Hey, media villagers! You can stop using ‘progressive’ as a pejorative now

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The media villagers love their political labels, even though the labels they use are outdated by a couple of decades or more. Political scientists they are not.

They are lazy and frequently repeat what they hear from the conservative noise machine in the mainstream media echo chamber. "Libruls" and "progressives" are spoken with the same sneering disdain that hate radio host Rush Limbaugh and his cadre of wannabe immitators use on a daily basis.

So this is a fun new POLL: 'Progressive' Is The Most Positively Viewed Political Label in America | ThinkProgress:

A new poll from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press out yesterday shows that “progressive” is the most positively viewed political label in America, with 67 percent holding a positive view compared to just 22 percent who view the term negatively:

The poll found that the term progressive is viewed positively by a majority of all partisan groups — including 55 percent of Republicans, 68 percent of Independents, and 76 percent of Democrats.

So lazy media villagers, you can stop taking your cues from Rush Limbaugh and his merry band of haters, and you can stop using "progressive" as a pejorative now. Even "liberal" has a 50% positive association after decades of abuse from the right.

This poll demonstrates why you hear all the Tea-Publicans refer to Democrats as (choose one): socialist, communist, marxist, fascist. Tea-Publicans are not using these terms in their classical political science definition. I seriously doubt that any of them even know the difference. Rather, these terms are used universally to describe anyone who does not share their political views.

Tea-Publicans are using these loaded words with negative associations to rebrand Democrats with those negative associations, to move Democrats away from any positive association with "progressive" and, yes, even "liberal." You just know there is a memo from Frank Luntz on this strategy out there somewhere.

The lazy media villagers should be calling out the Tea-Publicans for this smear. They will not. The lazy media villagers will continue to repeat whatever Tea-Publicans say in the mainstream media echo chamber.