Political Cliches that Piss You Off!

Various Talking Heads | 7/19/2012 | struggle

[struggle]

I hope you all wont mind this vanity, but my father and I were working (yeah, I know Obama's trying hard to put an end to that), and we started talking about how cable news talking heads have adopted repetitious cliches in their constant partisan battles on the tube.

Here are the top five I DESPISE: 1. At the end of the day... 2. Look,... 3. Speaking truth to power... 4. It is what is is... (a true exercise in tautology) 5. Literally... (when they're figuratively explaining a metaphor or hypothetical)

I can see why political discourse made George Orwell's blood boil so much. The linguistic bumpers that these talking heads punctuate their message with parse the core message to the point of making it meaningless.

[Skeez]

Folks

[Stormdog]

slippery slope

ginned up

demagoging

(pick your subject) is broken

as in “the system is broken”

[struggle]

>>8. Resist we much.

I liked "IT and Skillets." Why would someone unable to pronounce basic English be given a job...oh, wait, I know.

Thanks all for some great info. Please give me as much as you can.

If you haven't read Orwell's discourse on political language, it can serve as an aid when debating liberals. The most important thing to stress to our opponents is that words do not mean the same thing to them. When we talk about "rights" we mean the right to say f*** off to the government. When they say "rights," they are talking about things they require the government to provide.

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

[DKM]

"What the people want......"

"What American People are demanding......."

[firebrand]

screw the pooch
jump the shark
letting someone or something get inside one’s head
on American soil (or on California soil or whatever)
flyover country
the Northeast elite
clinging to (whatever)
giving something back
the one percent/the 99 percent
using a cliche with the word “proverbial” stuck in to make it seem less of a cliche
wait for it

[BIGLOOK]

Seems the the Fourth Estate lacks originality when in comes to the tools of their trade and now merely manipulates phrases and logos like the Swiftboats to their liking. Most would do well to do research into “shunning”, a practice from more or less Puritanical times or “Keel Hauling” a punishment practiced by ship's captains on those who were negligent in their duties or insolence. I prefer the latter.

"At the end of the day" as well as the other interjections into their orations are nonsense and causes me to disregard much of what the speaker has said, whether politician or lackey. Repetition reminds me of a bull with a nose ring that allows leading of the small minded by a superior. My grandfather led the bull that way and called the dairy cows with "come bos, bos, bos...". Who are the bos today?

[tsomer]

“Middle Class”

(They’re actually referring to government employees)

[spel_grammer_an_punct_polise]

The MSM loves the word, “allegedly”.

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

affordable housing = slaves’ quarters

[Sporke]

“The fact of the matter”......

Most times a person uses that, what follows are not facts.

[Minnesota fox]

Unexpected. Heard daily from the MSM.

[Talisker]

at the end of the day
on the same page
nuanced
bilateral
clearly
truly
frankly
honestly
without a doubt
outraged

[Sivad]

“(Whomever) tells it like it is”
No, they just say what THEY believe.

“He gave 110%.”
No, giving more than 100% is not possible.

“We the people”.......
Founding Fathers should have copyrighted it. Every other small town
rag has at least one reader letter a week starting a rant with this.
Give it a rest.

[OneWingedShark]

"War on ..."

Virtually anything they describe as a War on something isn't, the only exception that springs to mind is Drugs -- and then that ware isn't on drugs, so much as it is on the Bill of Rights (just look at what's happened to property-rights, the 4th and 8th amendments).

Especially irksome is the "War on women." Have these people so much as been in a war-zone? I have, and I find it to be utterly degrading and infuriating to the point I wish I could deck whoever kicked that term off.

Another one is that the Republican party is conservative or otherwise reliable.
just take a look at how they as-a-party have handled "Murdergate" (Fast and furious) and how they [again, as-a-party] aren't doing jack to bring things to light.
Or abortion; Republicans controlled the Legislature and the Executive for much of G. W. Bush's terms... and yet how many honest pushes were there to overturn Roe v. Wade? How many to even recognize (via resolution or some other action) that abortion is murder? (In short, the Republicans will never win because they see it as depriving themselves of a large constituency and the ability to shout "things'll get worse for/with abortion if you don't vote for us.")

[EternalVigilance]

Pretty much everything that comes out of the Romney or the Obama campaigns.

[Doug Loss]

The one that irritates me the most is “voting against your own self-interest.” That’s incredibly insulting to the intelligence of the recipient, basically saying “you’re too stupid to know what’s best for you.” Whenever the leftists come out with this, I let them know just how insulting it is.

[Former War Criminal]

“Pissed off” and its variants.

Vulgar.

[eclecticEel]

1) “kitchen table” - used as a metaphor for paying bills/budgeting; as if that’s the natural locale for such activity.

2) “hard-working” as applied to a group. Americans as a group aren’t hard-working: some are, some aren’t.

3) “red-blooded” - every one who has some amount of oxygen in their bloodstream is red-blooded, as a descriptor the term reveals nothing.

4) “folks” - just no.

[LittleBillyInfidel]

I could have written your reply AND article word for word! I keep telling my wife that someone has probably made a drinking game out of Karl Rove saying the word “look” before every sentence.

It’s probably already mentioned, but the newest cliche going around is “game changer”.

[LittleBillyInfidel]

“________-gate”. Slapping the old and tired “gate” on the end of every so-called scandal, in the hope of elevating it AS an enormous scandal, now has just the opposite effect!