Reader question:

Please explain this sentence, particularly “political red meat”: “Wide Open Borders” is political red meat for the MAGA base.

My comments:

“Wide Open Borders” kind of sums up current American politics in a nutshell.

“Wide Open Borders” is a claim made by Republicans against the Biden Administration. The claim is that Democrats are opening American borders and allowing everybody to come in freely and unhindered. As former President Donald Trump puts it, they are “l(fā)etting millions of people from jails, from prisons, from insane asylums, from mental institutions, drug dealers pour in”.

This claim is false, of course. But it serves as political red meat for the MAGA base, i.e. devout supporters of Donald Trump, who is the champion of the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement.

Political red meat?

That’s red meat in the political sense.

Red meat, of course, refers to raw animal meat that’s red in color. Beef, for example, is a typical red meat.

Red meat is believed to be more energy giving than white meat, such as fish meat or chicken meat.

Meat is the food of carnivores in the wild. Ferocious beasts such as tigers and lions, for example, love red meat. Give them red meat and they’ll show their true colors, i.e. their killer instinct. They’ll show their teeth. They’ll be ready to kill.

In the human world, red meat is shunned by vegetarians. Vegetarians consider red meat eaters rude and barbarous. They tend to think red meat eaters share some of the traits of carnivorous animals, fierce, tenacious and unrelenting.

They may have a point.

Anyways, it is from this that the figurative meaning of “red meat” derives. Figuratively, “red meat” represents issues that a political group particularly salivates over, issues that are most arousing, that are most able to rile people up, that get them angry and out of control.

Immigration is such an issue that currently divides America. Even though all Americans (with the exception of American Indians) are descendants of immigrants, a lot of republicans today want to close the door to immigrants, fearing immigrants will take all their jobs because they’re willing to do the same jobs for lower pay.

That’s just an example. The immigrant issue is complex and complicated. For our purpose here, it’s enough to know that it’s a red meat issue, one that easily gets voters exited, an issue over which they’ll quarrel and quarrel – till they’re blue in the face.

Or, rather, red in the face as red is the color for Republicans and blue is the color representing Democrats.

All right, without further ado, let’s read a few media examples of “red meat” in the political sense:

1. Dogecoin buyers are hanging their hopes on Saturday night.

Well, Saturday Night Live, to be exact. Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, SpaceX, and, sometimes, jokingly, Dogecoin, is set to appear on NBC’s comedy sketch show this weekend. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts and speculators are waiting with bated breath for the episode; they expect the on-and-off-again world’s richest man to mention the so-called meme-coin on air, potentially causing its price to move. That could mean lots of pain – or euphoria – for investors, and likely heaps of both, depending on which side of the trade one falls.

Dogecoin is a funny-money cryptocurrency whipped up on a whim in 2013 by programmers who have since abandoned the project. The price of the Shiba Inu dog-inspired Bitcoin-knockoff has rocketed 13,500% to roughly $0.60 per coin since the beginning of the year, as my colleague Lance Lambert has chronicled. The froth has attracted interest from – and been propelled by – an odd assortment of celebrities in recent months, from the owner of the Mavericks NBA team Mark Cuban to foodie Guy Fieri to rapper Lil Yachty.

Musk has delighted in fanning the flames of the mania, tweeting jokes about Dogecoin for months – years even. If Musk’s tweets have been red meat for ravenous $DOGE fans, then his April 28 post about his upcoming SNL appearance could be considered, for a certain kind of speculator, the finest slab of Wagyu beef. He wrote, enticingly: “The Dogefather SNL May 8.”

Goaded a few days later by a fan to do “Summin about The DOGEFATHER” for an SNL skit, Musk replied, “Definitely.”

Dogecoin is benefiting from a perfect storm. A new generation of day traders – steeped in irreverent Internet culture and freshly stocked with free stimulus money – is piling onto the joke in hopes of easy returns. A combination of pandemic lockdown-induced boredom, zooming cryptocurrency prices, and retail-driven GameStop stock run has poured fuel onto the fire.

- Saturday night could make or break Dogecoin, Forune.com, May 7, 2021.

2. Who’s next?

With pundits declaring “The Roast of Tom Brady” a huge success, the question becomes which pop culture will step up next to get destroyed in front of a live audience for a Netflix special.

The Brady roast – it had two million views within the first few hours of availability to Netflix subscribers – worked because it was allowed to work. The pendulum, which had been completely in favor of cancel culture, is swinging back towards sanity. Comedians aren’t the least bit worried about dork cancel culture nerds. Kevin Hart, who had to step down as the host of the 2019 Oscars over tweets and comedy bits, was on stage Sunday night as comedians unleashed a wild barrage of jokes that would’ve been red meat for the cancel vultures back in 2019.

