Purchase
How Conservatives Turned Liberalism into a Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-Reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left-Wing Freak Show
PublicAffairs
July 2007
On Sale: July 2, 2007
288 pages ISBN: 1586485091 EAN: 9781586485092 Paperback
Add to Wish List
Non-Fiction
Geoffrey Nunberg breaks new ground with this fierce and
funny narrative of how the political right has ushered in a
new world order, aided unwittingly by the liberal media.
Democrats are well known for their "lousy bumper stickers,"
as Joe Klein puts it. As liberals wade through the
semantics of "social security lockbox," "single payer," and
other wonky locutions, the right has become harder, meaner
and better at getting out the message: the estate tax
became the more menacing "death tax" and a contentious
education initiative was wrapped in the comforting (and
memorable) blanket of "No Child Left Behind." But Nunberg
shows that the real story is more subtle than just a bumper
sticker war. Conservatives' main goal wasn't to win voters
over to their positions on healthcare, education, or the
environment. They had a much more dramatic ambition. By
changing the meaning of words
like "values," "government," "liberal"; "faith,"
and "freedom," conservatives have shifted the political
center of gravity of the language itself to the
right. "Whatever our politics," Nunberg observes, "when we
talk about politics nowadays, we can't help using language
that embodies a conservative world-view."
No awards found for this book.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
|