Shot in the Dark

Drag

James Joyner has an excellent piece on the defining-down of slurs in our current discourse:

Views held by pluralities of Americans are now routinely dubbed Fascist, Communist, treason, unpatriotic, or un-American.

Let’s not forget “neocon” – a slur that’s fairly unique, since almost nobody who uses it can define it in any sense – and, most recently, “teabagger”.

Which I bring up for a reason:

It’s an effective tool, at first, just as Saul Alinsky predicted: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” But, as he also warned, “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.”

I think “teabagger” – the favorite of a lot of dimwitted leftyblog shrieking-point recyclers and MSM party hacks – has upped the curve.  I can’t put my finger on it, but I think the slur was starting to backfire on the left.

This next nine months will be interesting; the left’s been hitting the Alinsky playbook so hard it’s starting to get stale.

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Mitch Berg

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13 responses to “Drag”

  1. angryclown Avatar
    angryclown

    So you think “neocon” ranks right up there with “Fascist,” “Communist,” “traitor” and whatever else Glen Beck and Ann Coulter are calling their books these days?

    Shot in the Onion: where wingnuts come to suspend belief and drink delicious Kool-Aid.

  2. Troy Avatar
    Troy

    I think people usually suspend disbelief, angryclown, but I’m sure you meant exactly what you said. Thanks for the compliment! 🙂

  3. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    So you think “neocon” ranks right up there with “Fascist,” “Communist,” “traitor” and

    In terms of intent? And in terms of being a mindless insult that makes less-intelligent smearers think they sound smart? Absolutely.

  4. Kermit Avatar
    Kermit

    Mitch, you forgot “Wingnut”, Every time it’s used it reveal the shallow vapidity of the speaker.

  5. Jeff Kouba Avatar
    Jeff Kouba

    This is in the Strib last Saturday, in a frigging review by Kristin Tillotson of a collection of short stories…

    They just cannot help themselves…

    ***
    Written with startlingly original voice, careening imagination and an abiding fondness for what Teabaggers would call “the non-elites,” his stories are set in a surreal America we know, but aren’t sure we want to.
    ***

  6. Ben Avatar
    Ben

    some simple math, wingnut= conservative who is beating a liberal in a debate.

  7. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    Jeff,

    Wow. Just…wow.

    Blog post to come shortly.

  8. Kermit Avatar
    Kermit

    The only “surreal America” I have seen lately is MSNBC.

  9. Ben Avatar
    Ben

    so is “surreal America” as dysfunctional as the “surreal life” on VH1? I smell another reality show.

  10. KT Avatar
    KT

    Very nice post, Mitch. Thanks for pointing this out.

    I just got a small handbook (meant for college students) in the mail from the Leadership Institute yesterday. It’s written by David Horowitz and called “Barack Obama’s Rules for Revolution: The Alinsky Model” It speaks to how President Obama won the ’08 election by claiming he was a moderate who would bring Americans together. Then, on election eve, President Obama stated, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

    Horowitz argues in this small book that the President’s election eve promise has been played out, in a way most Americans never dreamed. Horowitz says we are seeing the shocking results of a President mentored by three individuals “trained in the Alinsky Industrial Areas Foundation” to follow Saul Alinsky’s playbook and political philosophy more “outside the American mainstream” than any “other occupant of the White House.”

  11. The Greenroom » Forum Archive » Ad-Hominem Running Its Course?

    […] Cross-posted at Shot In The Dark. […]

  12. DavidPoe Avatar
    DavidPoe

    My two favorite ones recently are “Tenther,” which is someone who apparently likes the 10th Amendment. There was an attempt in the Kos/MSNBC crowd to make this a slur when people suggested the national government was over-stepping its bounds — and then link it in a Kevin Bacon way to those who favored slavery. It didn’t go as far as they’d like, probably because some editor laughed it out of the room as weak, even by “Teabagger” standards.

    The other new one is “Handjob,” referring to Palin’s notes on her hand. This one has a little life in it, but just enough people apparently think that throwing one more sexual joke at Palin might tip the boat. Letterman’s jokes finally got NOW to wake up, so they have to tread lightly.

  13. farmgirl Avatar
    farmgirl

    Separating the wheat from the chaff? Excellent! Now let’s inspire our leaders to take the bull by the horns and make hay while the sun shines.

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