Inspired by Liberation Learning's fabulous diary on Scott McClellan as well as the great frameshop series by Jeffrey Feldman, I want to call for a moratorium on Social Security and Tort "Reform."
Instead, we need a new phrase for both of these. Calling for submissions.
I was inspired when I saw this over at Kevin Drum's blog:
here's what the Republican agenda appears to be: privatizing Social Security, enacting tort reform, restricting immigration, getting started on tax reform, and cutting the Pentagon budget.
It was a fair enough litany, but not on message enough.
We need to eliminate the word reform from anything the Repugs do. Why? Because "reform" sounds like "fix," and, well, you don't fix it if it ain't broken. And, as we all know, Social Security isn't broken, insurance companies need to be attacked, not lawyers, and if anything needs to be reformed, it's medicare.
Now, in my open thread post on this issue, I had responses from Truthbetold and AggressiveProgressive. They were pushing "Social Security Pirate-ization" and calling for just plugging in the word "fascism" every chance we get.
The problems with those approaches are obvious. "Pirate-ization" sounds too much like the Repugs LIEberal and DemocRAT, i.e., something that plays only to the base. The "fascism" suggestion is good, and, frankly, I think we could do with having some of our more prominent Dems start calling the Repugs fascists (if only to steal back the word from the absurd "Islamofascist"). But the weakness of "fascism" is that it speaks to our values, not theirs.
We need something that, say, Hilary Clinton could say on TV. More than that, we need something that appropriates a core conservative value. "Pro-choice" does that. "Choice," "individuality," these are terms that speak to core values, however insincerely, of conservatives.
Perhaps the main problem with Social Security is that it's a program that benefits people as a group rather than as individuals. That's why the Repugs call it Social Security "privitazation": something private is something exclusively for the individual, and so speaks to a key conservative value. Note this point, taken from a diary that cited a letter by Rick Santorum. Santorum wrote:
During my time in the United States Senate, I have worked to build support for proposals that would safeguard benefits for current retirees and those nearing retirement age, while allowing younger men and women the option of saving part of their earnings in personal accounts that they would own, building a nest egg that would, unlike Social Security, be an asset that their loved ones could inherit.
And then there's this letter from a Conservative nutjob, reprinted by Josh Marshall:
Do you hear of anyone addressing the fraud of this scam, that bilks FICA payers out of their contributions, if not living to collect any benefits, or having no eligible survivors?
We know politicians depend on Socialist Insecurity to keep their jobs, but it`s a national disgrace to defraud FICA payers out of their hard-earned pay.
The Repugs, despite appropriating "patriotism," also speak well against collectivism and for selfishness. That's the common theme of both the Santorum and the wingnut letter. We know that Social Security is inherited, but instead on a family-by-family basis, it is the inheritance bequeathed by one set of citizens to another. But we're not going to be able to steal the nutjobs' thunder by telling them they shouldn't be selfish, that they should be interested in the health of all citizens, &c.; we need, instead, to convince them that they're being selfish and pro-family by supporting Social Security.
So, now it's open season. We need to replace SS and tort "reform" with phrases that appropriate key conservative values: choice, individuality, patriotism, family, God. Or, if we can, we need to use the key conservative fear point, i.e., xenophobia.
Remember: it's not that the Dems need to move right. It's that we need to sound like we're moving right while all the while promoting, I hope, our far left agenda.
C'mon, let's be insincere!
Any takers? Give us a phrase.