Note: The opinions posted on this and all future blog entries are my own and may not necessarily represent the views of Bill Whittle or his associates.
There has been much talk about whether or not “Socialist” has a positive or negative connotation with the majority of people these days. The concept of Socialism has become so nebulous and ill-defined that fighting it has become a bit like fighting a cloud of mist. While for some Socialism evokes images of forced labor camps and bread lines, for others it evokes people helping each other out and making sure nobody in society gets left behind. You can argue until you’re blue in the face that the kinder, gentler connotation that socialism has among many people is far from what socialism actually is, and while you’d be right, you would be unlikely to convince even the few people who would bother to listen to your case in the first place.
No, the winning strategy is not to tell people that their candidate of choice is a Socialist, and then to go and explain how Socialism harms them. The winning strategy is to go directly to the issues that impact the person the most and show how the candidate’s positions will harm them or people in their lives.
What occupies people’s thoughts most of the time? Unless a person has the psychological defect many of us do that causes us to spend a lot of time thinking about esoteric philosophical and political ideas, most people think about just a few things most of the time: their immediate day-to-day lives, their jobs, their families, and their friends. You can try to make an abstract case why such-and-such a position is superior on moral grounds, but the fact is that it’s not going to land with most people. You have to make a direct and often individual case about why their chosen candidate’s position will directly affect their daily life, job, or family in a negative way.
Politics is run on emotion, not logic. If you are a political communicator that has a well-constructed but convoluted metal trellis of logic and facts that supports your argument, your job is to melt that down into a single, small, emotional bullet that you can fire quickly before your target can prepare their rhetorical defenses or bring up the shield of programming the media/entertainment complex has given them. When you use the word “Socialist” you are simply firing into a shield that has long since been raised–it has no effect.
Everyone is concerned for their financial stability and personal safety. Almost everyone has parents, children, siblings, friends, neighbors, co-workers that they care about. Your message should be clear: “This will hurt them”. Choose your words carefully and deliver it in a way you know will stick. Put into them a nagging little fear that they can’t easily remove; even if they don’t want to, they will be forced to reconcile what you’re said with their own pre-existing belief structure. And chances are they will come around to your side because–after all–what the “Socialists” want to do really will hurt these people and the people in their lives.
You might think that it’s cynical and negative to take such an approach, but sadly, the political discourse in this country has degenerated to a point where we are almost in a rhetorical Total War, of which the consequences of losing are too dire to even contemplate. Part of emotional maturity is accepting that you may have to suffer short-term discomfort to avoid a greater pain in the future, and we need to be willing to endure the pain of bruised relationships to expand the fight for our side so that we may avoid the catastrophe of a Leftist victory.
In conclusion, using labels like “Socialist” doesn’t work, and it’s better to go after the individual issues that have the most direct impact on the people you are talking to and the people they hold most dear. It’s time for us to stop playing the Left’s shell game of labels and strike right at the heart of the matter with succinct clarity and truth, and the knowledge that our fight is for the right and good.
9 replies on ““Socialist” Name Calling Doesn’t Work – Hit Them Where It Hurts”
Well put and very true. Letting oneself be baited into argument over labels and their shades of meaning is indeed a shell game designed to get us nowhere. I find “incrementalist collectivization” to be a factual description of what’s been pushed on us for the last ~100 years that cuts right through the smokescreen. We have been tricked into accepting by small increments a sea change away from classical American individualism that the electorate would never have accepted all at once. Our nemeses are dismissive of the idea of slippery slopes precisely because the slippery slope is their entire strategy, and it’s been working. Progressivism is designed to lead to socialism. (We’ll continue to be told it’s a misnomer to call it “socialism”, until it is too late to do anything to stop it — a time that seems to have arrived, judging by all the masks that are coming off.) And as we know, “socialism” in Marx and Lenin’s eyes is merely a temporary transitional phase on the way to full-blown communism. Incrementalism is why nobody who rebuffs the “socialist” label has been willing to tell us what steps they will take to prevent socialism from taking root here.
I doubt any of these folks would deny that their goal is to move us away from individualism. To which I reply that it’s curious they should insist on doing that here, given the numerous places where some form of socialism is practiced. (Do they not value diversity?) I am not capable of living under the conditions they stipulate. I don’t possess the necessary degree of subservience.
Incrementalism’s weakness is that we have choices — other options and places to go when they start to wreck things badly enough. Thus their dogged focus on eliminating the last bastions of defiance, of something different from their designs. Bill is right and said it well: The world is run by terrified control freaks. Sane people would do well to stay out of their path as much as possible.
Focus arguments on the opposition to free choice, to the opportunity cost of the supposed “good” they aim to do as depriving individuals of earnings they could have used to make their lives and the lives of those around them better. The inherent challenge of living in a free society is finding ways to do things voluntarily rather than resorting to force. Virtue can be cultivated only when we are truly free to choose. If compulsory giving is virtuous, the Left owes us all (especially “the rich”) thanks for our generous tax payments. And so on.
Modern socialists don’t view themselves as capital-S socialists in the brand of Karl Marx et al. They see themselves as “democratic socialists” in the style of Germany, Denmark, Italy and Norway (and Venezuela!). So when we talk about them being socialist, they think “Oh, they’re talking about something different than what I’m talking about” and then all the arguments about the historical failures of socialism is ignored.
Indeed, as soon as you start winning against a Socialist they redefine the word and you have to start all over again. That’s why I say go past the labels and go right for the policies themselves!
But I’m not a cobra! I’m a nice cobra! Trust me, just move a little closer so I can bite you. It’ll be great, trust me!
I would assume that your post is *exactly* what the Member Blog is designed for…the Marketplace of Ideas, whether right or left. Your opinions are not as offensively provocative as you think they are, Ian. They are grounded and well thought out.
As for the actual opinions within the post, you do make a great point. People do bristle when they hear “socialism”, which closes the door to open dialogue. Making your views relatable to the person you are speaking with is a sound strategy. My personal method is to disseminate information, and let the audience take it as they may. However, your method is much more effective to initiate a change in someone’s viewpoint.
Bravo, sir. Well done!
One should very specifically explain how Socialism destroys the ability to put food on your table (Venezuela stands as the perfect example). I’m not certain most people have the attention span to get through the reasons, though.
Stupidity begets pain.
That’s one of the main failures of the “we the people” system of government we have.
We the people are supposed to maintain our prosperity by electing people to represent us proper. We the people are supposed to uphold values and promote education and guide younger generations. We the people…. Yeah, you can keep going on this.
We the people are a bunch of lazy rejects now who are uneducated and frail when it comes to any sort of thinking. People have been brainwashed over 100+ years of work from political people to think big brother and big sister are there for us and should control how we do things.
I cannot disagree with any of that. I think our system worked only because our population was strengthened by the colonial and pioneering experience. Now that we are a fully developed nation, all of the reasons that Europeans used to argue that our system would fail are now in play.
And that’s the fault of people becoming comfortable and complacent.