n0-clothes syndrome

rhetorical claim: as Victor David Hanson puts it in the National Review, the key to understanding Trump is

his emperor-has-no-clothes instinct that what is normal and customary in Washington was long ago neither sane nor necessary. And so far, his candidacy has not only redefined American politics but also recalibrated the nature of insight itself — leaving the wise to privately wonder whether they were ever all that wise after all.

rhetorical effect: excuses any Trumpian abuses of power as his “animal instincts” at work. Justifies any breaking of law or custom as Trump’s unmasking of the “old” ways of Washington.

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labor flexibility

rhetorical claim: Right to work is an example of how the interests of workers and unions divide. Unions want to coerce workers into joining unions and paying dues even if this means there will be fewer jobs available. Workers want to be free to join a union, or not, and the best guarantee of higher pay is a buoyant job market that comes from more business investment and labor flexibility.

rhetorical effect: flexibility in reality means lower wages, differential wages, curtailed workplace safety rules, abusive overtime rules, and a loss of the ability to strike for better working conditions or higher wages and benefits. It turns labor from a collective movement to an every-worker-for-himself free-for-all.

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Trump’s campaign promises

rhetorical claim: Trump should be taken fig but not literally. None of his campaign promises are binding because they are just opening moves in his art of  deal-making. In the same way, no one should worry about his conflicts of interest because everyone knew ahead of time that, as a businessman, he has personal stakes in the economy. No one objects to his getting rich.

rhetorical effect:  campaign promises were just slogans. Nothing Trump says can be used against him because he’ll just change his mind, lie, or ignore criticism.

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conflicts of interest

rhetorical claim: No one should worry about Trump’s conflicts of interest because everyone knew ahead of time that, as a businessman, he has personal stakes in the economy. No one objects to his getting rich.

rhetorical effect: by definition then, he is above the law, and any so-called conflicts of interest are just fake news, hate, jealousy, or speculation. Trump can’t have a conlficy of interest because he only has one interest–Trump.

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post-truth

rhetorical claim: the lamestream media has so distorted the news with lies and innuendos that it can no longer be relied upon to tell the truth. Thus we live in a post-truth world.

rhetorical effect: the media no longer covers issues, but only candidates, controversies, and scandals. According to one reliable source, the three major US networks only devoted about 45 minutes to issues coverage –as opposed to candidate coverage, horserace stuff-during the entire 2016 presidential election. This trend continues in the Trump transition period, with most of the coverage devoted to conflicts of interest, Trump’s appointments, Trump’s tweets, and political rumors.

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midnight regulations

rhetorical claim:  Obama has to resort to clandestine executive orders because he has no support from Americans. Obama’s only legacy will be the abuse of power.

rhetorical effect: undercuts the Presidency, confuses our allies,  mistakes rule-making that comes after years of hearing and comments  for arbitrary rules that come out of nowhere.

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monopoly rents

rhetorical claim: unions only exist because they extort money from workers and demand monopoly rents from government. Infrastructure projects should insist on non-union workers.

rhetorical effect: makes unions sound like nothing but shakedown artists and obstructionists, and in doing so denigrates any notions of qworkers’ rights, workplace safety, living wages, social justice, etc.

Lies, Distortions and Doublespeak in The Wall Street Journal, Dec. 21-22, 2016

Colleges and universities could save a lot of money if they required professors to teach even two classes per year.

The federal government is hellbent on achieving racial balance in housing and other areas,  whether minorities want it or not. The racism that they imagine exists in housing patterns is just that–imaginary. White Americans have never shown any animosity toward neighbors of color, so long as those neighbors seem respectable and able to afford the neighborhood.This obsession with racial balance in housing patterns caused the 2008 Great Recession as banks were forced to make loans to people of color who were poor credit risks. Racial disparities were always interpreted as racial discrimination, even if the would-be borrowers weren’t claiming any racial discrimination. HUD’s view of housing is warped–racial discrimination does not bother minorities as much as liberfals claim it does.

The environmental lobby has moved on from reducing carbon demand–via subsidies for electric cars and solar panels-to opposing any carbon energy.

Donald Trump won the presidency because voters were tired of of assaults on every piza shop owner who dissents from progressive cultural dictates.

The Dems believed that lifting the spirits of the American people with words was more important than delivering results.

