John McCain’s Antistasis Tax Dollars
JOHN Mccain says: “They’re going to raise your taxes by thousands of dollars per year — and they have the audacity to hope you don’t mind.” Says Figaro, that’s antistasis (an-TIS-ta-sis), the repeat that changes meaning. From the Greek, meaning “opposing position.”
Want to undermine your opponent’s ethos? Puncture his favorite uplifting expression — not by arguing against it but by repeating it. The antistasis does ju jitsu on an expression by flipping its meaning.
That’s what McCain does with Obama’s Audacity of Hope, the audaciously pretentious book title. The straight-talkin’ Republican turns audacious hope into something shifty and underhanded and raise- your- taxes- in- secretiveness.
Shooting from the lip…
