Saturday, January 23, 2010

A framing proposal: appropriate the term ‘common sense’ for the left

Listening to John Boehner’s weekly address response today confirmed an earlier suspicion that “common sense” must be shaping up to be the newest GOP canned buzz phrase. Maybe it’s been around and it just hasn’t pricked my ears up, but when Sarah Palin and Boehner are both currently pounding the phrase into our consciousness, you have to think it’s been tested and it’s working.

Here’s what I wonder: if the left couldn’t just appropriate it. We’re for common sense, too!

Part of the Republicans’  message must be a dog whistle thing: the lunch pail crowd likes to to believe that intellectuals necessarily don’t have common sense, it’s one or the other. You’re an egghead or you have street smarts, never both. It can’t be both or the blue collar class loses a cherished mode of self-appreciation. “Well, that boss of mine might have a diploma on his wall but he don’t have a lick of common sense [like me].” That’s why you also hear “Ivy League” sprinkled into raps about policy—a sure way to send shivers of defensive disgust up the spines of Real Americans.

I think we could disarm a lot of these culture war weapons by just using them ourselves. It would neutralize the sting, but would be entirely fair. For instance, who says I can’t tout my own sort of “family values” just because I’m very liberal?

We can be angry and populist with the best of them, too. Why cede all those lovely, universally human terms and stances?