I’ve noticed some curious things about just the simple way the right wing words things.
Instead of “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” it gets labeled as “Obamacare” and then used as a pejorative term. Rich people are “job creators,” and taxing the rich is an egregious “redistribution of wealth” or a “tax increase,” but if you’re rasing taxes on everyone else in terms of tax burden, it’s either ignored or called “widening the tax base.” “Healthcare vouchers” might as well be called health coupons, for all I know.
Things like that… I’m curious if we can use this thread to bright light to such examples.
Not sure if this is what you’re looking for, but I always shake my head ruefully when I hear one of them refer to the “Democrat party”.
People like Michele Bachman and Sarah Palin seem to think this is a shrewd and clever critique or gotcha. To the non brain damaged it comes across as childish and petty.
“Pro-Life.” Way to demonize your opponent right out of the gate by implying they’re somehow *against *life.
“Tax relief.” Implies that taxes are so horrible that we need relief from them. This has become such a common phrase that people on the left use it without much thought either.
Haven’t heard this one before… is this meant to imply that the Democratic Party isn’t “democratic” but just “full of democrats” as if a “democrat” is a pejorative term?
And yeah “pro-life/pro-choice” always confused me too. Why not simply pro/anti-abortion? Seems like the connotations here are very different indeed.
I put “political correctness” as a meta-example. By applying it to people who say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”, and then harping on that, the right makes it out to be this silly fluff avoiding-offense-of-the-easily-offended thing, leaving us with no term to describe the more serious cases that the phrase originally referred to. Like referring to “torture” as “enhanced interrogation”.
Well, “Democratic” is something that everyone wants to be, while “Democrat” is just a political party. It also sounds harsher, particularly with the emphasis on the “rat”.
Pro-choice folks don’t want to be called pro-abortion, because they’re not. They are generally anti-abortion (in that they would like fewer, and ideally none) but they are pro-abortion-rights.
So instead you get one side calling the other pro-abortion or anti-choice and themselves pro-life or pro-choice. The media has generally gone with whatever the faction calls themselves, not what they call the other side.
On preview: “enhanced interrogation” was a good one. Very effective at diffusing a loaded word by making folks think it didn’t apply - they even got the New York Times on board.
There’s some conservative activist who publishes an influential list of “what you should call things”. I wish I could remember his name… a lot of these probably come from him.
Not entirely political, but I find it interesting that the most senior executive at large companies don’t receive “pay” or a “salary”, but actually get “compensation”. I think they’re trying to suggest a truly fair exchange for the effort they bring to their [del]job[/del] position.
Funnily, I see it the other way. “Compensation” is what people talk about when making job offers to skilled professionals where the salary number is low, but you’re being asked to consider other benefits rather than just doing “$A > $B therefore take $A”.
No reason why it can’t be run both ways, though. For executives, “compensation packages” can be quite a bit beyond “salary”, and the word is probably meant to evoke this when used to describe a job offer to anyone else.
“States rights” = opposition to Civil Rights laws (among other things).
“Dredd Scott decision” = opposition to Roe v Wade.
Yes, exactly. “Compensation” includes salary + benefits such as health insurance, stock options, bonuses, vacation, yada. Anything that’s cash + other things that aren’t = compensation.
Came here to raise that very point. What’s particularly hilarious is that, while the term is constantly used to belittle the claimed attitudes of Democrats, the Republicans, as this thread establishes, are at least as prone to insist on politically correct language, if not more so.
Anyway, my contribution: “Defense of Marriage”.
Well, that, or maybe “Death Panels”, regarding a supposed provision of the Afforda-- I mean Obamacare, that apparently was made up out of thin air.
There’s more than money involved, but that’s true at all levels in a corporation. I worked as a software engineer and tester. I’ve been at companies where I received a salary, health insurance, and stock options; and my boss never said “let’s discuss your compensation”.
So, remember that this works in reverse: when a Republican talks about “strengthening and preserving Medicare,” that actually means some form of privatization.
I don’t think I understand. Is it supposed to be inferring a “Party of Democrats” as opposed to “Democratic Party”?
From links provided on Facebook by some of my high school “friends” (who are mostly suburban right wing hicks who didn’t get very good grades in school, don’t make much money now and still live within an hours drive of our high school), Obama is “unqualified”, a “narcissist”, a “celebrity”, “liberal”, and “socialist”. Basically taking positive qualities like his education, popularity and speaking ability and painting them as negatives.