Politics and language

Making Sense of “Common Sense”

Does it mean what we think it means?

It’s an election year in the U.S., which means we’re being bombarded with buzzwords: change, action, solutions, leadership. There’s another buzzword — or two words, if you want to be picky — that slides into stump speeches and campaign ads: common sense. From every slice of the political spectrum — right, left, center, and off the charts — candidates are keen to tell us that a vote for them is a vote for common sense: for old-fashioned nothing-fancy savvy…