Just a quick kvetch…
This morning on VPR, they were talking to Peter Welch, and he was talking about the looming budget standoff with the GOP, and a few things that are deal breakers for him… defunding the CPR and Planned Parenthood, and defunding Obamacare. Yes, Obamacare.
Perhaps if Mr. Welch, who I’m sure had nothing but good intentions in the interview, plans on using right-wing frames to describe healthcare, at least he could throw us a bone and use the term teabaggers next time he mentions the teahadists? Just for the sake of fairness, if nothing else.
That the term Obamacare has become so toxic. After all, if the health care reform package had been anything of which to be proud (or something upon which Obama could hope to campaign for re-election next year), then there’d be every reason to jump on the opportunity for co-branding offered by the term Obamacare. But since the health care reform package is — at best — a tepid, half-hearted attempt at re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, it’s clearly not something with which any Democrat would want to be too closely associated.
Welch should certainly take issue with the use of the term — or, as you so snarkily suggests, pull the discourse further into the ghetto of the blogs and start talking about tea baggers and neo-cons when describing “his esteemed opponents across the isle.”
I splooged my coffee over that.
Teabaggese terms must be the shorthand language of default in Washington.
George Lakoff, has made a similar point about Democrats before. In using the terminology and framing of Republicans, we are basically playing on their terms and their agenda. Using their terms means we’ve already ceded territory in the debate and help legitimize their viewpoints. When you fall into their use of framing and ideas, it’s hard to make up any ground.
In his defense, you have to grant that he probably hears that word five-hundred times a day, even from a lot of Democrats who have adopted it casually, just because it rolls-off the tongue more easily.
Troll-speak always has that advantage.
“The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”.