Reply #11: Now you're thinking! Nothing overcomes systemic inertia, not to mention entrenched interests

[kenny blankenship]

without first mobilizing our PASSIONS. Changing the way this country plans for life and death is a monumental task- there can hardly be an issue more fraught with systemic inertia. Just questioning the present arrangement opens yourself to fears and suspicions. You will not succeed with a dry rational demonstration of the superior utility of a "new and better way." People have to hate the old way, which however it trods on them is something they've been accustomed to all their lives, and they must be led to desire the new.

Mobilizing passions is more important to leadership than technocratic competency. As George Lakoff says Republicans succeed in moving their agenda or obstructing ours because they present their case in emotionally charged language --in "loaded" terms--proclaiming their position is the only one justified by religious, patriotic, or familial value systems by their simple word choices. And they do so from the start, not just during the heat of a debate. Democrats tend to assume the audience is persuaded by rational arguments that Course B is more useful than our present direction, Course A. Course B, they always say, on balance, and with qualifications, will yield a superior benefit to same-old same-old Course A. And they always can't believe it when they lose. Either today's Democrats lack passion themselves because the policies they advocate benefit others, not themselves so their hearts aren't in it, or they are just making a fundamental mistake about the nature of mass persuasion. Since people first began studying rhetoric it has been understood: the larger the audience, the more important the appeal to emotion becomes.