The following sensible (and I think, true) point from several readers:
“Derb—I’d counter that some insults can be owned, and some not. ‘Bigots Party’ wouldn’t work – that’s not an insult anyone *wants* to own. However, you might get away with starting a ‘Redneck Party,’ or more analogous to the ones you listed, a party called the ‘Flownovers,’ or the ‘Simplists’ or something.”
A different reader suggested a “Bubbas Party,” on the same principle.
It occurs to me that since “Neocon” is a term of obloquy in certain quarters, this falls into the same category. You might defiantly start a “Neocon Party.” (Except of course that those certain quarters would howl: “We already have one!”)
Another reader, on a slightly different tack:
“We don’t own the insult because we’re more democratic these days. The ‘bigots’ and the ‘statists’ have to play to the middle so they can only be bigots and statists in code. I bet the Tories and the Whigs could have given a fig for the broad middle. Second, in our more democratic times the middle often consists of people who are fairly uninformed, just the sort of people who would think if you accept a villainous label its not because you’re devil-may-care but because you’re a villain. After all, that’s what they do in the movies.”