What they say vs. What they mean

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TheRealSkeptic5000
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What they say vs. What they mean

Post by TheRealSkeptic5000 »

Here's a lesson in politics. When delivering a speech or trying to convey a good impression, politicians have to appeal to feelings rather than rational arguments. People tend to make decisions on their feelings, and rational arguments come afterwards. Even if the car is good, you won't buy it if you have a bad feeling about the salesman or if you associate the car with negative feelings.

You need to aim low; make sure the lowest common denominator can understand you and you'll be speaking to a wider audience than if you appealed to their most noble and intelligent members. If you aim low, everyone will understand you. If you aim too high, only a few will.

Sometimes, it is better to give a vague message rather than a specific one. This allows the listener to fill in the blanks with his own vision. Imagine a politician says "We will solve the problem of inequality and ensure the prosperity of the people"; that's a lot more appealing than "we will increase taxes for welfare". When you leave your promises vague, they give you more room to act. You're not as bound by your word, and the meaning of "tackling inequality" can be adjusted to whatever you do because you never specified what that abstract, ideal goal means in specific, practical terms.

You need to understand that certain keywords trigger responses. Phrases like "family values", "patriotism" and "tradition" will appeal to conservatives, while "regulation", "inclusion", "diversity" will trigger a positive reaction from the liberals. In some cases, you can send dogwhistles like "we have some bad hombres" (recognizing the problem of hispanic immigration), "welfare queen" (black women living off of welfare), "states rights" (support for the Confederacy and the Southern heritage), etc. which appeal to certain societal groups with interests that are considered to be politically incorrect by the rest of the population.
  • Anyway, here's a list of terms and their possible meaning.

    Equality ---> welfare, affirmative action, socialism
    Tolerance, Inclusion ---> pro-gay, pro-immigrant, pro-minority
    Anti-racist ---> anti-white
    Social justice ---> socialism, welfare, pro-minority, anti-white
    New world order ---> globalism, internationalism, socialism
    diversity ---> less white people (no one cares about diversity in historically-black colleges or cities)
    inner city youths ---> criminal niggers
    assault weapon, "fully semiautomatic" ---> buzzwords to scare people into giving away their guns
    common sense ---> appealing to feelings and intuition rather than arguments
    fascism ---> anything right-leaning
    far-right/alt-right/ultra... ---> anyone who's right-wing but not a centrist. Used to discredit the opposition making them look like extremists, terrorists, fanatics and potentially harmful people
    racist/nazi/homophobic---> word to discredit a normal person; his argument cannot be right because he's a bad person!
    feminist ---> anti-men, anti-women, pro lesbian
    LGBTQ+ ---> pedophilia, weird fetishes
    accountability ----> regulation, state control
    democracy ----> socialism, appealing to the masses, giving false sense of power
    xenophobia ----> recognizing facts about migration
    hate speech ---> politically incorrect facts or opinions, labeled as a moral crime liable for a sanction.
    islamophobia ---> recognizing facts about islam
    antisemitism ---> pointing out facts
    anti-science ---> anyone who doesn't trust the current scientific trends as if it were God's word
    progressive ---> socialist, liberal, anti conservative
    sustainable ---> eco-friendly, well regulated by the state, expensive.
    conspiracy theory ---> discredit a hypothesis by making it sound delusional
Add your own.
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