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Notes -
It seems to me that the word “spew” is very left-coded in online discourse. “You’re just looking for an excuse to spew your hatred”, “he was spewing his racism and homophobia everywhere”, etc.
This is interesting because, in contrast to an overtly political term like “privilege”, or even a set phrase like “there’s a lot to unpack here”, the word “spew” is a longstanding and perfectly innocuous non-political term from ordinary language. And yet to my ears it has still taken on a political valence. I rarely hear a rightist say something like “and then he started spewing his politically correct nonsense”, if ever.
Can you think of any initially non-political words or patterns of speech that have become right-coded? (Or just more leftist examples - I know there are more besides just “spew” but I’m drawing a blank at the moment).
I recall Pete Buttigieg getting disparaged by the left for using the term "virtue signalling". The left might admit that such a phenomenon exists (I think maybe "performative activism" is the approved phrase this year?) but using right-coded vocabulary for it was taken as evidence that he'd been talking to the other side too much to be a safe candidate.
More broadly, "woke" appears to have been ceded to the right, with the euphemism treadmill there cranked up so fast that no replacement seems to be forthcoming.
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