 

 

Lies, Distortions, and Doublethink in the Wall Street Journal, Dec. 20, 2016

There is no more joy in making a living in America for those who make things rather than words because the Regulatory Uberstate has made work a tedium and a torment. Regulations are nothing other than a drag on profits and time, and it is hatred of regulations that elected Trump. This absolutist rhetorical position of course does not recognize any of the benefits of regulation, which are notoriously difficult to quantify. GDP should come to be the only metric for effective government and for promoting the general welfare.

The best guarantee of a buoyant job market is labor flexibility–i.e., right-to-work laws. Workers with the fewest rights and protections are, by this logic, the most protected.

Arbitrary, political prosecutions of business will end the day Jeff Sessions become Attorney General. In the larger campaign to blame the 2008 financial crisis entirely on private business—rather than federal housing and monetary policy—the government has raided banks for more than $100 billion. Businesses will no longer be extorted for political gain as Trump ushers in a new era of growth. Government regulation is extortion.

Our education system has become a vehicle for promoting ideology, and not encouraging critical thinking.

There is no such things as “reliable” journalism any more because the patronizing, self-styled mainstream media has lost all credibility. Modern news is entertainment, which may or may not coincide with any facts or iteration of the truth.

The people most qualified for diplomatic posts (esp. ambassadorships) are people with no diplomatic experience.

Lies, Distortions, and Doublethink in the Wall Street Journal, Dec. 16-17, 2016

The rationale for labor unions has long since passed. The last things workers need are so-called “workers’ rights.”

The Russian election hack was just another failed Russian escapade, but the Dems are crazed to turn it into something more substantive. All it exposed was the political cynicism and mendacity of John Podesta and the DNC.

If the Dems are so concerned about cyber security, why aren’t they complaining about Hillary’s exposing top secrets to foreign powers via her homebrew server.

A market-based home mortgage system would have prevented the 2008 financial meltdown. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac , and other government busy-body rules, guarantees, and regulations only encouraged the sub-prime loans to low-income families and minorities that caused the meltdown. Less regulation makes markets more equitable and transparent.

The West has lost its vitality to defend itself and its values against the Russians and ISIS.

Judging what is true is most often subjective. The current fake “fake news” hysteria, with it’s call for “fact checking” the news before it’s distributed, is a perfect example of bias masquerading as fact. Political debates could be settled if  Republicans would only accept what liberals refer to as facts.

Donald Trump will end the war on cops, which is being conducted in the name of a bogus “diversity.” The false narrative about alleged police racism and brutality disguises the fact that police shootings help blacks more than whites. The police care more about black lives than anyone else in America.

 

Lies, Distortions, and Doublespeak in the Wall Street Journal, Dec. 14-15, 2016

The Dems increased energy efficiency standards for appliances solely to hide the cost of their “green” renewable binge as reflected in utility bills.

Dems believe that government agencies were only created to advance liberal policies, and that November’s electoral results are a mandate to do more of the same. Thus they’ll try and block any changes in central-government, top-down rule by federal bureaucrats.

FBI Director James Comey did more to help Hillary than harm he because he didn’t find her guilty of breaking the law. This is perfect Karl Rovian doublethink: guilty if called innocent.

We’ve reached the point where questioning the impact of something is no different from denying that it exists. Thus liberals call anyone who questions the science behind theories of “climate change,” and call anyone who disagrees with gay marriage for religious reasons a homophobe.

Evidence that Russia determined the outcome of the election exists only in the imagination of Democrats,

Rex Tillerson is probably the last person to substitute his former employer’s interest in Russian oil for the aims and interests of the country that appointed him, though this is the “narrative” being hastily adopted by his enemies

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, Dec. 9-14, 2016

entrepreneurial federalism

rhetorical claim: the economy most thrives when states compete to lure business. GOP state-level attempts to  oppose the Obama administration weren’t based on opposition to Obama’s policies, but to the usurpation of states’ right by the federal government. The Trump era heralds a new federalist revival.

rhetorical effect: amounts to a new industrial policy that does everything it can to unshackle business: provide direct subsidies, impose tariffs, cut or end all federal regulation, and effect what Lawrence Summers calls a transition from a rule-based economy to a deal-based economy, with the White house totally taking over:

Presidents have enormous latent power, and it is the custom of restraint in its use that is one of the important differences between us and banana republics. If its ad hoc use is licensed, the possibilities are endless. Most companies will prefer the good to the bad will of the U.S. president and his leadership team. Should that reality be levered to get them to locate where the president wants, to make contributions to the president’s reelection campaign, to hire people the president wants to see hired, to do the kinds of research the president wants carried out, or to lend money to those that the president wants to see assisted?

