[lbo-talk] Who are the Teabaggers? Call for assistance.

Jordan Hayes jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com
Sun Apr 11 07:41:43 PDT 2010


Doug asks:


> What word would you use to describe a group of people who think that
> Barack Obama is a socialist?

I think the best you could do with such a question is to answer "People who don't know what a socialist is or what being a socialist would mean in the context of the US political economy" -- but that misses the point. They have a basket into which they've put the sum of their fears and anger; let's call it X. That's what's important, not that they picked "socialist" as the label for X. In fact, it was likely picked *for them*, by people who *do* know what it means (and how it would make you react to hear from these folks), and fed to them in much the same way as you might feed someone information about "smooth tasting" cigarettes.

You can denounce them as idiots because they don't know what a socialist is or why it would be foolish to actually label Barry one; but their handlers have tricked you.

/jordan



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