Tag Archives: resentment

Glossary: Key memes, counterfactuals, dog-whistles, canards, euphemisms, fake outrages and obsessions in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, April 21-30, 2016

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the climate police: anyone concerned about the environment, climate change, global warming, etc. Rhetorically hints that any environmental regulatory action is authoritarian at best, and a form of schoolmarm scolding and social control. These police are related to the “pc police.”

the collective: the ultimate leftist cult, in which individual rights and matters of conscience are always subordinated to the authority of the collective.

equal protection under the law: leftist ideology

Hillary-as-criminal: a given. Here’s what happened to “innocent until proven guilty”:

Guilt and innocence do not determine judgment, but rather judgment determines all, including the definition of guilt.–Anthony Marra, The Tsar of Love and Techno

Leviathan: the federal government.

market uncertainty: the real culprit of the 2008 financial meltdown, caused by government inconsistency, regulatory excess, and pressure to issue sub-prime loans to unqualified minority borrowers. Perfect certainty would cause perfect markets.

raid: government policing or regulatory actions, especially those that affect consumers and businesses.

regrettable infelicities: any of the Donald’s statements that provoke outrage in the liberal Democrats. Aka, “lapses of taste and judgment.”

resentment: the rhetorical heart of Trumpism: economic resentment, immigration resentment, racial resentment, gender resentment.

trends: what pass for principles among Dems. Always shifting and subject to change, depending on what’s trending or politically correct at the time. Examples include playing “the woman card” and identity politics, climate change, and charges of p0lice violence. None of these rest on a principled foundation: gender identity politics for its own sake is pandering; climate change is a man=made fiction, and “police violence” is an urban myth.

“unfair” and “abusive”: government-speak for market-driven business practices.

“you can’t say that about a woman”: Trump’s attack on political correctness that he uses as ironic justification whenever he calls women screamers, “disgusting”, ugly, etc.

 

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, euphemisms, sneers, innuendos, and metanarratives in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, September 11-24, 2014

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against social democracy: by the logic of this argument, advocates of social equity, safety nets, etc are actually elitists, pushing their agenda of  “big guv’mnt” onto the majority of Americans who reject it.

apologist: any Obama administration spokesperson or defender.

fathomless ignorance: best personified by Barack Obama.

freedom fighters: secessionists,  Tea Partiers, libertarians, gun nuts, fundamentalist Christians

hubris: the by-product of naive liberal redistributionist philosophy- a cult of innocents.

liturgies of absolution: any defense of the lazy poor, social safety net programs, etc. Akin to “apologists” (see above).

nostalgia: what fuels naive Obama foreign policy–a yearning for a lost world of harmony and pluralism.

occupying army: any government workers.

resentment: what fuels the “takers” in their sponging off the “makers”.

soft underbelly: the US-Mexico border. Always said to be “porous”. A known conduit for Al Qaeda, ebola, bird flu, polio, Isis, and, lately, ISIS. The surest invasion path for forces that “want to drown us in our own blood”.

steady hand: what we needed to prevent “squandering” our glorious victory in in Iraq. Related meme: “if only if we had kept 10,000 troops there,” presumably in perpetuity.

tax-and-spend-and regulate: the worst kind of Dem dogma. Imagine, people who actually want to govern. What, exactly, does Tea Party orthodoxy offer as an alternative to taxing, spending and regulating?

violation of democratic norms: any government regulation, especially anything coming out of the EPA.

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, phrases and obsessions in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, Dec 7-10, 2013

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apologist: anyone who defends the Obama administration or the Senate. Aka, “sycophant”.

dignity and purpose: The very qualities the spineless, profligate, illegitimate President lacks.This is a kind of master trope, trotted out to defend pro-life activists, the military, free marketeers, and non-freeloading, working Americans.

false narrative: any claim about Obama administration successes–always of course manufactured by the Democrats. Recent “fale narratives” included: the ACA as being afforable and offering Americans choices in health insurance; Obama as successfully countering terrorism, and the economy as in any way better than it was when Obama took office.

firm response: bellicose GOP foreign policy initiatives–the opposite of “rewarding terrorism”–see below.

nannies: any government official. Aka, “self-appointed experts”.

power grab: any law or administrative policy or procedure originating anywhere in the Executive Branch or the Senate. Republican laws or policies are, on the other hand, always “reasonable” or “legitimate” exercises of governing. Aka, “fiat”.

resentment: the predominant ruling humor of all of the “dependent” classes, the “freeloaders,” etc. The only reason people sign up for food stamps, unemployment benefits, disability claims and welfare. Somehow, though, those on other forms of federal aid–Medicare, for example–are deserving and not all resentful of the accomplishments of the wealthy.

rewarding terrorism: any sign of a diplomatic olive branch, rapprochement, softening or reconciliation toward Syria, Iran, China, Russia  or any “othered” country. Aka, “romancing” tyrants or jihadis; “retreat”, “capitulation”.

tax simplification: lowering taxes and making them more regressive. Much like “regulatory reform,” this is a pure euphemism for drowning government spending in a bathtub, as Grover Norquist once put it.

true school reform: vouchers and privatization.

turning attention away from Obamacare: basically, discussing any other subject, such as inequality, Iranian nuclear disarmament, immigration reform, or gun control. Did Mandela die to turn attention away from Obamacare?

Glossary: an anatomy of key memes, phrases and obsessions in the Wall Street Journal and other GOP language factories, Dec. 1-3, 2013

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abdication of power: any Obama administration foreign policy initiative that does not include invasion, bombing, sanctions or coups.

blank check: any Democratic Congressional spending. According to the GOP, Democrats have carte blanche to write “blank checks” for immigrant benefits, birth control, food stamp recipients, and other forms of social parasite.

censorship: any GOP-spun meme, such as Benghazi, that the media doesn’t ceaselessly report on. Also referred to “underreporting” or “muzzling” by the Democratic “media pimps”.

crackdown: any regulatory or legal action taken against GOP-favored corporations, PACs or individuals. When the GOP does this, it’s jst a matter of enforcing the law. When the Dems enforce the law, their “crackdown” is always the result of “neuluous and arbitrary enforcement.”

executive fiat: anything Obama does that the GOP doesn’t support. When Bush did the same things, it was called “Presidential leadership”.

knockout game: the latest meme/metaphor for any Obama policy–how he has “mugged” the American people by “lying” about Benghazi, the IRS, the ACA, etc. Also shorthand for the libidinally-transgressive, ever-present baleful threat of the black man.

resentment: the root motivation for all Democratic social programs. Aka, “playing the race card,” “reverse discrimination,” and  “victimhood”.

statistical ploy: any Democratic use of statistics to support policy positions, social service provision, or regulatory reform.

utopian blather: anything and everything that Obama talks about.