Ideas are communicated through the language. Marketers and politicians are particularly gifted in carefully selecting the words and phrases they use. In the late 60s the Democratic Party proudly embraced the term “liberal”. During the back end of the Regan years the Republican Party started a attach negatives to the term “liberal”. Essentially they started to do what Marc Anthony did in a speech by repeatedly using the phrase “these honorable men” to describe the Senators who assassinated Julius Caesar.
By the time the Clinton administration came along the Republican right stepped up its assault on the term so much so that “liberal” was so tarnished that its attachment to a politician had a negative impact upon that individual’s chance of being elected. Rather than fighting the term, the Democrats are pushing the “progressive” to describe themselves and their ideas. As the other part of their strategy, the Democrats are starting to firmly glue all the negatives of the Bush administration to the word “conservative.” Every failed idea is being called the conservative solution. I can see that in six to ten years from now few Republicans will embrace the word and will start to seek for a new term since the word will recall to the electorate’s mind a plethora of deplorable and failed policies.
Reflective Wanderings - Reflections on various topics that arise out of my personal, life and professional experiences. There are also are some family related news, travels and pictures.
1 comment:
It is interesting how the connotations of words change over time. 300 years ago, many of the principles that are now cherished by conservatives were "liberal." Then, the meaning of "liberal" gradually shifted as liberalism moved beyond the boundaries that conservative liberals of the time could accept.
For the time being, "progressive" has a more positive connotation than does "liberal," and it hasn't been tainted by any other political associations, so liberals have adopted it. Interestingly, the PC party in Canada found it necessary to define their party as one that was not merely "conservative," which must have had some negative connotations on its own, but one that apparently tried to unite the best of "progressive" and "conservative" ideas. They obviously could not call themselves the "liberal conservatives," so Progressive Conservatives had to do. So, in Canada the conservatives are progressive, and in the USA liberals are progressive, if one judges by labels or slogans alone.
GW Bush, during his first presidential campaign, tried to redefine conservatives as "compassionate conservatives." That phrase is now a bad joke, as few people of any political bent see much compassion arising from his administration's policies. And some conservatives are claiming that Bush never really was a conservative and that he has, in fact, always been more liberal than conservative. Few people are buying that one either.
Anyway, for the time being, Americans on the political left are depicting themselves as progressives, and those on the political right are floundering to disassociate themselves from the rancid stench that conservatism has acquired recently. They just haven't found the right label yet.
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