Going along with authoritarianism will come to be the norm for doing business.

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fake news hysteria

rhetorical claim: Dems’ mainstream media bootlickers, panicked over Trump’s election, have engaged in a hysterical witch hunt accusing every Trump claim of being “fake news” and part of some vast conspiracy theory. Even though they make up their own facts and spin stories their way, the mainstream media mendaciously is claiming the moral high ground and their exclusive claim to the truth. It is part of their rage against reality. “Straight news” has become an oxymoron. Every mainstram media news story is a “false flag.”

rhetorical effect: the suppression of the media and the undermining of any possibility of establishing the barest facts: did the Russians try to influence the US election? is there such a thing as global warming? are there any racists left in America? are fracking and other forms of energy exploration harmful to the environment? According to this doublethink strategy, the fake news stories are real and any critical news stories are fake. Calling the media “hysterical” is exactly what women are called when they object to male behavior or gender power relations. Hysteria is an irrational state based on a misapprehension of reality, an overreaction to an imaginary threat. The ultimate outcome of this branding of your political opponents as crazy can lead to the Stalin-era move to put political opponents in mental wards.

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very strong control

rhetorical claim: that Putin is a good model for leader who has “very strong control” over his country, and that Putin is “far more of a leader” than Obama ever was.

rhetorical effect: justifies authoritarian government, with claims of “leadership” justifying the suppression of  free speech and the media, and mass arrests and deportations.

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the real Americans

rhetorical claim:  the flyover country voters who elected trump are the real Americans, the honest Americans, the hard-working Americans. Liberal elites live in an elitist bubble that keeps them separated from America and makes them un-American.

rhetorical effect: labels anyone who criticizes Trump as un-American–free speech becomes a thought crime. When they said that without phony California votes, Trump would have won the popular vote, they were laying the groundwork for claiming that coastal elites are not welcome in Trump’s America.

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paycheck protection

rhetorical claim: mandatory union dues payments are a form of indentured servitude, and all states should adopt right-to-work laws that crush labor unions.

rhetorical effect: makes it sound like union dues are a form of robbery. Safety protection, environmental protection, wage protection are no longer considered, especially when the only real protection left will be profit protection.

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self-appointed ethics watchdogs

rhetorical claim: Trump can’t avoid conflicts of interest, and to ask him to divest his business interests and give up the Trump name is ridiculous. Only scolds and self-appointed hypocrites are worried about Trump’s conflicts of interest.

rhetorical effect: makes it impossible to draw any line between ethical behavior and  Trump conflicts of interest. Renders him completely above the law. Calling ethicists “self-appointed” also undercuts them and makes it appear they have no moral authority whatsoever because morality in a post-truth, post-ideology world is situational and political.

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soft despotism of government

rhetorical claim: according to William McGurn in the Wall Street Journal, the real authoritarian regime has been the “unelected and increasingly assertive class that populates the federal bureaucracy and substitutes rule by regulation for rule by law.” Federal agencies meddle in our lives, and we’d be better off without these social engineers imposing their values on the rest of us.

rhetorical effect: demonizes governmental regulation, thus making it impossible to enforce or interpret any laws. Gets Trump off the hook for any of his authoritarian acts by calling government bureaucracies the root of all evil.

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the Europeanization of the economy

rhetorical claim: Obama has entangled the US in financially ruinous international regulations, trade agreements, monetary policy goals and business taxation. This has lead to the weakest economic growth, the largest surge in government debt, the riskiest monetary expansion and the gravest deflationary pressures of the postwar era. This is part of a larger picture of centralized arbitrary financial powers, as explained in the Wall Street Journal by Michael Solon:

 After the 2008 financial crisis, the G-7 massively expanded international coordination. The Financial Stability Forum was expanded into the Financial Stability Board, charged with integrating the monetary policy of central banks and supervising financial institutions such as banks, insurers and asset managers. The G-20 worked to protect government revenues through the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting project.

The result? Since 2007 the public debt of the G-7 nations, excluding sober Canada and Germany, has leapt to 130% of gross domestic product from 52%, according to each nation’s own reports. The EU’s monetary base has doubled, the U.K.’s is up 350%, and

The U.S. government has helped itself in debt financing, paying almost the same interest costs today as it did in 2007, despite almost tripling the publicly held debt. At the same time, bureaucrats won arbitrary and self-serving power over financial services. International regulators now override national and state laws without authority or input, turning domestic “independent regulators” into puppets. Political commissars embedded in banks own no shares yet veto board decisions. Money-market rules burden equities and public-purpose bonds, but favor federal debt. So do swap collateral rules and Basel rules on liquidity and capital.

