Leftist Talking Point Stew: Same Ingredients, Freshly Reheated

Open can. Add outrage. Stir vigorously. Serve repeatedly.

If Leftist Word Salad is what happens when political buzzwords get tossed together, Leftist Talking Point Stew is what happens when the same political ingredients simmer for so long that nobody remembers who put them in the pot.

Turn on cable news.

Scroll through social media.

Listen to a politician answer a question.

Sooner or later, you begin hearing remarkably familiar phrases.

Different speaker.

Different day.

Same recipe.

Welcome to Leftist Talking Point Stew.

The Daily Special

Political messaging isn't accidental.

Parties, campaigns, advocacy organizations, commentators and activists spend enormous amounts of time figuring out which words best frame an issue.

That's politics.

But something interesting happens when a particular phrase catches on.

Suddenly everybody seems to be saying it.

The politician says it.

The commentator repeats it.

The activist posts it.

Social media amplifies it.

By dinner time, you've heard the same talking point fifteen times from fifteen different people.

At some point you start wondering:

Did everybody independently reach exactly the same conclusion using exactly the same words?

Or did somebody hand out the recipe?

What's in the Pot?

The ingredients change depending upon the political controversy of the week.

But the cooking instructions remain remarkably consistent.

Start with a complicated issue.

Reduce it to a slogan.

Add a generous helping of emotionally charged language.

Season with carefully selected statistics.

Discard inconvenient details.

Add outrage to taste.

Then simmer across television and social media until the talking point becomes conventional wisdom.

Serves millions.

Why Repetition Works

There's a reason political messaging relies so heavily on repetition.

Familiar ideas become easier to recognize and easier to remember.

That's useful when you're selling detergent.

It's even more powerful when you're selling a political narrative.

Hear something once and you might question it.

Hear it fifty times—from politicians, television personalities, celebrities, activists and your social-media feed—and it can begin to feel like something everybody simply knows.

But repetition isn't evidence.

A claim doesn't become true because you've heard it a hundred times.

That's where the BG philosophy comes in.

Check the Ingredients

Before swallowing the talking point, turn the can around.

What's actually in it?

Where did the claim originate?

What's the original source?

Is an important fact missing?

Does the headline accurately describe the story?

Is the statistic being presented in context?

And perhaps most importantly:

Would I believe this just as quickly if the other political party were saying it?

That's a tougher question than it sounds.

Yes, Everybody Has a Kitchen

Our design is called Leftist Talking Point Stew, so obviously we're poking fun at the political left.

That's satire.

But conservatives shouldn't pretend they're immune to political messaging.

They're not.

Neither are independents.

Neither are we.

Everybody has biases. Everybody has preferred sources. Everybody is more inclined to believe information that confirms something they already suspect.

Recognizing that doesn't mean abandoning your principles.

It means making sure they're actually your principles.

Why We Put It on a Can of Stew

Because political satire doesn't always need another screaming politician.

Sometimes a can of stew makes the point better.

Take the endless talking points.

Throw them into a pot.

Give them a ridiculous label.

Put them on the grocery shelf.

And suddenly the joke explains itself:

Same ingredients. Freshly reheated.

That's the idea behind Leftist Talking Point Stew.

It's funny.

It's political.

It's deliberately irreverent.

And underneath the joke is something we take seriously:

Think for yourself.

Don't accept something simply because your favorite politician said it.

Don't reject something simply because the other side said it.

Read.

Listen.

Check the source.

Then decide.

Because there's already enough political stew being served in America.

You don't have to eat everything they put in front of you.

THE BG DISPATCH

Question everything. Check the ingredients.

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