It Isn't the Message, Stupid - (ongoing "repackaging" calesthenics of the Democrats)

THE ATLANTIC ONLINE.COM ^ | MAY, 2005 | JOSHUA GREEN

[CHARLITE]

Soon after the November elections leading Democrats agreed that the party was ailing and in dire need of a new direction, a new focus, new ideas to lead it forward. "It's critical we realize why the electorate voted the way it did," Representative Bob Menendez, of New Jersey, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said of the party's devastating loss in the presidential election and its setbacks in both houses of Congress. In February, House Democratic lawmakers held a retreat in Virginia to hash out what to do next.

Something miraculous happened. They recovered—or at least they're behaving that way. Setting aside all the frank talk about the need to re-examine fundamentals, they identified an altogether different sort of affliction. The Democrats returned from Virginia not with an exit strategy for Iraq ... with a book—Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate, by George Lakoff, a linguist at the University of California at Berkeley. Lakoff's seductive thesis is that how you frame an idea largely determines the response to it. George Miller, a California congressman and an enthusiastic disciple, gave a copy to each member of the caucus, and the notion that "messaging" lies at the heart of the Democrats' woes has had growing currency in the party ever since.

"The best way to communicate values is to use words and phrases that no Coke-drinking, apple-pie-eating American could disagree with. Family. Freedom. Opportunity. Responsibility. Community."

Of course, buzzwords are not going to rescue a failing party. That so many Democrats have achieved the Olympian state of denial necessary to believe otherwise suggests that the tempting abstractions of language and messaging have diverted them from a truth that ought to be perfectly clear: rather than being misunderstood, they were understood all too well.

[nuke rocketeer]

Its kinda fun watching them drive over the cliff. I need to get some more popcorn! We did not get enough from our scout troop last year so I guess I'll have to break down and get some from the store.

[alloysteel]

They killed the unicorn to drink its blood....

In their deal with the Devil, they may be immortal, but singularly lacking in any real power to change events. They continue to live a sort of half-alive existence, seeing phantoms and invoking spells, still believing in magic solutions to their difficulties.

If they devoted even half the energy they expend on calling down these curses and ominous warnings, on framing the problems and addressing SOMETHING for a solution, this would do a LOT to reverse their plunge in fortunes.

[randog]

So the dems realize that conservatives point and laugh at Lakoff?

[bookworm100]

The Libeerals are also claiming that they were not the cause of our getting involved in the Iraqi conflict. (The Senate voted 77-23 to authorize President Bush to attack Iraq if Saddam Hussein refused to give up weapons of mass destruction as required by U.N. resolutions. Hours earlier, the House approved an identical resolution, 296-133. I guess there were only 156 Liberals in congress.)
Liberals claim that over 1,500 of our service men and women needlessly were killed and countless others maimed, plus thousands of innocent civilians killed or injured in Iraq. (A relief group, Save the Children, said in a report in 2002. “In the last decade alone, more than two million children haven been killed during wars.” The report did not give a breakout, but among the places mentioned were Rwanda, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Angola, Congo, Liberia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, and Somalia.")
The Liberals claim they did not thrust our nation into an irresolvable debt after enjoying a surplus. (It seems the Liberals would prefer that the US "not bothered" with homeland security after 9-11 or taken any military action. They talk like we should have continued the policies that encouraged Enron and others to make sky high profits. Following their strategy, we should have continued the policy of using up military supplies without replacement and of using our oil reserves to keep the price of gasoline down.) They repeat these same statements over and over. (The BIG LIE strategy.)

[MisterRepublican]

DU thinks it's all about "FRAMING". I'm pretty sure that's the Deaniac take on the whole, "Let's Try To Deceive Them About Who We Are", meme.

[speedy]

Very well put. Seeking phantoms, for sure. It's hard to believe that when they finally began coming out of their post-election funk early in 2005, they acted as if nothing had happened and went right back to their pre-election strategy that worked so well. They really can't help it. And it's fun to watch.

[CharlesWayneCT]

The entire Democrat party seems to be driving this same message home:

Why did so many people vote against their own self-interests?

There answer is that the people were deceived by a pretty message, and that if the democrats want to win elections they have to learn the language.

Translated, this is just another take on the "voters are stupid" theme.

Whether or not it is true, coming up with new ways to remind people you think they are too dumb to understand what they are voting for is probably not going to be a winning strategy.

In fact, the dumber people really are, the more likely they are going to vote against you just to prove you wrong.

[Reeses]

They're now planning a newspeak attack on the words family, freedom, opportunity, responsibility, community. How many words has the left stolen then destroyed? They've ruined the words democratic, liberal, gay, politically correct, "spending" a tax cut, on and on.

I'm still pissed about the left in cahoots with the mainstream media recently stealing our blue color, since communist red wasn't selling too well in the heartland. Blue represented loyalty, faithfulness, truth, honor, and tradition. Not anymore.

[CHARLITE]

"Its kinda fun watching them drive over the cliff."

What a funny comment. So deliciously, appropriately sarcastic!