The list goes on: Dodd-Frank’s Volcker rule threatens liquidity in market-making operations but exempts U.S. government securities. Housing regulators again proclaim that the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have a “duty to serve” low-income buyers by underwriting higher risk mortgages. International regulators direct insurers to invest in public infrastructure, proclaiming the profitability of these projects when experience demonstrates otherwise. Ubiquitous capital requirements force financial institutions to buy highly leveraged government debt that pays ultralow returns.

 Meanwhile, America’s punitive 35% corporate tax rate—the highest in the developed world—has discouraged U.S. firms from investing at home and sets a global tax floor to stabilize government revenues and foster government growth. The result is average U.S. GDP growth of only 2.1% since 2010—40% less than the administration’s projected 3.6%. According to my firm’s analysis of Congressional Budget Office projections, that dismal growth rate has taken a $9.5 trillion bite out of U.S. GDP since 2010—$29,400 on average for every American.


rhetorical effect
: removes all financial regulation (including liquidity requirements and “ubiquitous capital requirements”), justifies huge corporate tax cuts (as if tax policy isn’t “centralized, arbitrary authority”), discourages mortgages to minorities, etc.

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pro-Iranian tilt

rhetorical claim: Obama has abandoned American interests and allies in the Middle East by prematurely with drawing from Iraq and making favorable deals with the Iranians. He has thus allowed the Russians to dominate the region, confused our allies, and failed to differentiate between friends (Israel) and foes (Iran).

rhetorical effect: demonizes any agreements with the Iranians; makes war in the region far more likely, characterizes any criticism of Israel as being pro-ISIS.

 

Lies, Distortions, and Doublethink, Wall Street Journal, Dec. 10-13, 2016

Obama’s Middle East policies have confused friends (Israel) with enemies (Iran), destabilized the region, allowed the Russians to dominate the region, and brought into question America’s reliability as a strategic partner.

Washington no longer works because government bureaucrats have become too big to fail. Thus it’s encouraging that Trump has brought so many military leaders into his cabinet and management team

College speech codes are the greatest threat to the First Amendment.Colleges are the most closed-minded and biased institutions in America

America faces a cultural, moral, and social catastrophe. Dems–the so-called coalition of the ascendant– exacerbated this catastrophe by telling the old white working class “Here’s your disability check., now go take your opoids while we take over the country.”

Under Trump, the federal government will once again be on the side of the people. This is an odd position to take since, to all appearances, Trump’s cabinrt wants to more or less eliminate the federal government.

Green power and electric cars do nothing to improve the environment, and actually end up being more toxic than conventional forms of energy and transportation.

We need Putin to defeat ISIS, so we should ignore all the political assassinations he has ordered, as well as his lies and repression of free speech and free elections. As Donald Trump put is, “our country does plenty of killing also.” Political outrage has become passe since Trump’s election

The real authoritarian regime has been the “unelected and increasingly assertive class that populates the federal bureaucracy and substitutes rule by regulation for rule by law.” Federal agencies meddle in our lives, and we’d be better off without these social engineers imposing their values on the rest of us. This act of doublethink demonizes governmental regulation, thus making it impossible to enforce or interpret any laws. It also gets Trump off the hook for any of his authoritarian acts by calling government bureaucracies the root of all evil.

Stories of Russian hackers undermining our election are based on nothing more than anonymous leaks and innuendo.

Obama has entangled the US in financially ruinous international regulations, trade agreements, monetary policy goals and business taxation. This has lead to the weakest economic growth, the largest surge in government debt, the riskiest monetary expansion and the gravest deflationary pressures of the postwar era. This is part of a larger picture of centralized arbitrary financial powers, as explained in the Wall Street Journal by Michael Solon:
After the 2008 financial crisis, the G-7 massively expanded international coordination. The Financial Stability Forum was expanded into the Financial Stability Board, charged with integrating the monetary policy of central banks and supervising financial institutions such as banks, insurers and asset managers. The G-20 worked to protect government revenues through the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting project.

