Sloganeering Thread

[kaelleria]

Because the GE thread is full of pages upon pages of it.

Make your arguments here.

[Shadowferal]

"Hope and change" was nice.

[Ursus]

"I'm with her" was absolutely terrible.

[Zaktar]

Nothing to add just... thank you. I hope this works.

[Hinastorm]

My 2c, what you label a left leaning policy ultimately won't matter. The right wing disinformation machine will tear it down anyway.

Renaming democratic socialism to Scandinavian capitalism, for example, won't work. Even though the new title is 100% accurate to what the goals are.

Renaming defund the police to whatever you want won't work. The right will just see it as a direct attack on police.

The left needs to stop wasting time and resources trying to sway people on the right. We have the numbers already, why don't we focus on getting our side to show up to vote, and on abolishing all the things that are giving republicans an outsize amount of power instead.

Hell, they misconstrued "Black lives matter". I mean come on. Can't really get a much better example than that. Of course the right wing disinformation machine also successfully somehow labeled it as a Marxist movement, so there ya go.

(Yes i'm aware some BLM organizers apparently have some Marxist beliefs. BLM is not a Marxist movement).

[Endus]

If you're expecting a concrete description and definition of a movement out of a slogan, you're being unreasonable. Slogans are meant solely to pique interest ("what's that all about?") and to act as a shared outcry, something easily chantable usually, in protests or rallies.

That someone is going to lie about the meaning of a slogan does not make it a "bad slogan"; it means your political opponents are liars and propagandists.

That it is open to interpretation does not make it a bad slogan; all slogans fall into this category. You look to the movement itself for greater statements on clarity and purpose. If you're unwilling to, and want to rely solely on your presumptions and prejudices, well, see above regarding "liars and propagandists".

One element regarding the "defund the police" movement that was called out in the GE thread that I'll address here in the intent of not derailing there, was the idea that "defund" is an inherently abolitionist term. They (and I'm not calling out names, here; this isn't about that) used references to "defund planned parenthood" and "defund the ACA" as a demonstration of that. I'll point out that the entire point of those mantras was to conceal the goal of "Abolish" with a more-reasonable-sounding verb; the goal of those movements was the complete abolition of those things. They were, in short, lying.

That may have given "defund" a little stink by association, but they were not being honest in their use of it. Trying to insist that dishonesty is inherent to the word, however, is not really reasonable. That a lot of Americans think that way is a condemnation of the willful ignorance of those Americans; this is why truth is an endangered species in the USA. If you really wanna argue that you've got to come up with a better lie because the truth isn't convincing, go nuts, but I don't agree that it's a moving argument. It's the first real sign that your nation's decline and dissolution is likely inevitable, if that's seriously the case.

It's an argument that's entirely rooted in cultural kneejerk preconceptions and propaganda. It's about as misinformed as thinking anything "socialist" means jackbooted authoritarianism. Words mean things. Stop insisting that ignorant misinformation has supplanted a word's real meaning. The USA isn't Oceania, and you're not speaking Newspeak.

[Antiganon]

Slogans should be clear and concise, and the immediate reaction by a completely uninformed person should be either "Oh I like that" or "Hmm that sounds interesting, let me learn more".

If there is even a remote possibility of your slogan being turned in you as a weapon by your opponents, it is a bad slogan, and you shouldn't use it.

No slogan is better than a bad slogan.

[Endus]

Slogans should be clear and concise, and the immediate reaction by a completely uninformed person should be either "Oh I like that" or "Hmm that sounds interesting, let me learn more".

If there is even a remote possibility of your slogan being turned in you as a weapon by your opponents, it is a bad slogan, and you shouldn't use it.

No slogan is better than a bad slogan.

Your standards are literally impossible to meet. Any slogan can be turned on you.

[Shadowferal]

Slogans should be clear and concise, and the immediate reaction by a completely uninformed person should be either "Oh I like that" or "Hmm that sounds interesting, let me learn more".

If there is even a remote possibility of your slogan being turned in you as a weapon by your opponents, it is a bad slogan, and you shouldn't use it.

No slogan is better than a bad slogan.

That's writing 101; clear, consistent, and concise. That's why "hope and change" was such a winner. A positive, forward-looking slogan. It didn't need explaining...some shitty essay no one will care to read...

[Endus]

That's writing 101; clear, consistent, and concise. That's why "hope and change" was such a winner. A positive, forward-looking slogan. It didn't need explaining...some shitty essay no one will care to read...

It absolutely does need explaining.

Hope for what? The establishment of a white ethnostate? That your ideological enemies will be annihilated? That everyone gets a free puppy?
Change? Change isn't always good. What if you don't want change? What if you see change as the biggest threat?

Even "hope and change" is semantically meaningless outside of shallow, empty positivity (and, as above, "we're gonna wipe out all the non-whites and make everything better" is technically a "positive message"). It could mean anything, and thus, to understand what policy agenda it describes, you need to go looking.

That's sort of the point.

[Antiganon]

Your standards are literally impossible to meet. Any slogan can be turned on you.

"Build Back Better"
"Yes We Can"
"Change We Can Believe In"
"Prosperity and Progress"
"Stronger Together"

How would you weaponize those?

[Shadowferal]

It absolutely does need explaining.

