Right-Wing name calling tactics

[Nolan]

Has anyone ever noticed that the conservative right in the US tries to make everything some kind of insult? For example, of course we had "commie" and "red," but now "liberal," "progressive," and other formerly neutral words are used as insults by right-wing boneheads. No left faction that I know of uses a similar tactic. Is their logic really so weak that they have to resort to petty name-calling and demonization?

[(A)narcho-Matt]

The simple answer is: YES

Demonisation is a way of making people fear the ideas of socialism, communism, anarchism, and now liberalism. The turn on liberals and social progressives is simply part of the propaganda war on Obama, its to be expected, since the conservatives have so many interests invested in the US health care system, they are going to try and demonise anything that will challenge that status quo. I think a really good example of this was Sarah Palin saying how a UK NHS style system in the USA would have death panels deciding if old people would live or die. Its these sort of scare tactics and the rightwing hysteria of the press in the USA that makes people fear "socialism".

[cb9's_unity]

I'm pretty sure every political group ever uses insulting words against other groups. Stalinists created the word trotskyite to degrade those who followed Trotsky. Trotsky made the word Stalinist to degrade those following Stalin.

The left is just as guilty as using name calling tactics as anyone else. Bourgeois and revisionist are both terms that can have strictly practical usages but have developed near universal negative connotations. In the same way, commie was a shortened version of communist but now has almost purely negative connotations in most people's minds.

[Nolan]

cb9, I see your point.

My point is, the moderate left (left by American standards) in the US doesn't do anything like that. You don't hear "conservative" used as a pejorative. It's almost entirely the Republicans and the libertarians.

[cb9's_unity]

cb9, I see your point.

My point is, the moderate left (left by American standards) in the US doesn't do anything like that. You don't hear "conservative" used as a pejorative. It's almost entirely the Republicans and the libertarians.

If your talking about mainstream american politics than your pretty much completely correct. The republicans have proven they are the more ruthless and aggressive when it comes to political name calling.

It makes sense that a capitalistic, militaristic, and nationalistic party would have an easier time challenging the credentials of a slightly less free market, less militaristic, and less nationalistic party. Essentially all the things the republicans and democrats value the republicans value slightly more. The democrats sacrifice the bold ignorance of the republicans for a somewhat more subtle approach to capitalist hegemony. And when your being more subtle and thoughtful its hard to sling slogan inspiring one liners.

The only word the liberals have been able to solidly turn into an insult is 'neo-con'. Beyond that the republicans can call democrats socialists, flag burners, elitists, progressives and have them all be effectively demeaning to democrats.

[PHUNX]

the moderate left by American standards :laugh:

I think this tactic will backfire on them the vast majority of Americans hate socialism without knowing what it is because of American right associating it with Hitler, Mussolini and there atrocities giving socialism in America a stigma

When the right try to associate Obama, healthcare and the centre-left with socialism they unwittingly remove the stigma surrounding the word

[Chambered Word]

It's a way to psychologically discredit other people and their ideas. Once a particular set of imagery is linked to a label and it is repeated enough people will begin to immediately associate the said label with a certain set of principles or vague ideas. This has been done to death by the establishment of America and the conservatives, particularly against communists and then liberals. This is coupled with the method of pushing liberalism, as an ideology, further to the left (or even placing it on the far right - either side seems to be fine, as long as it is made to appear 'extremist' and hostile) than it is in reality, thus suppressing any dissent from conservative dogma.

It seems like someone would have to be incredibly fucking retarded to buy into such a bullshit tactic, but you could be mistaken (to a degree); America has indeed been hypnotized into an anti-leftist trance. :rolleyes:

[Tablo]

It seems like someone would have to be incredibly fucking retarded to buy into such a bullshit tactic, but you could be mistaken (to a degree); America has indeed been hypnotized into an anti-leftist trance. :rolleyes:
The whole country is like this. People are either apolitical and do not have any sort of opinion of the left or they are political and have absolutely no grasp of reality. This whole country is fucked up and I would hope the left here can turn things around when the economy goes into perpetual decline.

[RadioRaheem84]

Yes the nation is fucked up in the sense that no one has any idea about what is truly going on politically. People that would normally be considered centrist or even center right are called leftists or liberal in this country. It's really quite amazing. It's also due to the fact that these centrists or even center rightists love being called liberal/leftist because they love to attach themselves to the real positive things the left did during the 20th century, yet they themselves have sold out to corporations and the establishment a long time ago. So F them and let the Republicans call them degrading names. I hate them just as much as I hate conservatives.

Although this is still a bad thing because they get conflated with us in this wacky political spectrum, it's best that we try to dissuade the public from being involved in these types of shenanigans. Whenever I hear the word "liberal" come out of someone's mouth as an insult, I automatically think that it would be difficult to talk to this person because he has NO foundation of politics, history or economics. Even though I can understand every illogical rant he probably would throw at me, he wouldn't understand a damn thing I would tell him (yes, it's that bad in the States).

The propaganda system is so ingrained in to the fabric of this country that it's totally fucked up the rational potential of the working and middle classes. You cannot have a rational political discussion in America with people on the right. It's nearly impossible. They wouldn't know what to say if you related to them what the true definition of socialism is and how it relates to practice. I mean they would just assume you're coming at them from space. At least the liberal has some connection to reality and can grasp what you're saying but for the most part dismisses it. This is practically the basis for Noam Chomsky's books Manufacturing Consent and Necessary Illusions.