Words and Phrases

It’s official.  Despite riots, threats, and recounts, the Electoral College cast its vote and Donald Trump will be our next president.  And he will have a Republican House and Senate.  How did this happen?

We know how powerful images can be and that they can shape public opinion and foreign policy decisions.  For instance, nothing captures the Vietnam War more than the iconic image of the naked girl running down the road fleeing as her village was being napalmed or the image of police chief general Nguyen Ngoc Loan just as he pulls the trigger and executes a Viet Cong prisoner at point blank range. But words and phrases can carry just as much power and be just as lasting as visual imagery.  They can  be just as determinative of political outcomes and how policies and results are perceived. 

Democrats are still in various stages of grief.   If you follow the 5 stages of grief set out by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross several decades ago, their reactions will be familiar to you.  It started out with anger as evidenced by the rioting in places like Portland and it has moved on to denial and sometimes bargaining.  They are blaming the Electoral College, Richard Comey,  the Russians, and as of late last week, Obama was blaming unfair media coverage of Hillary (cough, cough).   The Democrats had deep advantages.  The economy was putatively in recovery.  Nominal unemployment was below 5%.  Barack Obama’s approval rating was still above 50%.  Clinton had raised a lot of money and had 104 electoral votes in the bag (NY, CA and IL).  She was running against a candidate with very high negatives.  The MSM was in her corner, and Wikileaks demonstrated that the media actually collaborated with the Democrats on several occasions.  Much of the conservative base was at least wary of Trump, and most real conservatives eschewed him.  Yet, Democrats managed to squander all those advantages.

I believe it is the power of words and phrases that were used by the Obama administration that had a tremendous impact on the electorate.  I have faith that the American people are able to connect up the words and phrases with reality as they perceive it, and reconcile them with reality. 

Rather than do a traditional summary and evaluation of the Obama years, I thought it would be more appropriate to pick out the words and phrases that Obama (or his underlings) used that I believe were deadly to the Democrats.  Some of these may be more memorable than others, but they hold important clues as to why the Democrats lost the White House, failed to take the Senate, the House, and have control of only 15 state legislatures.

Here are the top 6 that I thought ultimately cost the Democrats control of the government.

11.      “…they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them.”  This Obama quote early in his administration had a lot packed in one phrase and was a most concise attack on small town, traditional middle America.  Obama in a single phrase was able to level an attack on the 2^nd Amendment, the 1^st Amendment (freedom of religion), and categorized middle America as embittered and bigoted.  It was the precursor to the “Basket of Deplorables” and reinforced by  Hillary Clinton during the campaign.   Its message is that if you disagree with us, and have different values than we are espousing, you are a backwards throwback.   It reflected a sneering contemptuous attitude toward people that adhered to some basic tenets of life:  marrying someone of the opposite sex, staying married, going to church every Sunday raising your kids and wanting a job that pays a fair wage.  There doesn’t seem to be anything controversial about those things.  Worse, Obama jumps to the conclusion that these people are bigoted and intolerant.  No surprise then when middle America  decided that the Democratic party—traditionally the workingman’s party—had no room for them.

22.       “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor”
This catchphrase was used time and time again to peddle the Affordable Care Act.   It turned out to be horrendously false as the ACA unraveled, with insurance companies pulling out of exchanges, signups of young people way below projection and premiums soaring and deductibles skyrocketing.   Millions were forced to give up the networks they liked and the doctors they were comfortable with.  They phrase became a national joke.  It turned less than funny for Democrats on election day as premium notices went out just before the election.   The sticker shock for working people undoubtedly was a major factor in the election results.

33.       “ISIS is the J.V.,”   “ISIS is not Islamic,” “ISIS is contained.”
Every high school football and basketball coach in the country knows that it is folly to underestimate an adversary.  True, ISIS doesn’t represent an existential threat the way that the Soviet Union did (or Russia does now), but time and time again, ISIS proved to be resilient and capable of directly or indirectly committing heinous attacks and atrocities.  As Joshua Cooper  Ramo noted in his book  “The Seventh Sense,” ISIS was able to capitalize on the power of networks to wreak havoc.   Obama’s contention that ISIS is not Islamic has been countered by many commentators, most notably by Graeme Wood in his  March 2015 piece in the Atlantic, “What ISIS Really Wants.”  The failure of Obama’s ISIS strategy was irrefutably laid bare when he confidently announced that “ISIS is contained” the day before the Paris terrorist attack last fall.  Even an uneducated plebe from Wisconsin knew then and there that Obama had gotten the ISIS strategy terribly wrong.

