In 1995 GOPAC was a right wing group chaired by Newt Gingrich.
Gingrich produced a handout called Language: A Key Mechanism
of Control.
It was a list of 113 words for use in attacks on progressive ideas
and democrats.
“Words and phrases are powerful,” wrote Gingrich.
“…memorize as many as possible and remember that like any tool, these words will not help if they are not used.”
“Apply these (words) to the opponent, their record, proposals, and their party.”
The words on his list were: “traitors, betray, sick, pathetic, lie, liberal, radical, hypocrisy, corruption, permissive attitude, greed, self-serving, ideological, anti-flag, anti-family, anti-child, anti-jobs, unionized bureaucracy, impose, and coercion.”
Republicans branded Democrats as, “sick, pathetic, incompetent, liberal traitors whose self-serving permissive attitudes promote a unionized bureaucracy and an anti-flag, anti-family, anti-child, anti-job ideology.”
Plus:
• abuse of power
• anti- (issue): flag, family, child, jobs
• betray
• bizarre
• bosses
• bureaucracy
• cheat
• coercion
• “compassion” is not enough
• collapse(ing)
• consequences
• corrupt
• corruption
• criminal rights
• crisis
• cynicism
• decay
• deeper
• destroy
• destructive
• devour
• disgrace
• endanger
• excuses
• failure (fail)
• greed
• hypocrisy
• ideological
• impose
• incompetent
• insecure
• insensitive • intolerant
• liberal
• lie
• limit(s)
• machine
• mandate(s)
• obsolete
• pathetic
• patronage
• permissive attitude
• pessimistic
• punish (poor …)
• radical
• red tape
• self-serving
• selfish
• sensationalists
• shallow
• shame
• sick
• spend(ing)
• stagnation
• status quo
• steal
• taxes
• they/them
• threaten
• traitors
• unionized
• urgent (cy)
• waste
• welfare
To be clear, Newt Gingrich and the Republican Party did not offer 113 new policies the GOP might write to win an honest political debate.
The GOP chose to poison our politics by smearing Democrats and suppressing the vote.
Today the GOP violates Democratic norms.
Today the GOP writes cruel legislation in secret, and spreads Russian style propaganda in political ads.
Today, Newt Gingrich is a propagandist for Vladimir Putin.
In American Democracy the people are the government.
As citizens we pay taxes into a common fund which we use to promote the
public good.
The public good is public education, housing, healthcare, and nutrition for
our children.
We provide access to these essentials because a person without class
mobility is not truly free.
These are my daily affirmations, repeat after me:
Smear campaigns are not public policy
Words have meaning.
I will not be conned.
(c) Rob Goldstein 2015-2017
Quote from John Adams found on Twitter
Art by Rob Goldstein 