Association is when someone tries to link two unrelated things or ideas, either in a good way or in a bad way

Explanation:

By associating negative terms and images with terms or persons or groups on a repetitive basis, one may condition the subconscious of the listener/viewer. This is a very simple technique and is really self-explanatory. Why it works is another question. Pavlov rang bells when he fed his dogs. After a while, every time he rang the bell, the mouths of the dogs watered involuntarily .... a conditioned reflex. The same happens with conditioning by repetitive association. After a while, the subject will have involuntary emotional reflexes to whatever term/person/group the negative words/images have been associated with.

If one were to conduct a search on Lexis-Nexis on the terms "right-wing" and "left-wing", one would first find that the former outnumbers the latter by a incredibly large ratio. If one were to conduct the query on both terms in conjunction with the terms "extremist" or "radical", one would find almost no references to negative terms in conjunction with "left-wing" and a plethora of references to negative terms in conjunction with "right-wing." This is solid proof of a leftist bias, but more importantly, this is solid proof of conditioning through repetitive association.

Examples:

(i) "This proposal should be rejected. After all, this is the kind of thing David Duke and his KKK buddies would support."

(ii) NSA has received some of the same awards as Holiday Inn and Federal Express.

Proof:

Ask yourself whether or not the association is being contrived to make you feel a certain way about the idea or person.