War of the Words

In his famous essay “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell predicted the manipulation of words for political gain.

Politics would become more form, less function. Politics, Orwell feared, would cease to be about anything but the words people spoke.

Enter Frank Luntz, the man behind The Word Doctors, a consulting firm for everything from corporate interests to the GOP (though, as Luntz says, he has met with Democrats, as well). Luntz engineered many key phrases used by conservatives. For instance, he has tried to redefine the word “Orwellian” to mean articulate, rather than fascist, choosing to invoke the author’s skills rather than the author’s ideas. He also redefined the estate tax, instead calling it “the death tax.” The estate tax has been used by nations for a long time, relatively without controversy. Luntz attempted to change that debate by charging, with this phrase, that people were taxed for dying. In another instance, he relabeled oil drilling “energy exploration.”

Luntz runs focus groups to see how people react to his new phrases. He showed a focus group a picture of an oil rig and asked which phrase the group would choose in describing the picture; apparently, the majority decided that oil drilling looks like energy exploration, even though, as it were, the oil is no longer being discovered, merely drilled. He argues that since his focus groups more often use his phrasing when presented with the option, his words are actually “more appropriate.” 

Luntz came to prominence working for Newt Gingrich and helping to engineer the GOP’s “Contract With America,” which helped catapult the GOP to a majority in both chambers of Congress; an enormous success the GOP is trying to replicate once more with a similar image campaign. Luntz also consulted for the Bush Administration, helping them rename global warming “climate change.” He helped to oppose the financial bailouts, saying “The fact is, there was no health care language to oppose the government takeover, so I wrote it.” Luntz has risen to prominence once more by a 17-page memo published in January in which he suggests the Republicans can defeat any legislation if they “link it to the Big Bank bailout.”

Currently, the GOP is railing against a provision of the Democratic financial reform bill that would create an industry-funded $50 billion fund for emergency bailouts. Republicans, particularly Senator John Boehner, have distanced themselves from Luntz and say they oppose further bank bailouts because of constituents’ phone calls, not Luntz’s memos. At the same time, it appears clear that at least some Republicans will vote for the financial reform bill to reign in derivatives, CDOs, and other mystical “financial products” that seemed to have caused such economic ruin, regardless of what names we choose to give these things.