I swear to god, if I see one more person blame the sorry state of the health insurance reform debate on "misinformation," I am going to absolutely lose it.
Have we learned nothing since George W. Bush was re-elected? I mean, seriously. Is it November 2003 again? I could have sworn we spent FIVE YEARS going over how to establish a successful political messaging campaign. Did we just spend the last two weeks forgetting it so we could revert back to the party that screams "LIES!" whenever Republicans set a frame better than we do?
Rule number one in political debate: If you think you are losing because the public is ignorant or misinformed--then you, are, WRONG!
Political communication is not an exercise in education, but in persuasion. We do not win by throwing facts at people. We win by giving people a big story, a big idea, and then finding ways to make it meaningful in their lives.
What is the big story of the health insurance reform debate? I can answer that question, and it should come as no surprise to anyone:
government is a threat to individual liberty
It is an awful big story, but you know what? It's the only goddam big story that has been put out there for people.
I do not blame individuals in this fight. I still have high hopes for our President, our Congressional leaders, and our grassroots. I really do. But unless we all stop whining about "misinformation" and start putting out an alternative big story to the one the Republicans keep pushing--we, will, lose.
Which leads me to...
Rule number two in political debate: Telling people that a policy will advance their "economic self interest" is a losing strategy.
Why? Because people do not make political decisions in economic terms. They simply do not. This has been proven time and time and time again in the past 10 years. For crying out loud: George W. Bush won huge swaths of the electorate, became president twice, invaded two countries, ran up massive deficits, and torpedoed our standing in the world because his political base and a giant chunk of swing voters simply did not vote their economic self interest.
What did they do instead? They made political choices by following a symbolic logic.
The question that guides people in politics is NOT "Will this give me more money and more goods?" What guides people in politics is "Do I see myself in this? Is this meaningful to me?" That is what works.
In the "Framing the Debate" literature, symbolic logic is often referenced by the word "values," although that is not the only way to talk about it.
For the past 40 years, the Republicans have been advancing a symbolic logic, a big story inside of which all their proposals make sense to people. Because of that symbolic logic, people hear their proposals and they think, "I see myself in this...this is meaningful to me."
"Government is a threat to individual liberty," is that symbolic logic.
And this brings me to...
Rule number three in political debate: It is impossible to combat symbolic logic with a fact or a piece of information.
It simply does not work! A well-established symbolic logic is like the retaining wall around a fortress of policy proposals. We can shoot ten thousand facts a minute at that wall and every one will drop off.
Let me give you an example. In the current debate, even people I know are Democrats are caught inside the symbolic logic put out by the Republicans. They see the falsehood in the "death panels" and the lies in the "rationing" claims. But then they say to me, "But I am still concerned about a government program making my life more difficult."
This is not ignorance or misinformation at work, here. It is the Republican big story. Why should we even have in our heads the idea that we should be concerned at all about government imposing on our individual liberty? Why? Because that idea has been pushed into American heads over 40 years of Republican messaging. Decades. It is a giant, impenetrable, Herculean, stone, wall. There is not getting through it with facts.
And so we come to...
Rule number four in political debate: Without advancing a symbolic logic that gives people a chance to see themselves in the big story of the Democratic Party--all our policy proposals will end in compromised ideals, and a sense of defeat.
Without the big story out there to guide us, we simply cannot know when we have won. We will get lost trying to push ourselves off from the Republican big story, without really knowing what big story we are supposed to be grabbing onto on the other side.
Right now, even people who support health insurance reform in this country are going through this anxiety. They want to reject the Republican messaging, but they do not really know what they are leaping towards on the other side. And so they are forced to accept a leap of faith.
This problem cannot be solved by pumping more and more policy facts into the room, but only by advancing a big story of our own.
What is our big story?
I think it is this:
Our children's lives can be better than our own
We do not need to explain to people that government is good. We need to tell people that we believe very strongly--and are willing to die for this belief--that our children's lives can be better than our own.
It is powerful because it is true! And it establishes a symbolic logic so vast and so strong that it can guide an entire country through the decisions that matter most.
There was a time when believing this was enough to drive people from one continent to another! That my children should not be forced to live in fear of religious persecution, I am heading out to a new place.
That my children should be able to live without worrying that a tyrannical king would take their life's earnings or their lives on a whim, I am ceding from the country that rules over us.
That nobody's children should live in slavery anymore, I will lay down my life on the battlefield.
That our children should be able to go to school and earn a square deal unlike me, I vote for this candidate.
That my children should earn an education and be able to choose between work in a factory or in the fields and a different life, I vote for this party.
That my children should not live in a world where corruption poisons our government and undermines our collective faith in the future, I vote for this President.
That my children should not have to choose between their life savings and the treatment that will save their life, I support health insurance reform.
Everybody stand up and repeat after me: WE HAVE NOT LOST THIS HEALTH CARE DEBATE! WE HAVE NOT LOST THIS FIGHT!!
We have simply and plainly forgotten--we have forgotten what makes us persuasive, what makes us powerful, what makes us stewards of America's future.
It is the big story we bring--that is how we win.
So pick yourself up, people! Stop whining about "misinformation" and "facts" and lamenting the public that hears these things and sits back down worrying instead of racing out into the streets to extol the virtues of our program.
These same people want our big story. They want it. They believe it. They just have not heard it, yet.
Go give it to them.
Give it to them in every phone call you make, at every door that opens, in every speech you make, and in every broadcast to the American people who put us in the White House because they see in this country a future for their children that is meaningful.