The Social Security debate has devolved into a language-police action, in which the White House desperately tries to stop anyone from calling its proposal “privatization” — even though, until recently, that was exactly what its supporters actually called it. Apparently, the “p” word didn’t poll well, since it had some vague relationship to the reality of the plan to ditch Social Security, so out it goes. And now it’s verboten not only to advocates for the plan, but also for those in the media who want to avoid being accused of taking sides.
Here’s Josh Marshall’s reprint of the transcript of a Washington Post interview with Bush, in which he complains that a questioner who used the “p” word was “editorializing.” The reporter then points out that Bush himself used the word just a couple months ago. (Here’s the full Post transcript.)
The administration is trying to play the same game with the AARP. When the senior citizens’ lobby produced a poll that showed wide opposition to Bush’s plans to begin dismantling of Social Security as we know it, the GOP complained that the poll was “skewed by politics.” Why? The poll dared to use the “p” word. (More on this from Marshall and Matthew Yglesias.)
This desperate effort to hide the truth by renaming it is as futile as it is comical: It’s a perfect instance of “Don’t think of an elephant” (or, for Fawlty Towers fans, John Cleese’s classic “Don’t mention the war!” routine). The more pressure the White House puts on Americans to stop thinking of the proposal as “privatizing,” the more opportunity they give opponents to point out that that’s exactly what it is — and to ask why the Republicans are running from an accurate description of their idea.
Any time you hear a Bush supporter protest that “No one is talking about dismantling Social Security, just reforming it!,” you can show them this quotation from a prominent advocate for the president’s plan (from Sunday’s Times Week in Review):
“Social Security is the soft underbelly of the welfare state,” said Stephen Moore, the former president of Club for Growth, an antitax group. “If you can jab your spear through that, you can undermine the whole welfare state.” |
That doesn’t sound like “reform,” now, does it? It sounds like the violent release of 70 years of conservative Republican hatred of Social Security and resentment at its success and popularity. In this view, Social Security is not part of a “safety net,” at all; Moore wants us to associate the retirement program to which we’ve all been contributing all our working lives instead with “welfare,” a word so unpopular we banished it from the political vocabulary in the mid-’90s. If you want your Social Security, Moore’s saying, you’re a freeloader! You just want a handout! You’re a welfare queen!
Somehow I don’t think that message will be very popular. Unlike welfare, Social Security is a program that most middle-class Americans have personal experience with, either themselves or through members of their families. This is one part of the far-right agenda that even Bush and Rove may not be able to re-frame, re-label, re-brand and sell.
The original user of the “soft underbelly” metaphor, of course, was Winston Churchill, who was talking about trying to get at Hitler by invading Italy. Putting aside the Godwin’s Law implication here (Moore equating Social Security with Nazism?), it’s worth noting that the “soft underbelly of Europe” turned out to be a lot tougher to jab than the Allies imagined. Social Security may similarly prove to have a tougher hide than its enemies think.
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