Only to you because you want to justify a lost cause.
One..gained seats
Yours lost them.

Suck it up and know...yours won't be used in red states ever again to try turning them blue.

[Monster Hunter]

Your standards are literally impossible to meet. Any slogan can be turned on you.

It is a detriment if like labour in the last GE you have to spend all of your air time defending slogans or explaining the surface level stuff over and over.

Part of labours issue was it spent so long explaining what it ment by bringing some things back into public ownership, and defending the idea of public ownership, when it was explaining its slogans it never actualy answered the question that most people i talked to about it wanted answering, and it kept changing it slogan when each one it came out with didnt land how they wanted it to.

All people wanted to know was how was labour going to avoid the mistakes and mismanagment the goverment made when it last owned those industrys, i think labour fundementaly forgot people dont look back on nationalisation fondly as it was a bad time for workers towards the end so it still had an argument to win there first but instead it just kept throwing out slogans and buzz words expecting people to some how get it.

[SavoirFaire]

Since this is rooted in defund the police, it’s a horrible slogan because is their funding even in the top 3 of the issues with the police? Legislative Union protections, qualified immunity, and close ties with prosecutors would be my top 3 concerns. I don’t think their funding is in the top 5, but to say that you need perhaps a screwdriver or a wrench at times instead of the hammer is certainly a valid point. The problem is when that hammer is abused, then the fact you moved the funding around will have done jack shit to address the problem. It seems like “follow the money” went down a weird back alley and wound up with defund the police.

BLM to an extent has a similar message issue. I certainly get their point, but what does all the money donated to this cause go to? Helping out communities, sure, that’s great. If the movement is about policing issues, then how is that spent money doing anything about it? Ironic in that they try to avoid political party and election stuff when that is the way to make change.

[Endus]

"Build Back Better"
"Yes We Can"
"Change We Can Believe In"
"Prosperity and Progress"
"Stronger Together"

How would you weaponize those?

"Build Back Better". Build what? What's wrong with existing infrastructure? You're gonna raise taxes. You're just changing things to spend more money wastefully so your cronies can skim off the top.

"Yes we can". This is so completely empty that it's just meaningless. The "can" can be implied to mean literally anything, from "making things better" to "white genocide".

"Change we can believe in." So you can't prove the change is good, we have to believe in it, like a religion. You're changing everything for no good reason. You want to destroy traditional X, Y, or Z.

"Prosperity and Progress." Progressivism is cancer. Any mention of "progress" is gonna bring about complaints about progressives.

"Stronger together." That's collectivism, and collectivism = communism. You commie.

Literally anything can be weaponized against you. That all is just off the top of my progressive head, I'm sure I'm overlooking potential angles.

Only to you because you want to justify a lost cause.
One..gained seats
Yours lost them.

Suck it up and know...yours won't be used in red states ever again to try turning them blue.

You keep casting personal aspersions as if I have a real stake in this.

I'm not American. The Democrats are not "my side" in anything. I have zero allegiance to any American political interests.

Also, nothing you said here follows from me pointing out that "Hope and Change" is effectively meaningless in and of itself, and that you'd have to look deeper to identify what the hope was for and what changes were desired by those using the slogan. You seem to be attacking a multiply-layered straw man.

[Deja Thoris]

Be bester. Like be best but betterer.

[Antiganon]

"Build Back Better". Build what? What's wrong with existing infrastructure? You're gonna raise taxes. You're just changing things to spend more money wastefully so your cronies can skim off the top.

"Yes we can". This is so completely empty that it's just meaningless. The "can" can be implied to mean literally anything, from "making things better" to "white genocide".

"Change we can believe in." So you can't prove the change is good, we have to believe in it, like a religion. You're changing everything for no good reason. You want to destroy traditional X, Y, or Z.

"Prosperity and Progress." Progressivism is cancer. Any mention of "progress" is gonna bring about complaints about progressives.

"Stronger together." That's collectivism, and collectivism = communism. You commie.

Literally anything can be weaponized against you. That all is just off the top of my progressive head, I'm sure I'm overlooking potential angles.

I mean sure if you want to blatantly gaslight people, anything is possible.

I'm talking about using the words at face value, not what the opponents disinformation machine twists it into.

You are really reaching here.

BTW, those are the campaign slogans of Democratic nominees who won the popular vote since 2000.

[Theodarzna]

Slogans are worthless, memes are the means communication, and in my book "Yes Chad" is the best.

[Felya]

Slogans are worthless, memes are the means communication, and in my book "Yes Chad" is the best.

If memes meant anything, Trump would still be president. Twitter is a bubble...



Oh... “America for Americans”... just name the new new deal that and then do what ever the fuck you want...

[Endus]

I mean sure if you want to blatantly gaslight people, anything is possible.

I'm talking about using the words at face value, not what the opponents disinformation machine twists it into.

You are really reaching here.

BTW, those are the campaign slogans of Democratic nominees who won the popular vote since 2000.

Of course I'm reaching.

But it's no further a reach than the nonsense that's been fired off at "defund the police" or "black lives matter". It's the same tactic. The only difference is really that we're apparently deeply concerned about that kind of gaslighting these days, as opposed to just calling it out for the dishonest crap that it is.