George Lakoff: Democrats Are Constantlty Resorting To Disaster Messaging.

[Hissyspit]

http://www.truth-out.org/disaster-messaging61170

Disaster Messaging
Thursday 08 July 2010
by: George Lakoff, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

Democrats are constantly resorting to disaster messaging. Here's a description of the typical situation:

• The Republicans out-message the Democrats. The Democrats, having no effective response, face disaster: They lose politically, either in electoral support or failure on crucial legislation.
  
• The Democrats then take polls and do focus groups. The pollsters discover that extremist Republicans control the most common ("mainstream") way of thinking and talking about the given issue.
  
• The pollsters recommend that Democrats move to the right: adopt conservative Republican language and a less extreme version of conservative policy, along with weakened versions of some Democratic ideas.
  
• The Democrats believe that, if they follow this advice, they can gain enough independent and Republican support to pass legislation that, at least, will be some improvement on the extreme Republican position.
  
• Otherwise, the pollsters warn, Democrats will lose popular support - and elections - to the Republicans, because mainstream thought and language resides with the Republicans.
  
• Believing the pollsters, the Democrats change their policy and their messaging and move to the right.
  The Republicans demand even more and refuse to support the Democrats.

We have seen this on issues like health care, immigration, global warming, finance reform, and so on. We are seeing it again on the Death Gusher in the Gulf. It happens even with a Democratic president and a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress.

Why? Is there anything the Democrats can do about it? First, it has to be understood. It doesn't just happen.

The Difference Between Framing and Messaging

Framing is the most commonplace thing we do with thought and language. Frames are the cognitive structures we think with. They are physical, embodied in neural circuitry. Frames come in systems. Their circuitry is strengthened and often made permanent through use: the more the circuits are used, the stronger they get. Effective frames are not isolated. They build on and extend other frames already established.

All words are defined in terms of conceptual frames. When the words are heard, the frames are strengthened - not just the immediate frames, but the whole system.

Fit matters. The brain is a "best-fit" system. The better a new frame "fits" existing frames, the more effective it will be; that is, the more people will think and make decisions, using that frame.

- snip -

Political Messaging

Messages use words. The words activate frames. In political messages, you have a double intention: to get voters to think using your frames and to keep voters from thinking using the other side's frames, which contradict yours. Your message will be more effective if it fits existing high-level frames in the brains of voters, and less effective if it contradicts such high-level frames.

Political Messaging and Bi-Conceptual Voters

Your goal, with bi-conceptual voters, is to activate your system of political frames and inhibit the other side's system of political frames. Your message should, therefore, fit your high-level frame system and it should not fit the other side's high-level frame system. If it fits the other side's high-level frame system, your message will be helping the other side, because it will tend to make voters think using their frame system.

Why Does Disaster Messaging Arise?

Suppose the other side has structured its messaging over a long period of time to consistently strengthen its high-level frames, prototypes and versions of contested concepts in the brains of voters. They can now do effective messaging by using those high-level, morally-based frames in messages that evoke the existing strong high-level frames.

Why Conservatives Consistently Win Messaging Battles

In the US, conservatives have set up an elaborate messaging system. It starts with an understanding of long-term framing and message experts who know how to use their existing long-term frame systems. Then, there are think tanks, with experts who understand the high-level frame system and how it applies to the full range of issues. There are training institutes that teach tens of thousands of conservatives a year to think and talk using these framing systems and their language and argument forms. There are regular gatherings to consolidate messaging and policy around a contemporary issue that fits the conservative moral system. There are booking agencies that book conservative spokespeople on TV, talk radio etc. There are lecture venues and booking agencies for conservative spokespeople. There are conservative media going on 24/7/365.

As a result, conservative language is heard constantly in many parts of the US. Conservative language automatically and unconsciously activates conservative frames and the high-level framing systems they are part of. As the language is heard over and over, the circuitry linking the language to conservative frames becomes stronger. Because the synapses in the neural circuits are stronger, they are easier to activate. As a result, conservative language tends to become the normal, preferred mainstream language for discussing current issues.

What's Wrong?

When the Democrats use conservative language, they activate more than the conservative framing on the given issue. They also activate and strengthen the high-level, deep, conservative, moral frames. This tends to make voters more conservative overall - and leads them to choose the real conservative position on the given issue, rather than the sort of conservative version provided by the democrats.

Disaster framing is a disaster.

Repetition Over the Long Term

The only way progressives can avoid the disaster of disaster messaging is by regularly saying what they believe, in an effective messaging system - out loud, over and over, with the idea of changing how the public thinks and talks over the long haul.

- snip -

The Point

Almost every day, I get a request from somewhere in the US - or various other countries - to help some group do disaster messaging. It's sad. Reframing rarely works with disaster messaging.

To work, long-term, progressive messaging must be sincere and direct, must reflect progressive moral values and must be repeated. Progressive framing is about saying what you believe, telling the truth and activating the progressive worldview already present in the minds of those who are partly conservative and partly progressive.

MORE

This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

1. I know some DLCers used to love this guy. I wonder what they think of him now. nt

[Octafish]

2. He's a traitor pendejo.

Un pendejito chiquitisimo.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

3. Man, that's a tiny tiny little

pendejo you just described :evilgrin:

[Octafish]

4. Personally, I like Lakoff.

Even if la verdad hurts...muchisimo.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

5. No I know I just thought it was funny because of the amount of diminutives. He's right of

course. He's like a reverse Frank Luntz (cabronazo de grandes ligas).

[BeFree]

6. We see the con message on DU a lot

Thankfully it gets beat up nearly every time.

'Cheap Gas' is one.

'The environmentalists are to blame', is another.

Bushco perfected many terms and used them with great success.

My message is: After 8 tears of republican's in charge, here we are.

[KonaKane]

8. I see a rush to defeat Democrats' message alot lately on DU.

* Quick and merciless attacks on anything that Obama says or does

* Any call for solidarity, and unity of purpose quickly demoted to "You just want to shut me up" or "We're not lockstep thinkers".

* "I'm going to vote None Of The Above. That'll show 'em!"

* "If Obama doesn't give me _________________, then fuck it all. I'm done."


What a great, progressive, winning strategy that is.

[OHdem10]

7. As a Liberal, Lakeoff is correct.

Our party has become the "Me TOO" party affirming the
RW Conservative platform.

[mzmolly]

9. I've often wondered why the Democratic Party doesn't listen to

George Lakoff. He's brilliant.