"We could all unite against the hatred for Obama"
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Recently on the Fox News program The Five, one of the participants came out with an expression that illustrates the forces behind the kinds of errors that we've called misnegations — even though the errant phrase lacks any overt negation at all!
Bemoaning "this fractured strife among the Republican party", Greg Gutfeld said
And I just remember the good old days, where we could all unite against the hatred for Obama.
Presumably he meant "unite behind the hatred for Obama" or "unite in hatred against Obama" or something like that, but got the polarity reversed on the combination of against, hatred, and for.
Mr. Gutfeld, bless his heart, seemed otherwise shaken to the point of uncharacteristic levels of rapid-fire disfluency, e.g.
the- here- the- The Five is- here- what we're doing is it- we're pointing out
or later
we actually have to talk a- amongst ourselves
as an- as a- as a con- as conservatives, as Republicans.
Here's the whole thing — "Fox Host: Donald Trump Has Created 'Internal Strife' At Fox News" MMFA 3/30/2016:
Greg Gutfeld: uh well it's funny because you know
the- here- the- The Five is- here- what we're doing is it- we're pointing out
this fractured strife among the- among the Republican Party but
us pointing that out is like Charlie Sheen pointing out your drug habit.
We as a show are facing internal strife.
From a micro-level to a macro-level
you could s- look at
conservative websites like Breitbart
how much that- that- how- how much that has fallen apart
since the Trump nomination.
You can look at The Five
on any given day we have tension
over this nomination, over this candidate.
You can look at our network at a whole,
uh which is uh –
{laughter} don?t look at me –
uh but you can look at this network,
where we have- we are having issues within- within this fa- within a family of anchors over this stuff.
You can look at the Party.
So it's in- in at every area where there is conservatism,
there is strife.
And I just remember the good old days
where we could all unite against the hatred for Obama.
When it was so easy.
Eric Bolling: It'll be back.
Greg Gutfeld: It'll be back.
But- but- but
somehow Trump has shattered that
and now we're sitting here, we're grappling with this internal strife and we have no way
to get out of this.
um well and if we- so when we're talking about the convention and we're talking about how do we improve this,
we actually have to talk a- amongst ourselves
as an- as a- as a con- as conservatives, as Republicans.
Can we
express our grievances honestly about how we feel about this
so that we can move beyond, so we can unite.
I'm not talking like an encounter group, but I'm saying we all have to be honest with each other.
David Morris said,
April 2, 2016 @ 5:55 pm
So once Obama's finished him term, what will unite the Republican Party? Hatred for Clinton/Sanders?
AntC said,
April 2, 2016 @ 6:48 pm
@David M, if Republicans continue to dominate Congress, they can unite behind hatred for whoever's President. Could be Trump.
And Trump could unite with the Tea Party and gun lobby, anti-choice, … behind hatred for 'The Establishment' i.e. Congress and the Republican Grandees.
Don't need no Democratic Party opposition.
Just sayin'
Viseguy said,
April 2, 2016 @ 6:55 pm
I think he meant, I wish I could click my heels twice and it would all become black-and-white again.
BZ said,
April 4, 2016 @ 10:32 am
"unite against" (or for) sounds slightly off to my ears (unlike "unite behind") even without any misnegation, though the n-gram viewer seems to disagree with me (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=unite+against%2Cunite+for%2Cunite+behind&year_start=1800&year_end=2016&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cunite%20against%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cunite%20for%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cunite%20behind%3B%2Cc0) although when I throw in "unite with" everything else begins looking like a rounding error (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=unite+against%2Cunite+for%2Cunite+behind%2Cunite+with&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cunite%20against%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cunite%20for%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cunite%20behind%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cunite%20with%3B%2Cc0).
andyb said,
April 4, 2016 @ 4:54 pm
Nobody's even going to comment that Fox News is now openly saying that hatred is their goal? Anyway…
David Morris: If Hillary or Bernie wins, they will take over as the focus of hatred, just as Obama did. And if Trump wins, he will too (especially since there's no reason to believe he'll stop his attacks on Fox News, or that they'll stop taking the bait—not to mention that as long as they can paint him as a "libtard in disguise", everything that goes wrong is still the other side's fault).
But if they manage to get someone like Ryan or Romney nominated at a brokered convention and then elected, the Obama hate will go on. Look at any right-wing punditry from the Bush era, and it was all Clinton hate. Why can't Bush capture Bin Laden? Clinton blow job homo-lover! Why has Bush tripled the debt when he promised the opposite? Billary is a lesbian murderer!
For that matter, look at the other side. Any sensible progressive would surely blame, say, McConnell more than Bush for the current economic problems, but the people who shout the loudest insults with the least content are still focused on the Shrub. As long as American politics are treated like the Blues vs. Greens in ancient Rome, it's going to be the last winning charioteer for the other side who gets all the hate.
The only real question is: What if Cruz wins? He's pissed off the Tea Party, the mainstream Republican establishment, Fox News, and everyone he's ever worked with—but if he somehow wins with his message of "I'm the realest, hardest-right, conservativest hard-right conservative", it'll be very hard for them to openly hate him without having to call themselves "libtards". So, I think Fox will pretend to hate Obama, but occasionally slip up and call him Ted.
andyb said,
April 4, 2016 @ 5:15 pm
AntC: I'm not sure how Trump could unite with the Tea Party. Or why he'd want to. He's to the left of the Republican establishment, much less the Tea Party, on guns and abortion. He has stolen some of the religious right away from them, but only the segment that's more afraid of Sharia Law than hopeful for a theocracy and/or Armageddon.
Meanwhile, Tea Party supporters are all behind Ted Cruz. And the conservative establishment are holding their nose and backing Cruz, while running Congress as a body for obstructing rather than conducting government, giving the Tea Party little to complain about. If Trump wins, they're the ones who will unite with the Tea Party, gun lobby, anti-choice, etc. to attack Trump and block him from Congress at every turn, and Fox News will be cheering them along every step of the way.
K. Chang said,
April 6, 2016 @ 12:59 am
Not trying to get into the politics, but the far right in the US are STILL quite fond of claiming all sorts of weird **** anti-Obama views, including but not limited to:
* Obama is the true leader of ISIS (huh?)
* Obama will take over the UN and enslave us all (and the Safe Streets program is really a cover for UN takeover)
* Obama is the antichrist (various "numerology" "proof" then listed)
* Obama gave phones to poor blacks to buy their votes
* Obama is a closet Muslim betraying America
* Obama envies dictators (because he went to Cuba)
* Obama is demonic (because once a fly landed on Obama)
and so on and so forth.
It's often reported on Rightwingwatch, and lampooned every week on CognitiveDissonnance Podcast. Extreme right (Pat Robertson, Alex Jones, even Jim Bakker selling his buckets for End Times) been crying wolf for eight years, except their followers never get tired of the same old rhetoric.
And the fact that it's almost election time doesn't stop the hate at all, but rather, the rhetoric is dialed up because they are convinced if they don't stop the Democrats from getting the presidency the country is going straight to Hell. Makes me wonder if Republicans are still sane.
andyb said,
April 8, 2016 @ 8:57 pm
@K. Chang: Calling those people "far right" or "extreme right" may be unclear in 2016, while they're in open conflict with Donald Trump and his supporters. From 1980-2015, maybe we didn't need to distinguish modern far right nationalism vs. Christian theocracy vs. tax protest etc. But now, we do, and taking a term that seems to fit Trump and his core followers best, and using it to describe the anti-Trump segments, just seems confusing.