Political Cliches to Eliminate

Earlier I wrote a little piece about some political jargon we might want to ban.  As that piece seemed to be mildly popular and as time has passed, I thought I’d update it with some other worthwhile contenders for banning.  So below you will find some too-often used political clichés that we would all be better off without.  They obscure the meaning and thus cloud our thinking.  Let us do away with them.  Or at least try.

Red Tape:  This is supposed to mean bureaucracy.  I get that—but why is it red?  When the police cordon off a scene do they use red tape?  No.  In fact, has anyone seen any red tape for a very long time?  I am sure it exists—but not in my household.  So where is this red tape?

Going over the cliff: Much like the tape, this cliff seems to be rather conspicuous by its absence.  Where is it?  How long till we go over it?  How high is it?  Or can we even get to it, seeing as we’re all being held back by this red tape…

Best practice: This is something we want to do.  Because we want it to work.  So, for example, if we were to go over the cliff, the best practice would be to 1) remove the tape; 2) find the cliff; and 3) jump.  Thank goodness we’re not talking about a worst practice…

Transparent: This is what the government assures us it is.  (That’s probably why we have all these last-minute deals made for absolutely no apparent reason.)  But hey, they’re on YouTube and if that’s not transparent, I don’t know what is!

Real time: We can watch the government on YouTube being transparent nowadays.  Which seems a bit unreal to me.

Sweeping legislation: Have you even heard any Congressman worth his or her salt announce legislation that is not sweeping?  And is that why our Capitol is so clean? 

Toxic assets: Arguably the worst piece of marketing since … TARP or AIG.  But they will save the economy—which I guess is why we want them.

Broad context: As opposed to the narrow context.  The narrow context being (I suppose?) the elusive cliff.

Young people: The definition of this once pretty straightforward term seems rather ambiguous.  Often it means anyone who knows how to use the Internet.

In the loop: Everything is so transparent that we need to be inside this loop just to know some of what is going on.  (With our money, I might add.)

Out of the loop: This probably refers to the young people who can only catch our transparent government on YouTube.  That’s why no politician will ever say this—except perhaps when referring to foreigners.

I am sure there are other phrases that annoy you.  Please list them in the comments box if you feel like commenting.  Let’s see if we can rid our politics of these mind-numbing and meaningless phrases.  It may not improve the outcomes (worst outcomes may still be worst outcomes) but we may at least learn to be honest about what we’re doing!