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Our current divide is not an accident. It is the result of a strategy spearheaded by Newt Gingrich to seize power after the Republican Party lost a bunch of seats after the Nixon impeachment and couldn't seem to get them back.
It involved the use of cognitive linguistic techniques cynically adopted to destroy bipartisan cooperation in favor of gridlock and "winner take all" politics.
My favorite of his memos from GOPAC, distributed to Republican candidates, was called: "Language: A Key Mechanism Of Control". I **** you not. It is linked to in one of the articles below.
A couple of these are pretty long, but they are interesting in that they are from the same paper six years apart. The first critical of his impact on our politics and the other an interview where he takes full credit for where we are and the cynical manipulation and deep divide our country is in as a result.
This is how we got here. This is how we got to where we sit behind razor wire and sandbags and hurl hateful insults at each other. Why "my" side is freaked out by the lockstep synchronization of conservative opinion and the "other" side is hovering on the edge of violence to protect America from socialism and the end of America as we know it.
Please read the articles if you wish to respond. I will not respond to posters that clearly did not. Feel free to bring your own examples. Especially those from the left, as they have started doing it too, albeit a little late.
So the first two are about Gingrich, from 2012 and 2018:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...ARAB&usg=AOvVaw2psEIJD-EIhScRp7-lE7iV&cf=1
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...ARAB&usg=AOvVaw2psEIJD-EIhScRp7-lE7iV&cf=1
The third is an article about the techniques themselves and the science upon which they were based:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...ARAB&usg=AOvVaw2psEIJD-EIhScRp7-lE7iV&cf=1
This topic will elicit strong emotional reactions as it will contain words and phrases chosen for that reason. Please try to keep this in mind.
And as you read the articles, notice how all of the techniques discussed pepper all of our political messaging. It is all cynical manipulation. And we as a society need to address this phenomenon as it relates to our politics. It divides, by design. It makes us enemies instead of fellow citizens, by design.
We cannot continue to function as a nation in this environment. We will never be able to return to civil discourse and compromise and bipartisan efforts to address our problems until we address the toxic fruits of a hundred years of behavioral research conducted for the sole purpose of getting us to accept what we would reject and reject what we would embrace if we were simply told the truth.
We used to be better. We can be again.
And please remember, I reject the use of these techniques themselves. You cannot get me to defend liberal use of them. Instead, please cite them and enjoy a liberal agreeing with you!
It involved the use of cognitive linguistic techniques cynically adopted to destroy bipartisan cooperation in favor of gridlock and "winner take all" politics.
My favorite of his memos from GOPAC, distributed to Republican candidates, was called: "Language: A Key Mechanism Of Control". I **** you not. It is linked to in one of the articles below.
A couple of these are pretty long, but they are interesting in that they are from the same paper six years apart. The first critical of his impact on our politics and the other an interview where he takes full credit for where we are and the cynical manipulation and deep divide our country is in as a result.
This is how we got here. This is how we got to where we sit behind razor wire and sandbags and hurl hateful insults at each other. Why "my" side is freaked out by the lockstep synchronization of conservative opinion and the "other" side is hovering on the edge of violence to protect America from socialism and the end of America as we know it.
Please read the articles if you wish to respond. I will not respond to posters that clearly did not. Feel free to bring your own examples. Especially those from the left, as they have started doing it too, albeit a little late.
So the first two are about Gingrich, from 2012 and 2018:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...ARAB&usg=AOvVaw2psEIJD-EIhScRp7-lE7iV&cf=1
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...ARAB&usg=AOvVaw2psEIJD-EIhScRp7-lE7iV&cf=1
The third is an article about the techniques themselves and the science upon which they were based:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...ARAB&usg=AOvVaw2psEIJD-EIhScRp7-lE7iV&cf=1
This topic will elicit strong emotional reactions as it will contain words and phrases chosen for that reason. Please try to keep this in mind.
And as you read the articles, notice how all of the techniques discussed pepper all of our political messaging. It is all cynical manipulation. And we as a society need to address this phenomenon as it relates to our politics. It divides, by design. It makes us enemies instead of fellow citizens, by design.
We cannot continue to function as a nation in this environment. We will never be able to return to civil discourse and compromise and bipartisan efforts to address our problems until we address the toxic fruits of a hundred years of behavioral research conducted for the sole purpose of getting us to accept what we would reject and reject what we would embrace if we were simply told the truth.
We used to be better. We can be again.
And please remember, I reject the use of these techniques themselves. You cannot get me to defend liberal use of them. Instead, please cite them and enjoy a liberal agreeing with you!