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Jon Johnston 3:56 p.m. ET March 20, 2017

Been thinking about Democratic Party tactics specifically conflating (associating or overlapping two disparate ideas/dynamics with each other) as means to (1) scam Obama's and Hillary's base (not people one associates with those who are well-read or prone to do their homework) and/or (2) change the debate (whatever the subject du jour). By its nature this tactic is more successfully utilized by leftists (as opposed to normal people) who can achieve and advance power only through obfuscation, lest the proverbial "light of day" expose them for what they are.

A multitude of recent examples spring to mind. Leftists (proven to be no friends of our Constitution), being repeatedly hammered for supporting/encouraging unfettered access to our country for illegal aliens now conflate the terms immigration and illegal immigration to wind up with just the term immigration.

So, while normal people hear immigration as applying to those who actually obey our laws and respect our national sovereignty, Obama's/Hillary's base hears that word applying both to the aforementioned as well as to liars, criminals, or cheats (essentially, the definition of illegal aliens). Conflating the two terms (legal and illegal) allows party officials and their "useful idiots" (to borrow from an apt Soviet term) a platform to advance their plan for open borders.

Paraphrasing the O.J. Simpson trial "sidebar": somebody at York Democratic Party HQ please step up to the plate, and tell the rest of us in York County what 1,000,000 illegal immigrants flooding across open border during the next 12 months will look like, either downtown or in the burbs? I'm thinking, for instance, jobwise? How many jobs are available in York County? Who, exactly, is going to support the rest of that 1,000,000 influx?

A favorite leftist topic has been Russian hacking into the presidential election. Now here is a conflator's dream (again, a Democrat). First there's the conflating of hacking with interfering. The implied, always implied, thought implanted in small minds is that those dirty Russkies changed the vote count (in the voting machines). But, if Hillary and her co-conspirators can scam her base into thinking that is what happened ("Please pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" John Podesta whose hacked account exposed Hillary for the criminal mastermind she is) or (OR) conflate that news by associating presidential candidate Trump "talking to the Russian. Voila! Trump and those Ruskies stole the election!

How about this one. MSNBC's Rachel Madcow made a point of telling her robotic listeners that it is not illegal to "publish" the two-page 2005 IRS tax return of Donald Trump. (A) It is a felony for an IRS employee to disclose someone's tax returns, (B) knowing that it is illegal, no one pointed a gun at Madcow's head, and told her she must tell everyone about the details. By using the tactic of conflating, she misdirects the Hillary/Obama base instead toward her scoop.

And the ongoing conflating of the AHCA (Republican version) versus Obamacare is true rhetorical genius. Note the left's tired rhetoric that replacing Obamacare would result in millions of people winding up sans insurance. I could be stretching the definition of insurance coverage a tad, but it doesn't require a MENSA-level IQ to realize that as we sit here, millions of Americans who have five-figure family deductibles as well as monthly insurance premiums higher than a car payment don't have insurance!

Although I'm partisan, I'm not fanatical enough that I don't realize there are many, many folks who voted Democrat who are not politically ignorant. The question is how many will exhibit the integrity to step forward, renounce what the party has become, recognize that each vote for a Democrat fuels the party machine, and that party officials will crush whatever sane people attempt to reform that group.

I'm not one to "hog the ball" so I'll let someone else jump in to discuss conflating global warming with man-made global warning.

Jon Johnston lives in Windsor Township.

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Thoughts on how liberals conflate issues (column) - York Daily Record/Sunday News