Political cards

Political cards are tactics used by liberals in politics, the media, and other adversarial settings in order to appeal to emotion or even prejudice rather than reason. The term is a metaphor for what happens in the card game of bridge, where one card can be played to "trump" (defeat) all other cards. Indeed, there may be about 52 political cards, just as in a deck of cards for bridge.

In contrast with most card games, however, a political card can be played at any time, no matter how irrational or irrelevant to the topic. Many liberal articles and commentaries consist of little more playing one or more political cards.

A card is "played" when one side relies on a particular issue in order to gain an often-unjustified upper hand in the debate or controversy.

Liberals have had a difficult time playing a political card against the Tea Party Movement, due to its amorphous nature.

Political card	Meaning	Example	Advantage	Disadvantage
sexist card
race card	Bringing race into a debate by suggesting that criticism is racially motivated or that one's opponent is racist	Used effectively to silence criticism of Obama in 2008
hate speech card
anti-gay card	Calling opponents of the homosexual agenda intolerant instead of focusing on the immorality of homosexuality.
intolerant card	demonstrating inconsistencies in liberal ideology.
uneducated card		Reading from a prop, Dan Quayle once misspelled "potato", and liberals destroyed him by playing this card		Effective until a candidate liberals are sympathetic to utters a statement such as the United States is made up of 57 states.
extreme card	in typical MSM newspeak, anything right of center or not liberal.	Bill and Hillary Clinton persistently referred to the Republican Contract with America as extreme; President Clinton ultimately signed 7 of 10 Contract items in to law.	Prior to the 9/11 attacks, was used interchangeably with "terrorist" by mainstream media sources.	Polls show journalists are more liberal than the American public.
global warming denier card	opposition to using junk science to promote political activism.		equates moderates with ignorant fascists.	belittles and denigrates victims of the Nazi holocaust.
anti-environment card
insensitive card
greedy card	Portraying capitalistic ideas or actions as greedy	Attacking oil companies for their profits, even though the oil company creates jobs and pays taxes into the federal Treasury, and the profits make up a reasonable portion of total revenue.	Most people care about money and fairness.	Seems hypocritical if the person using the strategy is wealthy (like most liberal politicians) or benefits from capitalism (like all Americans)
fundamentalist card
creationist card
birther card
conspiracy theory card
homophobia card	an irrational fear.			Attempts to ostracize and criminalize an emotional disorder. Many if not most homophobes are gay.
Dominionist card		Used by misogynists to attack Michelle Bachmann. [1]
"Responsible" Republicans card
millionaires and billionaires card	class warfare	President Obama said on June 29, 2011, "I'm proposing we get rid of are tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires."	appeals to voters motivated by envy	politicians that use it are dependent on campaign contributions from millionaires and billionaires.
anti-abortion card
gun card	slurs anyone who wants to take away defensive weapons
working families card	class warfare	See Democratic Talking Points, 2008 Presidential Nominating Convention, from the New York Times. [2]	postures Democrats as advocates of people who hold jobs and have children.	Politicians who employ such rhetoric invariably work to pass legislation that destroys jobs and undermines families.
against teacher-led prayer in our public schools card
Godwin card	invoking the name of Hitler.	George Soros likened the Bush administration to the Nazi regime.	appeals to emotion and extremists, and less educated leftists.	typical oppressive Nazi tactic.
McCarthyism card	accuse someone of being like the (false) liberal portrayal of Joseph McCarthy
liberal mocking card	mocking a conservative opponent rather than dealing with substantive issues	The Daily Show

Total number of cards: 24, out of a goal of 52.