Liberals and conservatives don't attack one another in the same ways. The Oxford English Dictionary released a blog post about the differences in slurs hurled across the political aisle, but the data, gathered in 2014, feels dusty, as if it were culled entirely from emails forwarded by grandmas. The findings don't square with our current reality, where a meme of a president, elevated by message and image boards, has turned our entire political discourse into a comment thread.
Annons
Some political insult truths remain constant. The right tends to go for pithy but broad slaps across the face, while the left seems to go for too-cute-by-half allusions or apt but un-sexy descriptive labels. This disparity in attack methods makes it difficult for direct one-to-one comparisons. But I chose to go ahead and write a guide to insults used by the right so, in the interest of parity, here's an attempt at cataloging the zings used by the left.Long before internet subcultures were overtly affiliated with political parties, members of these groups were referred to as losers who live in their parents' basement and rarely leave to see the light of day. The left has simply used the transitive property to deliver this insult to Trump supporters. Basement dweller = internet subculture = 4chan = Pepe = Alt-Right = Trump supporter.Donald Trump was one of the key figureheads in perpetuating the thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory that asserts Barack Obama forged his birth certificate because he was born in Kenya, not Hawaii, thus making him an illegitimate president according to Article II of the Constitution.The birther thing could've remained a weird little racist footnote in the history books. Then, last year, Donald Trump dredged it up by falsely claiming that Hillary Clinton had invented the theory and that he had "settled" it.A play on "truther," a term for one who believes the conspiracy theory that 9/11 was an inside job, the birther label is primarily used as an ad hominem attack that would discredit the target. "If they believe Obama was born in Kenya, why should we care about their thoughts on…"
Basement Dweller
Birther
Annons
Christian Sharia
Conned
Conspiritard
Deplorables
Drumpf
Annons
Fascist
Fake News
Annons
Milo's Opinion
Misogynist
Neckbeard
Re-thug-licans
Rigged!
Before, during, and after his upset win of the presidential election, Donald Trump has insisted that the cards were stacked against him. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, he and his supporters have bemoaned the election results. Like many other items on this list, liberals have simply adopted this term as a mocking retort of their own, employing it as a means of taunting the commander-in-chief or his denizens whenever they complain about faltering polling numbers, political opposition, or even the weather not being to their liking.
Annons
Sad!
Snowflake
Starbucks Cup
Sure, Jan
Primarily used as a rebuttal to a flagrant lie being spouted by Kellyanne Conway, "Sure, Jan" turns Christine Taylor's condescending sibling jab from 1995's The Brady Bunch Movie into a doubtful burn for the masses.