Republicans are Pomos

At my overtly liberal college, we studied the great scholars of deconstructionism and postmodernity. We ate our Foucault and drank our Lacan. Apparently, it was not just us spoiled lefty whiners who were paying attention.

One of the key themes of postmodern thinking is the power of language to re-shape reality. In seminar after seminar, we discussed the way that using “he” as a default pronoun for all humanity was the way the male patriarchy retained its dominance. We talked about the loaded racist undercurrents of our language — how black had developed connotations of evil and ignorance and white became associated the purity and elucidation. And so on.

Was Karl Rove in my class and I didn’t know it? The Republican Party has had some success with its renaming campaigns and now seems to have embraced it as a primary strategy. With its “enhanced interrogation techniques” and “extraordinary renditions,” the Republicans have clearly felt some success in changing the public’s perception about reality through language. Now they’re hooked and can’t seem to create any policy solutions beyond efforts to get people to say things differently. And so the latest from the RNC — the initiative to change “Democrat” to “Democrat Socialist.” RNC Chairman Michael Steele is down on the idea, but rumor has it he’s a lame duck anyway.

Previous efforts have gotten purchase by circulation through FOX News foot soldiers and a constant drumbeat from the rank-and-file in Washington. I don’t think a Congressional bill will make it far. (Can you try to pass a bill renaming the opposing party?) A successful effort might horrify the base into taking more action — “Good God, they’re socialists?! I didn’t know how bad it was!” For the most part, anybody who dutifully starts using the new term already believed it anyway.

At any rate, if the Republicans are into reframing everything, they should be dreaming up some euphemisms for “recession”.