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Given the long history of the US culture broadly being anti-left, what possible slogan could there be that's "aspirational and adaptable and unassailable". I th
by shakes_mcjunkie 5y ago
Given the long history of the US culture broadly being anti-left, what possible slogan could there be that's "aspirational and adaptable and unassailable". I think you put effort into a slogan but it's pretty much impossible for any leftist slogan to meet those criteria.
And anyways, again, I highly disagree that any slogan is unassailable. A lot of people still attacked "MAGA" so where is the line that you measure "unassailablity"? I could say to someone against "Defund the Police" that you hate Black people but there just isn't widespread support for that opinion like there is with being anti american. "Defund the Police" is a compromise slogan, "Abolish the Police" is the more radical version and arguably even clearer and less assailable but again mainstream US culture just doesn't want to face that reality.
Also, adaptable slogans are great for campaigns (where you probably don't want to assign policy specifics) and conservatives (who largely agree on everything already) but not for positions that are supposed to end up with policy changes. What adaptable slogan is there for leftist movement that's asking specifically to tackle the issue of police violence? The problem with adaptable slogans is they become compromised or co-opted. "Black Lives Matter" became a the conservative rally "All Lives Matter" and "Blue Lives Matter". Can this be avoided on the left by a more adaptable slogan? I doubt it.
So, okay maybe there's some slightly better slogan than "Defund the Police" but at the end of the day it's not the slogan that's the issue, it's liberals that don't actually agree with the basic idea but want to pretend they're still pro-left or whatever.
Edit: to complete the thought, all of this is to say, all the disagreement with the slogan is overall to a bad faith, pointless end. If the media and liberals and whoever are spending a bunch of time arguing about the slogan, it's time that could have been spent discussing and negotiating policy specifics. But liberals and mainstream media didn't want to do that. So we ended up with a lot of arguing about a slogan and not much actual policy and the police won.