When will the Dems learn?

[sleigh]

Someday, the Dems need to figure out that words actually matter, and that if they let the conservatives define the vocabulary, they will lose every time.

The latest example is the Immigration Bill. The right immediately started pointing and shrieking "It's amnesty! Amnesty!" -- a word designed to make the majority of the public feel uncomfortable and negative, and rather than redefining the issue, using another term, and refusing to fall into that trap, we have everyone on the left saying (with a bewildered look on their faces) "But it's not amnesty. Really, it's not amnesty. Not amnesty."

Look, when you sputter "Really, it's not amnesty," the only word people hear is "amnesty." All you do is reinforce the effect of the word and sink it deeper into the subconscious. You're playing their game. You're doing exactly what they want you to do.

You've already let them turn 'liberal' into a dirty word, which just boggles my mind. After all, 'conservative' can mean to be afraid and tentative, to be behind the times, to be conventional rather than creative, to be overly cautious, to be adverse to change. If anything, you should have made 'conservative' into an invective... and yet you've let them twist 'liberal' into something resembling a curse word -- so much so that half the Democrats are afraid to even use the term.

They did it to you with "cut-and-run" too -- you let them frame the debate with that phrase, then made the problem worse by using the term yourself. "I'm not advocating a cut-and-run policy..." Again, the only word in that sentence that gets heard is "cut-and-run"...

Stop it, would you?

Comments

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

In the Republican 'debate' on CNN (God, please don't ever let Wolf Blitzer chair a debate again...), Giuliani said (at least twice) "Why, in their debate the Democrats couldn't even say 'Islamic Jihadism'," as if a) the Democrats were somehow ducking reality, and b) thus were somehow on the sides of the awful, horrible terrorists who are lurking in every shadow and waiting to follow us home if we ever leave Iraq.

Yep, and if Vietnam falls, then all of Indochina will go communist too, and then the whole world.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Don't underestimate these tactics. They work, and they shift debate. I am not optimistic about the 2008 elections.

B

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

Believe me, I don't underestimate them. I've seen the tactics work in the last two presidential elections. Especially in 2004, when it was already glaringly obvious what Bush was doing, that Iraq was a disaster and a lie, that he was trampling on the constitution and civil rights everywhere, that his environmental policy was a horrible joke, and he was still reelected...

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

"...and he was still reelected..."

Well, you can make a convincing case that in reality he was not, but that's a matter for history to untangle.

But your point is still valid.

B