Politics, like advertising, is often a battle of the words that take hold in people's minds. Pepsi's brand value is greater per sales than Coke's because Pepsi was able to stake out and claim the word "young." That immediately put Coke down as "old." Same is true I think for Amazon vs. Barnes & Noble.
To date, the Right has been superior to the Left in the war of the words. Ronald Reagan's phrase "card-carrying liberal," has demonized liberalism to this day. The Right has had success with phrases like "anti-abortion." No one is pro-abortion. Though a majority of the nation is pro-choice. You can say the same about myriad other phrases that permeate our language, like Clean Air Act, or No Child Left Behind, or Exit Strategy (which is a strategy about how to stay longer. A take on Groucho's "Hello, I must be going."
Recently, I have noticed that the Left has caught onto this. About a week ago, I saw the phrase "E-coli conservatism." This is basically a castigation of those Right-wing ideologues who believe government is so inherently bad that it's better to have e-coli in the food supply than government protection.
A word I saw just today is VietRaq. I don't have to explain what that means. But it will be interesting to see how John McCain does.
No comments:
Post a Comment