Progressive guide to corporate Dem speak

When the corporate Dems talk about the progressive agenda they use key frames, often Repugnantan, designed to neutralize the policies. This guide helps us to decode exactly what they mean with their subterfuge. A few examples follow. See the link for more.

Centrist:
Someone who presents a corporate-friendly agenda with less fervor than the typical Republican, with a modest measure of regulation as demanded by circumstances and with a patina of social liberalism.

Choice (when applied to a public good):
A word used as an attempt to distract people from the flawed state of the American social contract by forcing them to choose from an array of semi-functional, overpriced private-sector products. This allows policymakers to subsidize private corporations at public expense, while at the same time providing the public with something that loosely resembles—but is not—a functioning social safety net.

Free stuff:
A term of contemptuous dismissal for public services that are commonly available in other developed countries, and which any decent society would make available to all human beings.

I’m pragmatic:
I don’t believe that a country that won two world wars, rebuilt its economy with the New Deal after the Great Depression, created Medicare and Social Security, developed the internet at public expense, and sent several manned missions to the moon can do big things.

Purity test:
Any belief or policy I won’t espouse because it would alienate my funders, but that I won’t openly oppose because it’s popular with voters. It implies that people who support it are rigid and unreasonable, rather than principled and thoughtful.

Realistic (as in, “Your proposal (backed by a large majority of voters) isn’t realistic”):
We don’t live in a functioning democracy and I don’t plan to do anything about it.