When Republicans Attack

A favorite Republican trick is to associate positively-charged words with the conservative cause and negative terms with the opposition.

Newt Gingrich wrote an influential manual, Language, A Key Mechanism of Control, providing a list of “positive governing words” such as “citizen,” “peace,” and “truth,” and an opposing list of negative terms like “corruption,” “hypocrisy,” and “radical” for characterizing opponents.

Background and lists of words, courtesy of The Propaganda Critic.

The following Swift Boat Veterans ad (courtesy of YouTube) uses both types of terms masterfully in their attack on Presidential candidate John Kerry.

Negative terms: lying / lied / not honest (6 times); lacks the capacity to lead; could not count on; no war hero; betrayed (twice); dishonored; cannot be trusted.

Positive terms (used to characterize veterans in video): served (4 times); truth.

Note how the ad progresses from “not honest” to “lied” to unheroic to “betrayed / dishonored” and finally back to “cannot be trusted.” Such a strategy was designed to shift attention away from Bush’s lack of combat experience toward a debate over the trustworthiness of Kerry and an unsupported characterization of his service.