A Ruse by Any Other Name . . . . 0
There’s nothing new about new about rebranding–“old wine in new bottles” is a cliche, but cliches become cliches because they express a truth succinctly. “Alt-Right” for “white supremacist” is a rebranding effort. The rebranders hope that you will forget that behind the shiny new label is the hate bottled from the same cesspool they’ve been swimming in for centuries.
At Above the Law, Elie Mystal excoriates another contemporary attempt to rebrand bigotry, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/15/us/politics/trump-travel-ban.html. A snippet:
This might come as a shock to the Witch King of bankruptcy, but “Rebranding” doesn’t work either. Not in front of a judge. You can stick a funnel on a horse and call it a unicorn, Mr. Trump, but you can’t make it s**t rainbows. You’re dealing with educated people now, not just fleecing yokels anymore.
