When will the Dems learn?

[sleigh]

Someday, the Dems need to figure out that words actually matter, and that if they let the conservatives define the vocabulary, they will lose every time.

The latest example is the Immigration Bill. The right immediately started pointing and shrieking "It's amnesty! Amnesty!" -- a word designed to make the majority of the public feel uncomfortable and negative, and rather than redefining the issue, using another term, and refusing to fall into that trap, we have everyone on the left saying (with a bewildered look on their faces) "But it's not amnesty. Really, it's not amnesty. Not amnesty."

Look, when you sputter "Really, it's not amnesty," the only word people hear is "amnesty." All you do is reinforce the effect of the word and sink it deeper into the subconscious. You're playing their game. You're doing exactly what they want you to do.

You've already let them turn 'liberal' into a dirty word, which just boggles my mind. After all, 'conservative' can mean to be afraid and tentative, to be behind the times, to be conventional rather than creative, to be overly cautious, to be adverse to change. If anything, you should have made 'conservative' into an invective... and yet you've let them twist 'liberal' into something resembling a curse word -- so much so that half the Democrats are afraid to even use the term.

They did it to you with "cut-and-run" too -- you let them frame the debate with that phrase, then made the problem worse by using the term yourself. "I'm not advocating a cut-and-run policy..." Again, the only word in that sentence that gets heard is "cut-and-run"...

Stop it, would you?

Comments

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I know. It infuriates me, too.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

Don't get too infuriated. We need you to take care of yourself! :-)

[rawdon.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, the Immigration Bill seemed like a big freaking fiasco anyway, didn't it?

I'm pretty indifferent towards illegal immigration issues, but one thing I don't want is some clever "compromise" bill which just makes the waters muddy, if not downright oily. This seemed like exactly that sort of bill.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

Yeah, like you, that bill doesn't't make me jump up and down and want to support it wholeheartedly... but the point is how the left always lets the right frame the discussion, and as a result gets hammered. If it happens in the presidential election next year, no matter who's running, we'll have another Republican president.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I am increasingly sickened to watch it happening this year.

The terror framing is, well, terrifying.

http://jeffrey-feldman.typepad.com/frameshop/2007/06/frameshop_fear_.html

B

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

In the Republican 'debate' on CNN (God, please don't ever let Wolf Blitzer chair a debate again...), Giuliani said (at least twice) "Why, in their debate the Democrats couldn't even say 'Islamic Jihadism'," as if a) the Democrats were somehow ducking reality, and b) thus were somehow on the sides of the awful, horrible terrorists who are lurking in every shadow and waiting to follow us home if we ever leave Iraq.

Yep, and if Vietnam falls, then all of Indochina will go communist too, and then the whole world.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Don't underestimate these tactics. They work, and they shift debate. I am not optimistic about the 2008 elections.

B

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

Believe me, I don't underestimate them. I've seen the tactics work in the last two presidential elections. Especially in 2004, when it was already glaringly obvious what Bush was doing, that Iraq was a disaster and a lie, that he was trampling on the constitution and civil rights everywhere, that his environmental policy was a horrible joke, and he was still reelected...

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

"...and he was still reelected..."

Well, you can make a convincing case that in reality he was not, but that's a matter for history to untangle.

But your point is still valid.

B

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that. But the one the pisses me off the most is the way they let the Christian right co-opt "family values."

[lauriemann.livejournal.com]

But we later came up with the retort - "We value families." It just took a while.

If you read Chris Mooney's blog The Intersection (http://scienceblogs.com/intersection/),
he's been talking quite a lot about the importance of framing scientific
arguments. It's been an interesting read. I know I have a bad habit of thinking "but that's so obvious" and not really framing my arguments properly.

Now, considering the number of heinous and hideous ideas the Bush administration has come up with over the last six-odd years, the Immigration Bill is mostly headed in the right direction. Its main two failures were not valuing families (surprise!) and not allowing for (any?/very many?) "fast-track" cases.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

"But we later came up with the retort - 'We value families.' It just took a while."

But it sucks as a retort. It uses their frame.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

http://jeffrey-feldman.typepad.com/frameshop/2007/06/frameshop_forei.html

B

[maiac.livejournal.com]

I know a scad of non-politicians who follow politics closely who definitely understand that we have to "frame the debate". Why, oh WHY, can't the professional politicians figure this out? I mean, it's not that difficult.

I figure they're getting bad advice from the consultants who are still getting paid big bucks even though they've been losing elections for the Dems all these years. Howard Dean definitely had the right idea when he cleared a bunch of consultants out of the DNC. It makes me crazy that our politicians listen to people who advice is demonstrably for losers.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

What drives me crazier is that it just seems to be the left that can't figure it out. The right is doing it really well...

[maiac.livejournal.com]

The right has the advantage of greater dishonesty. They view "framing" as outright manipulation of the media and the electorate. Cf. Newt Gingrich and Frank Luntz, with their advice to use certain phrases and buzzwords to evoke an emotional response. The Democrats suffer under the fallacy that honesty, being better than dishonesty, must be more effective.

Framing isn't "dishonesty", of course, but the Democrats don't seem to be able to understand that connotation matters.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

But framing is much much easier if you're dishonest, and it's (just) much easier if you're willing to put rhetoric above content. I continually wrestle with trying to write at both levels at the same time. But so many issues are heavily nuanced, and simply don't reduce to sound-bites in an ethical manner.

B

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's 'dishonesty' or 'honesty.' It's just human inclinations. The average person, I would contend, won't listen to or read or bother to understand complex, well-reasoned arguments, for whatever reason or reasons. For the bulk of people, it's all about the rhetoric, not the content (as B says). It's the soundbite or the slogan, not the arguments for or against.

In politics, certainly, slogans and buzzwords matter a great deal. It's the bumper sticker; it's the stump speech with the right applause lines. That's not going to change, I would contend. And if it's not, then a political party that refuses to learn how to use those tools for its own best interest -- like it or not -- is dooming itself.

The far right knows, grasps, and uses those concepts; it doesn't seem that the left does. Until they do, they will continue to lose.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

There's an argument to make that today's issues are simply too complicated -- too nuanced, too dependent on minor details -- for the average voter to understand. I see evidence of that again and again; perfectly reasonable policy initiatives completely derailed by an obscure provision in the bill inserted by some lobbyist somewhere.

B

[madtruk.livejournal.com]

Why? What is "the avereage voter?" Who gave them the right to not understand important issues? Or, perhaps, their understanding doesn't meet your criteria? Sorry B-I'm feeling a little defensive of those poor average folks..wait, crap, what if I'm one? How would I know?

I'm fond of saying "Have you met the average American? Be damn glad they don't vote!" Their level of understanding slides to a much lower level than "the average voter."

With sleigh's original argument (and subsequent follow-ups) I agree. Except for the honesty bit-it is easier to frame a debate when you're willing to be intellectually dishonest, and I think many politicians make that calculated judgement that the end justifies the means, etc...

Perhaps 'earmarks' 'poison pills' and 'amendments' should be dealt with separately? Average voters don't have to understand the entire crappy process in order to know, at some level, something's wrong. Maybe there are too many lawyers around...

"But the universities are all closed, and there are no lawyers anymore." Abridged quote from what book?