[CHARLITE]

Here's an eye opener. Shows how utterly, fundamentally and eternally dishonest Hillary Rodham Clinton really is, and has always been! It's a journey back into a time when most people don't know how she began. Read this and realize what a dangerous entity this woman really is.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1394509/posts

[harpu]

"Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate, by George Lakoff" Rhymes with w _ _ k _ _ F...

[Milhous]

So the dems realize that conservatives point and laugh at Lakoff?

They seem too retarded to grasp how we use the Inet to discern truth, regardless of any naziesque euphemisms.

It was basic truth for I had ground him so flat and smooth that not the smidgen of a deceit could have found refuge in any microscopic crevice.

Lefty moonbats seem to exist in an alternate universe populated by Archie Bunkers. Somebody ought to enlighten them that Archie was a fictional character played by Carroll O'Connor who died years ago.

[CHARLITE]

"Lefty moonbats seem to exist in an alternate universe populated by Archie Bunkers. Somebody ought to enlighten them that Archie was a fictional character played by Carroll O'Connor who died years ago."

This is very profound, Milhous. Thanks so much for this comment. You make an excellent point. Liberals insist on their reality, and it is patently false. If I'm not mistaken, the election results on Nov. 2, '04 demonstrated that fact. But then, they lionized that overweight, unkempt, unappealing LIAR, Michael The Gross, and called his product "great," and "true" and they praised him to the rooftops. It was putrid fiction, but to the adoring liberals, it was "real!"

John Kerry and John Edwards said that the disgusting Whoopi Goldberg performance at Radio City Music Hall last summer "represents the heart and soul of America!" Did they truly believe that?

I jumped up out of my chair and hooted, when our president said, in his acceptance speech at our convention, "The heart and soul of America is NOT in Hollywood!" Who was right about where the heart and soul of America is? John Kerry, standing on the stage at Radio City?........or George W. Bush at the convention? Where was the reality? With Bush is where the reality was.. . and is. Anyone who truly believes that it's with the Goldberg collection of freaks at Radio City is delusional, or missing some gray matter.

[CHARLITE]

Also, I strongly recommend this terrific piece of writing by Evan Sayet. He runs the "sayetright blog" and he is a fine, accomplished writer. I posted this excellent piece on FR just a short while ago, but it had to go into Bloggers & Personal and not many people are viewing it. Here's the link. It is really exceptional.

It's title is: WHY DEMOCRATS LIE

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1394561/posts

[AZHua87]

So true! You can wrap and perfume any number of ways a pile of rotting garbage and it is still a bag of rotting garbage.

[Milhous]

Sayet Right:
To the Democrat any lie that advances their cause is, by definition, the truth.

Some of my lefty moonbat associates lie to themselves while trying to convince me that they seek the truth. IMHO liars living a lie drive themselves crazy by overloading their brains with BS.

A conservative associate of mine speculates that the Democratic party attracts touchy-feely people while the Republican party attracts thinking people.

A Conflict of Visions says:

One of the curious things about political opinions is how often the same people line up on opposite sides of different issues. The issues themselves may have no intrinsic connection with each other. They may range from military spending to drug laws to monetary policy to education. Yet the same familiar faces can be found glaring at each other from opposite sides of the political fence, again and again. It happens too often to be coincidence and it is too uncontrolled to be a plot. A closer look at the arguments on both sides often shows that they are reasoning from fundamentally different premises. These different premises - often implicit - are what provide the consistency behind the repeated opposition of individuals and groups on numerous, unrelated issues. They have different visions on how the world works.

[Soul Seeker]

As someone above noted, every time the left adopts a word to describe what does not appeal to the majority of the electorate the word itself ends up crippled and they than co-opt another good word that will suffer the same fate.

I'll be honest. I love the word "Liberal". I love it's traditional meaning. I no longer can tolerate the sound of the word without cringing unless it is accompanied by one of the few Liberals out there I can still summon respect for. Someone such as Ron Silver.

I just watched the replay of his earlier interview. After watching aspects with which I agreed, others I'd like to debate further, others I strongly disagree...I came away fulfilled. I miss real substantive back and forth exchange of ideas. We no longer have that and that is primarily because one side will automatically obstruct anything the other side is for. And, I think I'm being honest when I state that side in complete obstruction is the Democrat Party. Republicans do not march in step, at times to our great frustration.

I miss that the Democrat Party is no longer comprised of Zell Miller's, Ron Silver's, Pat Caddell's, Joe Leiberman's...

Conservatism would have a stronger fight if it were, but we'd be stronger for that competition. What ideological competition do we have now? Next to none outside of the Republican Party, unless you count the untenable anti-Americanism rampant in the Dem Party.

Take the situation over Terri. Where did the main ideological war find itself fought? In the Republican Party. Now wherever you were, and I made my opinion well known at the time, did we see the same on the Dem aisle? No. We received silence. The response on that side saving a few exceptions was primarily focused on polling. There was no ideology involved except how best to use it to reach power. A matter concerning the fundamentals of life and death and they were absent!

They are obsessed with power. So it seems fitting that they desire most, they continue to lose.

[jmaroneps37]

Why don't the rats win electins? THE DOGS DON'T LIKE THE FOOD!

[Beth528]

BARBARA STREISAND - DEMOCRAT PARTY STRATEGIST