Tom Brady having the balls to be ripped Sunday should have a roast ripple effect. Which public relation teams are reaching out to Netflix? Which athletes should step up next?

- Netflix Should Roast These Celebs & Athletes Next, Outkick.com, May 8, 2024.

3. During Thursday’s edition of Pod Save America, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked about Joe Biden's January comments about Fox News White House Correspondent Peter Doocy in which the president called him a “stupid son of a b****” for asking a question about inflation.

“He works for a network that provides people with questions that, nothing personal to any individual, including Peter Doocy, but might make anyone sound like a stupid son of a b****,” Psaki replied.

Psaki went on to tell the crowd a “nice Peter Doocy story,” and shared how Biden later called Doocy and apologized for his comments and complimented Doocy for being gracious in the wake of Biden’s apology and not returning an insult.

Psaki appearance the podcast was red meat for some of her critics. The Spectator’s Stephen L. Miller pointed to what he sees as an ethical problem with her going on the show while in the midst of negotiating a role on MSNBC.

“The White House Press Secretary has signed an MSNBC hosting deal while still at her job and is out doing a media tour and zero journalists have a problem with this,” Miller tweeted, adding, “You deserve Elon Musk and frankly, worse. Just a completely corrupted irreparable industry.”

- Jen Psaki says there is 'nothing personal' in her smackdowns of Peter Doocy, AlterNet.org. April 16, 2022.

4. The economy was the focus of the first night of the Republican National Convention, but it was Donald Trump’s first public appearance since the attempted assassination at his rally Saturday that stole the show.

Electricity pulsed through Fiserv Forum when Trump, wearing a large white bandage over his right ear, entered the venue. The crowd erupted into raucous cheers as Lee Greenwood performed “God Bless the U.S.A.” – a song played at every Trump rally – in a moment that made a number of people in the crowd, including the former president’s son Don Jr. emotional.

Trump did not make any remarks, other than mouthing “thank you” to attendees, before settling into a box seat next to Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, whom he announced as his running mate earlier in the afternoon, and Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla. Imitating Trump’s remarks after he was shot and stood back up, rally attendees shouted, “Fight! Fight! Fight!"

Most speakers stuck to the night’s theme – “Make America Wealthy Again” – but interspersed through the night were mentions of the shooting and rhetoric that, at times, contradicted Trump’s own calls for unity.

High inflation, and what the speakers said was the lackluster economy under President Joe Biden, was a key talking point throughout the night.

“Many families today are having that same experience,” said North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, speaking of his experience growing up poor. “Grocery prices have skyrocketed, and gas has nearly doubled in North Carolina factories.”

A subdued tone from Robinson, who is running for governor, was particularly notable because he is well-known for pugilistic speeches sometimes laced with violent remarks, including one this month when he said, “Some folks need killing.”

The theme of inflation and Biden’s economy – even as inflation has cooled and the unemployment rate remains low – has been a consistent target throughout a campaign that was rocked Saturday night when a 20-year-old gunman took aim at Trump during a rally in Pennsylvania, narrowly missing shooting him in the head but bloodying his ear in the process. The gunman, who was killed by law enforcement, killed a rallygoer and injured two others.

After the shooting, Trump said he rewrote his convention speech to put a greater point of emphasis on the theme of unity and the need to turn down the heat on the type of political rhetoric that has marked much of the election to date.

The fallout of an attempted assassination on the Republican nominee for president has been felt at the convention, but on the first night it was not a main theme. The Trump campaign strategically picked which speakers would discuss the issue to prevent it from coming up in every speech, and it came in just a handful Monday night.

“On Saturday, the devil came to Pennsylvania holding a rifle,” Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., said. “But the American lion got back up on his feet and he roared!”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said: “Unfortunately, this is also a somber moment for our nation. Two days ago, evil came for the man we admire and love so much. I think God that his hand was on President Trump.”

But the convention wasn’t all about unifying the country; there was still plenty of red meat for the base that went after Democrats and other groups of people.

Greene, for example, also went after transgender rights. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., the night’s second speaker, also gave a fiery speech about what he saw as the failing of the “Democratic agenda.”

“Today’s Democratic agenda – their policies – are a clear and present danger to America,” Johnson said. “They have abandoned the hard-working middle class. But with President Trump … those forgotten Americans are forgotten no more.”

- Republican convention aims for unity – but keeps some of the old red meat, NBCNews.com, July 16, 2024.

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About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.

（作者：張欣   編輯：丹妮）