I don’t post a lot of threads and this one may die on the vine, but here goes!
When I saw the phrase “Concentration Camp” come out of AOC’s mouth, I initially shuddered a little bit. It was inflammatory and evoked images of death camps that the Nazis ran during WWII.
And, of course, the GOP attacked as they are prone to do.
But all of a sudden, survivors of Concentration camps and Holocaust experts, plus survivors of Manzanar came out of the woodwork to agree with her phrasing.
And I immediately thought of Frank Luntz.
Here was a guy who said…
"80 percent of our life is emotion, and only 20 percent is intellect. I am much more interested in how you feel than how you think. … If I respond to you quietly, the viewer at home is going to have a different reaction than if I respond to you with emotion and with passion and I wave my arms around. Somebody like this is an intellectual; somebody like this is a freak.
And what he meant by that is that by triggering emotion you can change the perception of and reaction of the population at large.
So don’t call it an Estate Tax, because if you inherit an estate you are wealthy and not like us. Call it a “Death Tax”, that sounds a lot more unfair because everyone dies.
Likewise don’t call it global warming, call it climate change. Yes, he did that one too.
He said…
“It’s all emotion. But there’s nothing wrong with emotion. When we are in love, we are not rational; we are emotional. … my job is to look for the words that trigger the emotion. … We know that words and emotion together are the most powerful force known to mankind.”
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/interviews/luntz.html
In that vein, isn’t what AOC is doing very similar? She is looking to evoke emotion and the term “Concentration camp” works a lot better. You can see by reactions on both sides that it works.
She should continue to use it and the rest of the Dems should follow suit.