Pleased to make the cover of the Washington Examiner Magazine…
Progressives have a problem with euphemism, and the problem is they take their euphemisms literally: they believe their own spin and, therefore, are consistently shocked when reality is not as skewed and hyperbolic and morally obvious as they expect — when they even notice. With the Obama craze and rise of the Tumblr/TikTok generations, virtually the entire elite progressive discourse has collapsed into symbolic abstractions, quibbling over semantics rather than many realities of their constituents’ experience.
With so many creatives in the coalition, liberals have long been much better at marketing than they give themselves credit for — savvily defining policy debates ranging from “pro-choice” to “anti-immigrant.” This use of manipulative and charged language has become more of a liability than an asset for progressivism, however, since the deployment of euphemism is seen by the progressive faithful more as a moral mission than mere acts of marketing or political rhetoric.
And so liberals still struggle to explain why elections remain stubbornly competitive. Sure, there are hordes of deplorables out there, and some evil billionaires, but cutting-edge progressivism in the eyes of its votaries is so self-evidently superior that Democrats should easily hold 70 or 80 Senate seats. Racists, transphobes, racist transphobes, etc., probably account for most of the problem, they typically conclude. But some of it, liberals overdosing on euphemism think, is that they are just so smart, so nuanced, so honest that their genius simply sails over a lot of people’s heads.
As arrogant as that may sound, it used to contain a certain kernel of truth: Back in the ’80s and ’90s, dweeby wonks like Bob Kuttner would lay out labyrinthine policy schemes only to often lose to folksy Republicans tossing out poll-tested red meat. But then along came George Lakoff. In his influential 2004 bestseller Don’t Think of an Elephant!, the celebrated liberal linguist laid out a blueprint for progressives to emphasize a vague rhetoric of values over concrete proposals or details — to win by making the enemy socially or culturally unacceptable more than by making the case for particular policies.
The book became a sensation and (along with Frank Luntz’s Words That Work) the cornerstone of a course in political communication I took at Brown that became more or less the basis of my career in progressive journalism and marketing. Blogging for Bill Moyers on PBS and then through over a decade as a flack at Columbia University, one of my most important jobs was always keeping abreast of the latest strategic lingo — how best to package the ever-evolving narrative. Part of that involved learning how to walk on eggshells around colleagues always finding fresh reasons to be offended on the basis of a code of linguistic etiquette that was subject to change without notice, while a lot of the rest was figuring out how to help make the new conventional wisdom sound more credible.
Read the rest at the Washington Examiner Magazine.
Next: A Nod To Bob
"But some of it, liberals overdosing on euphemism think, is that they are just so smart, so nuanced, so honest that their genius simply sails over a lot of people’s heads."
"I am so much smarter than you that I know your best interest better than you do, so it is morally acceptable--nay, a moral duty--for me to coerce you to do what I want. After all, it's for your own good. If you can't see that I'm doing you a favor, that shows how dimwitted you are and how badly you need me to run your life. You don't have to thank me, we both know you're an ingrate."