44.       Leading from Behind.
      Leading from behind was the pithy little phrase probably designed to differentiate Democratic foreign policy from the Bush policy that led the invasion of Iraq.  I’m not sure they thought about it, but it sounded much like the counter to the pro-American swashbuckling George Patton quote, “Lead me, follow me, or get out of the way.”  This was defense by consensus but most people know that the wisdom of Yoda still prevails, “Either Do or Do Not.”   After carping at Bush for years over Iraq, Obama and Clinton did EXACTLY the same thing in Libya.  To be sure, they did it on the cheap, but they deposed a secular tyrant without a plan and created a culture dish for ISIS in Libya.  And the ultimate consequence was to lose 4 American lives including Ambassador Stevens at Benghazi.  America cannot lead from behind.  It need to lead.  Period.  There is no other nation willing or capable.  Aleppo is what happens when America hands that responsibility to another nation.

55.       Basket of Deplorables. 
This was the nail in the coffin of the Democrats.  Their contempt and misjudgment over the electorate was on full display with the use of this phrase by Hillary.  Many voters were uncomfortable with  Donald Trump, yet recoiled at being labeled “deplorable” because they dared to differ with Democrats on such issues as the size of government, America’s role in the world, or marriage equality.  Trump seized on the phrase immediately and had an image from Les Miserables as a backdrop for his campaign with the words “Les Deplorables” across it.  It was a fatal error for Clinton.

66.       I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone.  This phrase belied Obama’s contempt for the legislative process and his desire to issue edicts like any Latin American  tin pot dictator.  Obama acted as if Congress had spontaneously sprouted up instead of being elected by the people.  However obstinate and obstructionist he may thought them to be, they were the duly elected representatives of the people and he had to deal with them.  But he chose not to and simply issued executive orders whenever and wherever he could, and courts rebuked him often and on important matters such as environmental laws, immigration enforcement and NLRB appointments.  Even more galling was the fact that he negotiated a deal with Iran (arguably a treaty subject to Senate approval, yet could not reach deals with his own countrymen.  Even the liberal leaning New York Times ran a front page article expressing discomfort with Obama’s growing comfort in circumventing Congress and ruling by decree. 

There were other runner ups: 

 “Christians shouldn’t get on their high horse over Islamic extremism” (Barack Obama) 
As if events a millennium ago have any bearing on the current problem of Islamic terrorism.

“We can’t kill our way out of this problem.  We need to go after the root causes that leads people to join these groups, whether it’s a lack of opportunity for jobs..”  (Marie Harf)
The much derided sorority sister of foreign policy set forth her infamous ‘jobs for jihadis’ position.  She was ridiculed so heavily for this remark, she disappeared from public view within weeks and has not been heard from since.

 “The most effective way to combat terrorism is with love.” (Loretta Lynch)
ISIS leaders and Hezbollah are still giggling about this one.

“I do think, at a certain point, you’ve made enough money.” (Barack Obama)
Another swipe at capitalism and free markets.  The alternative is to hand it over to government, right?

“If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.  Somebody else made that happen.” (Barack Obama)
This was an echo of a comment by Elizabeth Warren.  Every entrepreneur in the country that worked 18 hour days turned purple with rage over this one. 

“I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” (Barack Obama)
Apparently, he believes this regardless of how hard you work or how much risk you are willing to take.

 “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”  And  “The Cambridge police acted stupidly.” (Barack Obama)
These were the lead-ins to the war on police that lead to the spike in deaths of police officers, including the assassination of police in Dallas and Baton Rouge.  Obama’s willingness to jump to conclusions about the nation’s law enforcement officers and subsequent “soft strike” has lead to the spike in officer deaths and violent crime in urban areas that has been trending down for decades.

“We’re going to put a lot of coal companies and coal miners out of business.” (Hillary Clinton) 
Hillary’s willingness to sweep working people aside in her zeal to have a government directed economy proved costly to the Democrats.

“Don’t let anybody tell you that it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs.” (Hillary Clinton)
This is the corollary to the “you didn’t build that” comment.

“He [Bowie Bergdahl] served with honor and distinction.” (Susan Rice)
This was shown to be patently false as Obama sought to justify his trade of Gitmo prisoners for this deserter. Bergdahl will be court-martialed. This comment along with her assertion that the filmmaker was responsible for the attacks on Benghazi assures us that Rice will finish out her ignominious career as an obscure lecturer at some left leaning university. 

“The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” (Barack Obama)
This was asserted in his Cairo speech, the most important of Obama’s apology tour.  The problem with this statement is that it lays the foundation for making blasphemy and “hate speech” a crime.  The Netherlands just did exactly that by prosecuting Geert Wilders.  America holds nothing sacred.   We thought “The Life of Brian” was hilarious.  “The Book of Mormon” sold out.   We poke fun at televangelists.   “Old Jews Telling Jokes” is having a great run.  Islam doesn’t get a special exemption from the First Amendment.

More than the Electoral College, the FBI investigation into Hillary’s server, fake news, the leaked emails by Wikileaks, or any of the other assorted excuses for their losses at the ballot boxes, these words and phrases resonated with people as much as images and the electorate understood that they were either falsehoods or inconsistent with their values and beliefs.  If you read all of these statements, you can see why Democrats have a lot of work to do.