I'LL BUY YOU A BEER

If you can demonstrate that you came up with the term "political hate speech," I'd like to buy you a beer. No, seriously. The catch, though, is that you have to tell me how to do it: how to imagine and coin a term that will help to frame the debate in such a way as to advance the political fortunes of your preferred party and leave less savvy rivals sputtering with anger and confusion.

Maybe it will take two beers, or three. Nonetheless, we're not starting from zero here. I've figured out this much:

1. The term has to be derived from a term popularized by your political rivals. This creates momentary confusion among targets of the speech using the term as well among the real targets, the listening or viewing audience; helps to delegitimize criticism until a successful counter can be found; and allows you to shift the terms of debate to ground you are already comfortable with.


2. The term has to imply that your rivals are "negative" (look for this one a lot during the next few months)


3. The term has to allow you to tap into the moral authority of a position that many folks agree with (no one likes "hate speech," really, even if they disagree on the extent to which it should be categorized as protected expression for 1st Amendment purposes). Bonus points for tapping into the moral authority of positions you disagree with but you suspect your rival or their supporters might. That increases confusion and shifts the ground of the discussion -- see point 1, above.

So, this much I understand. I also understand that it helps to have the distribution structure in place, so to speak. It's not just about being smart: it's about having the infrastructure -- and the capital to make investments in that infrastructure. Still, perhaps, after a few beers, you can let me in on some more of your evil genius, spinning-rhetoric secrets.