Lileks Translates Demspeak

Jim Lileks is back in form on his Screed Blog, taking the Dems to task for endeavors that involve their only true area of expertise: twisting the language around until it means something else. Here's his opening fusillade:

The Democrats have many mantras and slogans: “grim milestone,” “hopeless quagmire,” “culture of corruption,” and “Karl Rove’s dingo ate my baby.” But for a while they’ve had one big overall slogan, dripping with gusto: “Together, America Can Do Better.”

Not will, or should, or must, but Can. It’s like saying “Together, Frenchmen can win a hot-dog speed eating contest.” Doesn’t mean it’s going to happen, or that you’d want to watch. But it’s typical of modern politics – something vague and patriotic, but not so patriotic it would unnerve a Dixie Chick. Together, America Should Be Greater! Together, America Might Go Further! Together, Democrats Can Win Elections! Providing the Republicans stay home.

[Bold emphasis above is from Wonker.]

Lileks is onto the essentially Gramscian tactic of manipulating the message until it supports the socialists without you really knowing it.

As a f'rinstance, he cites House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's brilliant tactic of making all Americans rich by raising the minimum wage:

Nancy Pelosi announced that should the Democrats retake the House, item #1 will be Bold and Sweeping: they will “give America a raise by increasing the minimum wage."

Apparently she believes that America makes the minimum wage. The population consists of industrial workers who get a dime each day for the number of fingers they haven’t lost to the machinery, a few million skinny Bob Cratchits shivering in underheated counting houses, and six plutocrats whose tight control over Consolidated Spats, Amalgamated Whalebone and other nefarious trusts keeps everyone poor and shoeless.

How right Jim is. I recall making a business trip to Woburn, Massachusetts, that hotbed of socialism, back in the mid-1980s. I stayed overnite in what was probably a Holiday Inn at the time, right across from a Micky D's restaurant. This was mid-Reagan, of course, he the destroyer of the working-class and at the time, another Republican opponent of the Dem's usual solution, raising the minimum wage, which, as I recall, was around $3.85. Mickey D's, of course, historically paid minimum wage at its stores, making it one of the Dems' favorite targets every election year for 'Rat demagoguing.

But what to my wondering eyes did appear? A big, handwritten sign in the front window of Mickey D's, advertising: HELP WANTED! $6.00 an hour plus benefits!

A little baffled by the apparent cognitive dissonance, I entered the store and spoke to the manager, saying something like, "What's the deal here? I thought McDonalds paid its starting help the minimum wage." He replied, "Well yes, we do, but each store takes care of itself. We can't find enough workers for minimum wage here, so we're having to offer more."

Hey, what a concept! Supply and demand. Except, perhaps, in certain rarified circumstances, all the Dems do when they force through these idiotic minimum wage increases is encourage businesses to make due with less employees, thus creating a situation of overwork for those with jobs at that level, while denying entry-level opportunities for those trying to get a toe-hold. Ironically, Pelosi is probably trying to suck up to the illegal alien vote. (Note: in case you weren't generally aware, they are permitted, off the record, do this in California all the time, since it ensures large 'Rat margins in general elections.) It might work, too. But in point of fact, every time the minimum wage goes up, it succeeds in depressing the hiring of minimum wage people, including the voters, illegal or otherwise, who vote for the boobs who propose this non-solution.

But here, in 1985, in the socialist paradise also known as Massachusetts, just a stone's throw from Boston, the laws of supply and demand were working just fine during that interregnum known privately in Dem-World and Tip O'Neill land as "Reagan's Evil Empire," forcing the slave-drivers at Mickey D's to offer a starting salary of $6.00 an hour—nearly 3 bucks more than the minimum wage at the time—just to get enough employees to keep this particular store open. What a concept. And without Nancy's (or Ted's) help, either!!

Meanwhile, back at Lileks, you'd really ought to read the whole Screed Blog, which elucidates further the manipulation of the English language in ways that Wonker finds truly awe-inspiring.