Many websites and blogs available, from various political perspectives, are much more sophisticated in analyzing the psychological, economic, and social aspects of politics (often about the bad intent of the Other, or warning about the bad future consequences of the Other).

However, just as our awareness of the "little" function words (prepositions, conjunctions) in language is basic to our understanding of relationships, so also our awareness of some "simple" basic techniques (repetition, association, composition, omission, diversion, confusion) and predictable patterns helps us to understand better.

Certainly, my work (e.g."People downplay their own 'bad") can be criticized for being simplistic: "duh .... Everyone knows that... " [See: Qualifications, Cautions, and Caveats ] Yet, too many young people get confused by the complexity, or distrustful of all politics, or disgusted by this language deliberately designed to stir up the emotions.

Eventually, a good analysis of political language is a complex, rational activity. As such, it is in sharp contrast to the emotional rantings by many demagogues -- including talk-show commentators and online blogs -- with their partisan invectives, ad hominem attacks, sneers, slurs, and slogans. A good reasoned analysis is also in contrast to the little sound bites of TV news which are the source of most people's information and opinions.

Democracy may be better served during the heat of an ongoing election campaign, for example, by skilled journalists and other writers who are well informed (about politics, history, language and media techniques), who seek to present a fair assessment, and who are able to present thoughtful judgment about the context, accuracy, and implications of the current, specific political ads and statement.

Consider, for example, the brief, cogent 2005 essay by ex-President Jimmy Carter, "This isn't the real America," which calmly describes some of his grave fears about the most emotion-laden political arguments of the day.

Despite the need for informed citizens in a democracy, political language is seldom studied systematically in our schools ("no room in the curriculum, " " a hot potato issue, " etc.) We need to have more non-partisan, systematic analysis rather than partisan or ad hoc random responses.

Because young people are idealists, with great expectations, often their reaction during an election campaign is that politicians "shouldn't say things like that." Thus, many young people drop out, don't vote -- (Less than 4 % of California's twenty-somethings " voted in the last election) -- and end up totally alienated as absolute cynics.

Such cynicism needs to be replaced by a " healthy skepticism " -- to know that most choices in politics are not clear and simple, but are often "the lesser of two evils, " or "the greater of two goods. " We need a historical sense to know that people have always used language illogically and irrationally (but effectively!). Aristotle and others --over 2,500 years ago -- described hundreds of ways people can be illogical, either accidentally or deliberately.

Young people need to know that "calling for impossible conditions" ("If men were angels...") is a logical fallacy, that there will never be an ideal candidate or a perfect platform. Young people need to have not-so-great expectations, and, as the saying goes, "how to vote while holding their nose. " Democracy, with all of its human imperfections, is still far superior to tyranny, or to anarchy.

About 1980, when I originally wrote the War Propaganda section, Osama bin Ladin was being supported by the CIA in Afghanistan in its war against the Soviet Union. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein was being supported in its war against Iran by the US. Neither of these wars then was on my mind which was centered primarily on the patterns of rhetoric of previous European wars. A decade later, the "Cold War" was over when the USSR disintegrated. Two decades later, President Bush proclaimed the "war on terrorism" and linked our old friends, Osama and Saddam, as co-conspirators.

Frankly, I do not know who our friends and enemies will be two or three decades from now. But, I think that these patterns of war propaganda which I've observed in the past will appear in the future.

Elsewhere on this website (in the Intensify/Downplay schema), I've presented a comprehensive taxonomy, a simple and elegant model, as a useful way to analyze complex communication and persuasion. Basically: when people communicate, we intensify some things and downplay others. The common techniques how we intensify (by means of repetition, association, composition) and how we downplay (by means of omission, diversion, confusion) are elaborated in this comprehensive schema. This taxonomy is non-directive, to give many options to the analyst, but with a logical cohesion to each other. Thus, whatever you choose for your focus, you'll recognize how your choice relates to the wider context. No two people studying the basic patterns of political language do the same thing. Some may want to emphasize the candidates' formal speeches, others may focus on the spontaneous offhand remarks. Some linguists may be interested in political metaphors (e.g. war, sports, medicine); others may be interested in omissions, or in diversionary tactics (such as ad hominem, ad populum).