What is this Republican obsession with names and labels? I fail to understand the strategy...

[TheCoxwain]

Asking the DNC to change its name to socialist
Obama is a communist
Obama is Muslim
Palin is a Maverick.
He is Massachusetts Liberal.


There is an undeniable pattern in which they operate. Put everyone into nice predefined slots. They use that for every one - including themselves.


What is the deal?

[sakabatou]

1. Because they need to have their world as ones and zeros.

Black and white. No grays.

[havocmom]

2. They survive on knee jerk reactions and die by critical thinking.

They have to inoculate as many people with negative labels so they will have their emotional reactions BEFORE applying critical thought to anything.

[SlingBlade]

3. Bumper Sticker IQ's

Simple as that
Ever look at the demography of your average repuke voter

[dgibby]

4. Just part of the Terra! Terra! Terra! campaign.

Demonize anyone not like them. Stoke up fear of the "other". Republican=good. Democrat=bad.

[Triana]

5. Read 'Don't Think of an Elephant'

The purpose of all these DEFINITIONS is to keep Dems and progressives OUT of control of the conversation and always on the defensive - defending against all the labels (definitions) that are applied to them.

Abusive spouses do the same thing:

1. The DEFINE you in some way - they don't ASK you who, how, or what you are. They TELL you. (they DEFINE you)
2. Then, they proceed to ridicule, debase, and criticize based on THEIR DEFINITION of you. It's sort a form of mental rape.

It works in politics for the same reasons. The WORST thing one can do is start denying and defending the definitions. Once you start doing, that, you're in the opponent's/abusers "arena" and have given up your power and agreed to play by THEIR rules.

Unfortunately, Dems and Progressives haven't learnt that yet. And the lame$tream media, of course, being corprat-pwned, is more than happy to perpetuate and expound on the DEFINITIONS they are given by their friendly Republican party - to "propel the propaganda" so-to-speak, and to ricicule, debase, and criticize Dems based on the GOP's definitions of them. Think about that. It's primarily all they do anymore.

This is why, when they called Obama a Muslim, the response SHOULD have been:

"SO? So what if he is?"

The MOMENT anyone started defending against that DEFINITION of Obama - the moment they started denying it ie: "oh no he's not! He didn't go to that kind of school!" - etc, they LOST control of that conversation.

"So what if he IS Muslim? He deserves our respect just the same" would have been another good answer and would have sent wingnut heads exploding.

[C_U_L8R]

8. exactly !

[DCKit]

13. There's a (teeny, tiny) bit of projection mixed in there too.

What shallow, small-minded, abusive personality doesn't engage in a little projection in a lame attempt to feel better about their miserable, self-hating, sexually repressed, horrible selves?

We can't really blame them. They aren't smart or imaginative enough to consider the alternatives. The only thing we can do is learn to argue well enough to marginalize them to the edges of civil society. Those who are capable of learning from their bad behavior may someday be rehabilitated, those who don't will, eventually, end up in prison with their king and kith - other sociopaths.

[Triana]

14. A lot of projection sometimes, esp when they've been guilty - they just 'wipe their hands'

on someone else ie: project the blame.

[C_U_L8R]

6. They all read the same Frank Luntz baloney

marketing to simpletons

[liberal N proud]

7. Names and titles shorten their talking points

And make it easy for them to recall and build on the hate.

[baldguy]

9. Haven't you heard?

Those liberals are nothing but no-account masticating homo sapiens!

I'd say it louder, but there are children present.

[drm604]

10. The deal is that it works, at least for a certain segment of the population.

But I do think that it's being less successful recently.

[SPedigrees]

11. The thing I love about Obama is

that he disengages their attempted code-word labelling. When the repubs tried to label his stimulus bill as a "spending" bill, Obama fired back: "Of course it's a spending bill. That's what a stimulus is!"

Now if dems had responded in like fashion back when the neocons hung the socialist label on them, they could have subverted the labelling effort. For instance "You think the American people would be better off without police and fire services, education, roads and bridges? These are socialist programs. You are against these services?"

[Arugula Latte]

12. Yep -- He doesn't cower from it, unlike most previous Dems.

The Republicans are left sputtering and neutered. I love it.

[ddeclue]

15. They don't want people to think - they want to short circuit thinking by attaching nasty labels

to objectify their enemies.

Classic propaganda trick.

Doug D.

[HughMoran]

16. craving for simple answers. See also "religion" or...

http://www.arrod.co.uk/essays/matrix.php">Matrix Philosophy - Red Pill or Blue?



Interesting article!