From WaPo, how using the word “mob” as Karl Rove just did, and even a simple shift in article — “a” mob versus “the” mob — makes political meaning worth lots more words to understand:
The word is rooted in mobile vulgus, an ancient Latin phrase used by politicians, which translates into “the fickle crowd.” Mobile (pronounced mo-bi-leh) referred to the crowd’s tendency to change its collective, uneducated mind. In the 17th century, “mobile” was shortened to “mob.”
The official definition of “mob” now:
(a) The disorderly and riotous part of the population.
(b) The common mass of people; the lower orders; the uncultured or illiterate.
So
I do not think that word means what he thinks it means. Doesn’t Rove mean to disdain the overprivileged, liberally educated and intellectual effete, not truly uncultured, barely literate simpletons led by the rod, the staff and the sappy soundbite?
[…] about how (and why) you define who you are as an individual within any society — or mob — relentlessly pressing individuals to conform with (often quite radical) […]