Although you don’t hear them batted about so much anymore, there was a time not so long ago when the words snowflake and triggered were the coin of the realm in right-wing polemics. Any time a non-rightwinger would tender the slightest criticism of anyone on the right, all right-wingers would raucously denounce that person as a “snowflake” who had been “triggered”. Like just about every other accusation made by rightwingers, this is pure projection: they themselves are constantly flying into conniption fits over everything from Target bathrooms to a black mermaid. But it’s also an example of seizing the offensive, the next in our series of propaganda tools.

To seize the offensive is, quite often, to go on the attack; and in so doing, to put your adversaries on the defensive. The campaign and administration of George W. Bush provided numerous examples of this tactic. On the campaign trail, for instance, he and his handlers repeatedly branded Al Gore a liar (without producing even a single lie he’d told), and so Gore was always on the defensive, trying to combat that label. And immediately after the election, when it was still much too close to call, the Bush camp arrogantly declared undisputed victory — leaving Gore cast in the role of bad sport and sore loser for simply pressing to find out who actually won.

An offensive directed toward a real or imagined opponent — whether an individual or a group — always has the purpose of stealing focus. It’s intended to divert the scrutiny of the media and the public. Quite often, in other words, it’s allied with deflection.

Another objective is to stifle opposition. The idea is that, if you characterize someone as, say, a “snowflake” who “gets triggered”, that person will try to avoid such labeling by bending over backward to appease you. It’s not unlike the tactic of “working the refs” by constantly decrying the supposed “liberal bias” of the media.

You can also seize the offensive on matters applying to yourself. When Richard Nixon insisted that “I’m not a crook”, he was trying to proactively fend off allegations that he was a crook — apparently not realizing that by broaching the topic at all, he was making an accidental confession. Justice Samuel Alito was rather more savvy. When it became clear that ProPublica had the goods on some of his graft, he penned an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal trying to exonerate himself and attack ProPublica before it released its report. Damage control in advance of the damage.

But the offensive does not always entail deflection. Sometimes the practitioner tries to disarm critics — and even elicit sympathy — by openly acknowledging his or her flawed behavior; and note that this is by no means always a bad thing. If a public figure is arrested for DUI, she might try to just come right out and admit that she has a drinking problem, and that she would like everyone to pray to help her overcome it. That probably would prompt a much more sympathetic response than smearing the arresting officer or denying that the incident occurred at all. Just imagine how much better things might have gone for Bill Clinton had he just said, “Okay, look, I admit it: I have a hard time keeping muh thang in my pants.”

Once again, we turn to Dubya and his handlers for facility with this procedure. It was clear to just about everyone (if not to Junior himself) that he was not exactly, shall we say, an intellectual titan — not in terms of intelligence, training, experience or knowledge. But rather than pretend he was (which would have been an extremely difficult feat to pull off) he simply made his incapacity a virtue, setting himself up as an underachiever’s Everyman, sportingly poking fun at his own (very frequent) gaffes, and even assuring C students everywhere that they, too, could become president. (He left out the part about having family connections in state government and on the Supreme Court.)

There were a couple of desired outcomes, both of which worked out quite well for him. First, given the confrontational and combative nature of many people, when you say “I’m an idiot”, those who are looking for an excuse to support you will rush to your defense (even against yourself) and say, “no, no, no, you’re a genius — honestly”. Second, if you present yourself as (to use Bush’s phrase) “a master of low expectations”, then doing something so fundamental as blowing your own nose will make you look like a real pro in context.

Aside from politicians and other public figures, you will encounter the offensive in any kind of public forum (e.g. Twitter or Facebook) on which people engage in what they call “debate”. Very often you will hear someone say something like “and the next thing you’re going to say is…” or “I’ll bet you five dollars that you’re going to block me.” Since nobody likes for another person — especially an obnoxious person — to predict their behavior, and most people want to be “right” no matter what, the hope is that the individual to whom such remarks are addressed will try to prove the speaker/ writer wrong by not doing what he or she really would prefer to do.

It may have occurred to you that the offensive is related to spin and and framing. To put it in terms of a sporting contest, spin is what you might get when the coach of one team provides broadcast commentary interpreting the game after its conclusion. Framing is what you might get when that coach offers commentary while the game is in progress. The offensive is what you’d definitely get if that coach conferred with the referees before the game and told them that the other team cheats. The offensive definitely works hand in hand with spin and framing; but if you execute your offensives deftly enough, spin and framing may not even be needed at all.