Dems Will Rise From The Ashes
Democrats will rise from the ashes NOT by just fighting harder, or by pointing to GOP lies, or by focusing on the electoral college, polls, campaign finance, voter suppression, gerrymandering, fake news, or by improving education or voter turnout, or by keeping Democratic elected officials from moving to the center. Dems will rise from the ashes by fighting smarter.
And get there we must! We are the only political force that can serve as a check on the almost absolute power gained by a radicalized Republican Party.
First, we need to understand something essential. Until we get moral branding right nothing of substance will get done and the ACA will go down in history as our last major accomplishment.
We need to accept the bottom line: All politics is moral. To deeply understand how this works I encourage reaching deep inside an old carton box full with books in your closet and dust off a 2004 volume titled Don’t Think of an Elephant. Better yet, get the new and improved version, George Lakoff, PhD’s ALL NEW Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate (2014). Or get the CAP’s Joseph Romm’s Language Intelligence to get the gist.
Prof. Lakoff has written extensively on how to fight smarter using what I call moral framing, moral branding, which entails perhaps the hardest thing for us to do: the methodical, systematic repetition of carefully selected terms, among other things.
And shy not away from repetition! Repetition matters. Repetition works. Forget about what you learned in English class. If you want to get your point across, come up with effective morally grounded words, and get all your friends to join you in repeating them over and over again.
It turns out that when a Donald “Freelunch” Drumpf goes around repeating over and over “jobs” and “the economy,” it’s not primarily about “it’s the economy, stupid” or about “all politics is local.” It’s about moral framing and branding. And the message sunk in with enough voters. Also the consistent, systematic repetition of an adjective defining a proper noun also works. The “Crooked Hillary” term helped seal her fate on the voter turnout front. (Even though the campaign to tag Hillary as untrustworthy started years before this disastrous election.)
You say it again, and you say it again, and you say it again, and you say it again, and you say it again, and then again and again and again and again, and about the time that you're absolutely sick of saying it is about the time that your target audience has heard it for the first time.
-- Frank Luntz (GOP’s strategic communication’s guru)
“Stronger Together” was supposed to be our holy grail! Hillary and every Dem and every progressive leader and every grassroots organizer out there should have repeated that term and shown it in every possible way ‘til blue in the face! We ARE stronger together, have been and always will be, and those are the very values that trigger in voters’ minds the “we’re-all-in-it-together” conceptual frame and that which moves us away from toxic radical individualism.
It’s not just about sexism or racism, but it’s about “Stronger Together.” That’s who we are as Americans.
To rise from the ashes we need to change our thinking. The solutions may seem as against our nature, as against everything we’ve been taught. We will have to step out of our comfort zone time and time again.
We need a central command on strategic communication, a highly trusted source to generate and identify magic words as well as toxic words used by our opponents. We need to go after their holy grail: their moral brand. But first we’ll need to establish our own moral brand clearly in the public consciousness.
We also need to start taking symbols of all kinds seriously. They matter! They matter to get a point across as much as a metaphor or a good song. Moral framing and branding isn’t just about words. We need to think about it as multisensory.
Have you noticed the number of cars with yellow license plates branding the Tea Party’s adopted motto — “Don’t Tread on Me” — as well as the anti-choice message, and the “In God we trust”?? (and we know these terms take us away from love of neighbor and stronger together narratives) How can a “Stronger Together” narrative compete against the repeated exposure of toxic narratives at every stop light?
As Dems and progressives, it’s time we put excuses aside and try this path in a responsible and honest manner and commit to a new path in strategic communication. Now here’s my dream for putting these ideas into practice. You may call it Federico’s dream and feel free to misspell my name.
We need major organizations, leaders, funding sources part of the Democratic coalition (Netroots-meets-Democratic-Alliance type of thing) to sit down and commit to creating and expanding a new, unprecedented coalition — the broadest the Democratic Party has ever seen — which will create a strategic communication institute that would have the moral and intellectual authority to lead on moral framing & branding, and to finally take us to a sort-of DemSpeak 2.0.
The institute’s top priority should be to help us clearly define who we are and what we stand for, and the systematic, methodical repetition of carefully selected terms is the key. “Leave NO moral void” should be our motto. We must restore the original meanings for life and freedom, which were never meant to mean exclusively fertilized eggs and easy-grab machine guns. Another key to all this will be preemption. Our MO should change from largely one of “reacting” to “preempting & disarming,” and moral branding should be front and center on anything we do. We as a whole should convey moral clarity.
The institute -- which could be called something like the Greater Good, Stronger Together, Forward (such as the one in Madison, WI), Moral Mondays, the We-are-all-in-it-together Institute, or the Big Picture or the Bottom Line Institute -- will include cognitive scientists like linguists, psychologists and anthropologists. It should include pollsters, trainers, media watchers, fundraisers. Clearly something this big and revolutionary will not be cheap. This institute should have ties to funding sources in every state.
We can debate for hours about the electoral college, the Russians and the FBI, but HALF the electorate didn’t vote this week. Let’s set as a big goal to inspire them to vote next time! We don’t accomplish that with old-fashioned lofty speeches. We do it through strategic communication! We do it through systematic, methodical, across-the-board repetition of carefully selected words.
Who chooses the words to be repeated over and over? A new strategic communication institute with a presence in and with ties to every single state.
This will require an unprecedented level of unity among the many players in the progressive and blue dog and overall democratic-leaning coalition. At some point and for the greater good, we may have to set aside thorny issues that divide us such as trade agreements and Israel-Palestine.
And quit arguing that branding has no effect on you! Or that repetition is against our nature and can’t be done.
Human reasoning is approx. 95% unconscious and 5% conscious.
(PLUS … 80% of our life is emotion, and only 20% is intellect [GOP’s strategic comm’s guru Frank Luntz] … Other things to keep in mind: PERCEPTION is 90 percent of REALITY. People's attention span is short and getting shorter. Political language -- like everyday language -- is fluid, dynamic and constantly evolving.
We have what it takes to create this mega coalition and a highly regarded strategic communication institute to finally gain the tools we need to fight smarter and live up to the stronger together moral objective.
All politics is moral. (Lakoff)
Are you with me?
This election, this national tragedy represents a historic opportunity for us to improve and take strategic communication up a notch.
The ultimate goal is promoting a unifying overarching moral worldview.
The other side has one that voters more or less recognize. We don’t. That leaves a dangerous void that makes us vulnerable to all kinds of unfair well-framed attacks aimed at defining us morally.
Always frame issues in terms of your values and your overarching moral worldview. Move voters from a “me-only” to a “me-and-us” mindset, from a "you're-on-your-own (Yo-Yo)" mentality to a "we’re-all-in-it-together” mindset.
Also read the following articles:
George Lakoff
An explanation for why Freelunch Drumpf won and what can be done about it
A spoiled brat named Little Donnie Thwimp
Understanding Drumpf
Again, Are you with me?
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