Doubletalk

The Language, Code, and Jargon of a Presidential Election

The only time most Americans care anything about politics is during the presidential election cycle. This quadrennial flood of posturing and blame, once confined to the July conventions and the November election, has spread like a greasy lake across the landscape and calendar of our politics. From the first exploratory rumblings of the hopefuls sometime after the midterm elections to the tsunami of Super Tuesday, the political language of the presidential election has become a reflecting pool of our polity. Doubletalk casts a warm ray of sunlight on the campaign trail as an add-on to last year’s Dog Whistles, Walk-backs, and Washington Handshakes, with over 100 new terms, phrases, and epithets combining wit, humor, truth, and dubious taste and propriety.