Thursday, January 28, 2010
President Obama said “Let’s try common sense” in the State of the Union speech Wednesday night.
Here’s the Twitter reaction. Obama fans like the idea. The Right scoffs. (If you see this seven days from now, the search link will lead to an empty results page; Twitter doesn’t keep historical searches.)
Bonus: I found this in my searches this morning—a November 2009 accounting of Governor Palin’s fondness for the phrase by Chris Kelly, a writer for Bill Maher’s show who blogs at Huffington Post.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
On Saturday I pointed out the newest conservative catch phrase, “common sense,” and suggested libs should just ... take it.
I’ve been listening. It seems to be used more by politicians on the far right. More interesting, talking points aren’t just for politicians anymore. When pols speak the tested words there’s an echo on the internet. Check out this feed of tweets mentioning “common sense” by users who employ the “TCOT” (top conservatives on Twitter) hashtag to filter their remarks.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Listening to John Boehner’s weekly address response today confirmed an earlier suspicion that “common sense” must be shaping up to be the newest GOP canned buzz phrase. Maybe it’s been around and it just hasn’t pricked my ears up, but when Sarah Palin and Boehner are both currently pounding the phrase into our consciousness, you have to think it’s been tested and it’s working.
Here’s what I wonder: if the left couldn’t just appropriate it. We’re for common sense, too!
Part of the Republicans’ message must be a dog whistle thing: the lunch pail crowd likes to to believe that intellectuals necessarily don’t have common sense, it’s one or the other. You’re an egghead or you have street smarts, never both. It can’t be both or the blue collar class loses a cherished mode of self-appreciation. “Well, that boss of mine might have a diploma on his wall but he don’t have a lick of common sense [like me].” That’s why you also hear “Ivy League” sprinkled into raps about policy—a sure way to send shivers of defensive disgust up the spines of Real Americans.
I think we could disarm a lot of these culture war weapons by just using them ourselves. It would neutralize the sting, but would be entirely fair. For instance, who says I can’t tout my own sort of “family values” just because I’m very liberal?
We can be angry and populist with the best of them, too. Why cede all those lovely, universally human terms and stances?
