There you go...

I remember in the 1980 presidential campaign debate when Ronald Reagan said to Jimmy Carter, "There you go again!" A lot of people said it was a killer line, but what was so great about that?  It sounds like something a teenage girl with an attitude would say to her parents.

It's depressing that so much of today's politics turns on soundbites like that one.  I remember how during the F.L.Q. crisis in October, 1970, some reporter asked Pierre Trudeau "How far will you go?" and he answered "Just watch me!" People ended up focusing on the line itself and ignoring the serious issues involved.

Another soundbite that annoys me is "left-liberal." While "the conservative right" is redundant, "the liberal left" is an oxymoron!

I'm still sore about last year's Democratic primary when the Clinton camp wanted to associate Sanders with white male privilege, so they came up with the soundbite "Bernie bros"! That was a cynical appeal to identity politics, and an insult to the women and blacks who did support Bernie. But in the end stuff like identity politics and vote suppression that had worked in Hillary's favor during the primaries worked against her in the general election.  Call it karma.