The Power of Adjectives
Crooked Hillary is what president Trump has been calling his one-time opponent Hillary Clinton. Not once or twice, but consistently every time he refers to her.
This is more than just standard insulting. Trump has made an art of insulting his opponents with nicknames, which he tends to keep using consistently until they get picked up by others.
It is really just a standard marketing campaign. Just like toothpaste and toilet paper ads are trying to create a positive association in people’s minds by putting their product together with a positive image, even when that image has litle to do with the product. I still remember the commercials I watched growing up for fa body lotion, featuring topless women at the beach.
Lasting associations: fa commercial. Screen capture from vimeo.
Not only does the repetition of negative associations work as a marketing campaign, they are also almost impossible to defend against. Not only can’t you can an injunction against the use of an adjective, even trying to argue against it makes you sound petty and small.
It seems that the only thing that we can do against these kinds of campaigns is recognize them for what they are: tricks to change how we think. Mental alertness can steal us against such attempts at indoctrination—from both sides of the political spectrum.
Unfortunately, recognizing how marketers are trying to change your mind is not a skill that is tought in most American schools. Americans seem to be particularly in love with commercials and are happy to let them all wash over them.
Eric Grivel
April 21, 2018