One thing I think about a lot is what headlines and political messaging would look like if liberals/progressive adopted some of the tabloidy, accuracy-stretching tactics we see deployed by the Johnson right. This news story might be a good case study.
‘Johnson set your opt out of human rights laws’ reads the headline. Now, if you read the article, you’ll see that he wants to opt out of very specific human rights measures, on immigration and when soliders can be prosecuted for acts committed while on operations.
However, one can argue that to derogate from some provisions in the human rights laws and treaties is to undermine the entire framework. And if that’s true, then attacking one human right is to attack them all.
So, with only a couple of mental hops, which can put out the following arguable messages:
BORIS WANTS TO SCRAP FREE SPEECH
BORIS TAKING AIM AT RELIGIOUS RIGHTS
BORIS PLANS WOULD SCRAP FAIR TRIALS
BORIS PLANS TO SCRAP HUMAN RIGHTS WOULD LET ‘WOKE POLICE’ RUN WILD
Now all of these are a stretch from the actual proposals. But these headlines, attached to Union Jack memes, would need to be answered by those making those proposals. You’d force *them* to explain and defend at tedious length.
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