The result? Since 2007 the public debt of the G-7 nations, excluding sober Canada and Germany, has leapt to 130% of gross domestic product from 52%, according to each nation’s own reports. The EU’s monetary base has doubled, the U.K.’s is up 350%, and

The U.S. government has helped itself in debt financing, paying almost the same interest costs today as it did in 2007, despite almost tripling the publicly held debt. At the same time, bureaucrats won arbitrary and self-serving power over financial services. International regulators now override national and state laws without authority or input, turning domestic “independent regulators” into puppets. Political commissars embedded in banks own no shares yet veto board decisions. Money-market rules burden equities and public-purpose bonds, but favor federal debt. So do swap collateral rules and Basel rules on liquidity and capital.

The list goes on: Dodd-Frank’s Volcker rule threatens liquidity in market-making operations but exempts U.S. government securities. Housing regulators again proclaim that the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have a “duty to serve” low-income buyers by underwriting higher risk mortgages. International regulators direct insurers to invest in public infrastructure, proclaiming the profitability of these projects when experience demonstrates otherwise. Ubiquitous capital requirements force financial institutions to buy highly leveraged government debt that pays ultralow returns.

 

 Meanwhile, America’s punitive 35% corporate tax rate—the highest in the developed world—has discouraged U.S. firms from investing at home and sets a global tax floor to stabilize government revenues and foster government growth. The result is average U.S. GDP growth of only 2.1% since 2010—40% less than the administration’s projected 3.6%. According to my firm’s analysis of Congressional Budget Office projections, that dismal growth rate has taken a $9.5 trillion bite out of U.S. GDP since 2010—$29,400 on average for every American.

This charge of “Europeanizing” the economy is shorthand for removing all financial regulation (including liquidity requirements and “ubiquitous capital requirements”), justifying huge corporate tax cuts (as if tax policy isn’t “centralized, arbitrary authority”), discouraging mortgages to minorities, etc.

8 Lies, Distortions, and Doublethink in the Wall Street Journal, Dec. 8-9, 2016

Trump’s madcap tweets and impulses are not impulsive, but calculated.  The truth to Trump is just one of the props in his bag of rhetorical tricks. This is because Trump is a performance artist, like Lady Gaga. His aim is to challenge, subvert, and alter the dominant political paradigm. This approach to charismatic Presidential leadership is the same as practiced by Lincoln, FDR, JFK, and Reagan. The truth to Trump is just one of the props in his bag of rhetorical tricks.

The command-and-control model of environmental regulation, as practiced by the Dem green extremists, is dead. The now lawless, or extra-legal, EPA will once again, under Scott Pruitt, adhere to the Constitution. Trump will do more for the environment than Obama ever did.

GOP state-level attempts to  oppose the Obama administration weren’t based on opposition to Obama’s policies, but to the usurpation of states’ right by the federal government.

Dems call anyone a climate change “denier”,  even if that person mainly disagrees with them on energy policy.

Obama didn’t care much about laws because he was unable to pass any. He turned the states into indentured servants, thus ignoring the federalist bedrock  of America. The EPA was not created to oppose growth and development.

Higher wages actually hurt workers. The Trump Labor Dept. will make sure that workers are protected by never raising the minimum wage, repealing mandated sick leave, reducing mandatory overtime pay guidelines, and eliminating minority hiring practices.

The political allocation of capital into housing was a root cause of the 2008 panic.

Waterboarding works.

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, Dec. 3-8, 2016

reversion to the norm

rhetorical claim: that the pro-growth, pro-business moderation of Trump is a reversion to the historical norm of American political life, and a rebuke to the ahistorical multiculturalists, sexual deviants, economic freeloaders and social justice warriors. The American Left simply can’t stand the fact that they are not the vanguard of American beliefs and practices.

rhetorical effect: labels any criticism of the Trump administration as socially deviant and extreme. This is all part of the demonization and criminalization of dissent, as well as part of the effort to normalize Trump’s racism, sexism, xenophobia, authoritarianism, and political repression.

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finishing a war

rhetorical claim: that Dems don;t know how to win a war, as evidenced in Iraq and Afghanistan. James Mattis will see to it that Trump gets as many troops as he needs to win a war.

rhetorical effect: normalizes a massive military buildup and reinforces the myth that wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were winnable.

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disciplining health care costs

rhetorical claim: Obamacare should have included consumer involvement in disciplining health care costs, rather than unlimited amounts of health care

rhetorical effect: ultimately will shift the blame for rising health care costs for inadequate insurance from the insurance companies or government to consumers.  This blame-the-victim approach, ostensibly based on personal responsibility, will penalize consumers for any outcomes or behaviors that “discipline” corporate profits.

