The word Liberal used to be used with pride then Conservatives came up with an idea "what if we turn the word Liberal into a dirty word?". To achieve their goal they used the word Liberal in negative terms every chance they could. Over time this anchored the word Liberal with negative ideas and associations. Over time they only needed to say the word for the other associations to automatically pop into people's minds.
The last major voice to stand up to attacks on the word Liberal was perhaps JFK in his famous quote of “If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people-their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties-someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal", then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal.”
To rebuild the image the Left pivoted to use the word Progressive.
So what are Conservatives doing now to re-anchor the word Progressive with negative emotions? In addition to all their commentators, media outlets and politicians using the word Progressive in conjunction with negative emotions they have also enrolled Big Pharma to bombard America with constant paid media using the word Progressive in a negative medical term. From "Progressively worse" to "Progressive disease" they constantly are re-anchoring the main word to describe our values in emotions that are highly negative.
Pharmaceutical ads to the public are illegal in EVERY single country in the world except the US and New Zealand. They are illegal because they are telling people "Hey, you're sick! ...and here's the solution!" Their ads, designed to make people feel the pain or issue they are trying to sold are immoral and deceptive. In the US we need to outlaw pharmaceutical ads and kill two birds with one stone, destroy the main media outlet destroying the word that stands for our values and improve public health.
In the meantime we can begin using the phrase Conservative Disease to begin re-anchoring the word Conservative to negative emotions, negative emotions that all Conservative values should be automatically linked to.