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America haters

rhetorical claim: the George Soros-funded  ant-Trump “protestors” can’t stand Trump’s success and are damaging America.

rhetorical effect: political protest itself gets branded as damaging rather than protecting America. In this rhetorical climate, dissent becomes politically toxic  because it is stripped of any moral underpinnings and only seen as an existential threat to America.

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Trump tantrum

rhetorical claim: mainstream media criticism of Trump is a kneejerk response to badly-needed social, political,  and economic change. Instead of automatically undercutting Trump when he saves jobs or stand up to china, the lamestream media should be supporting him and not making up fake news stories or criticisms.

rhetorical effect: again, dissent is treated as unpatriotic, unthinking, and unprincipled. Every opposition stance or statement is rendered childish, like a “tantrum.”

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repealing Obamacare

rhetorical claim: repealing Obamacare will immediately lead to more competition, more choice, and cost awareness.  Here’s a vision of the promised land:

If much of ObamaCare is repealed, there will be room for more choice, competition and cost awareness. We can see a return of catastrophic health insurance with lower tax-deductible premiums, high deductibles and more payment up front, with government-run clinics for those who lack insurance.

 Those with pre-existing conditions or at the greatest risk of getting sick can pay a higher price for a more-comprehensive plan or use government-subsidized high-risk pools. Tort reform, including doctor-review panels to block frivolous suits, will put the brakes on doctors overtesting and overtreating patients.

rhetorical effect: the new norm will be high-deductible, high-cost, high advance payment policies, inadequate barebones catastrophic coverage, or restrictively expensive coverage for pre-existing conditions. The only remaining government program will be a high-risk pool for the sickest people, and it will offer almost no coverage at all. Note the ominous and telltale buzzwords: competition, cost awareness, catastrophic coverage, high deductibles, high payments up front, government-run clinics, much higher premiums for patients with pre-existing conditions, major tort reform limiting malpractice suits, etc. This is a veritable Christmas tree full of long wished-for GOP health care reforms. Don’t say we haven’t been warned about what’s coming.

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 limited sue-and-settle practices

rhetorical claim: federal building and land use regulations have strangled the economy and need to be streamlined and repealed to unleash market forces. (Repealing Davis Bacon would be a good start.) Limiting liability awards and frivolous lawsuits will be a key factor in this streamlining.

rhetorical effect: paves the way for “fast track” permitting, with little legal recourse. Could potentially lead to a massive infrastructure spending spree with unprecedented avoidance of all environmental laws. Any “green” lawsuits are said to kill economic development.

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right-to-work laws

rhetorical claim: Labor unions are the primary obstacle in the way of worker freedom. Right-to-work laws are the wedge issue to  increase workers’ rights.

rhetorical effect: justifies the destruction of labor unions. Portrays them as the worst thing ever to happen to workers.

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ending the peace

rhetorical claim: Obama did not “end the war” in Iraq but ended the peace.The surge worked and won the war for us, but Obama lost it by bot sticking it out–just as lost our resolve in Vietnam.

rhetorical effect: paves the way for a re-invasion of Iraq, so we can once again engage in a perpetual war.

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hate speech

rhetorical claim: liberals call all Trump supporters extremists, and accuse them of hate speech, whereas the actual hate speech comes from the liberal-progressives’ open hostility to Christianity, traditional marriage, Republicans, conservatives, white people, and the police.

rhetorical effect: bigots, homophobes, mysoginists, and neo-Nazis are feeling emboldened to step out of the shadows and openly spew their bile. This doublespeak maneuver allows them to claim that they are the victims whenever anyone criticizes them.

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free markets

rhetorical claim: Mike Pence has already said that Trump is opposed to the free market, and this is evident in the opening “managerialist” maneuvers of the new administration, according to the National Review:

Trump may be culturally attached to the Right — or, more precisely, the Right may be culturally attached to Trump — but everything he has said and done thus far points to his being a progressive in the ancient mold of Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and, yes, George Wallace and Theodore Bilbo. He means to put trade, and probably much more than trade, under political discipline. He means to stand between buyers and sellers with his hand out, making demands. He has expressed a longing for Keynesian stimulus projects, mercantilism, income redistribution, Bismarckian welfare-statism, and the consolidation of political power within the executive. He may talk like Archie Bunker, but politically he is Barack Obama rebranded for talk radio.

rhetorical effect: maintains the split between traditional conservatives and Trumpians, but also serves to make Trump sound like a Progressive.