1) People aren't as rational or make their choices as consciously as we have liked to believe in the past. Scientists have found when people have to make a choice, there is first activity in the subconscious parts of the brain and only a split-second later does the person have a conscious experience of making a choice. If the choice is reaching out with the right arm or the left arm, we can see subconscious activity associated with moving one of the arms before the person is consciously aware of choosing. (The person is capable of consciously changing which choice he makes. However, the subconscious seems to sometimes win in the end.) Studies have also shown how emotions influence voting, rather than voting being a strictly intellectual process. Therefore, limiting one's efforts to reach a political objective by only using intellectual unemotional reasoning is ineffective. All the more so if one's opponents are employing emotion to influence people.
There's an old rule of etiquette that one avoids discussing religion and politics because those topics can be so emotional. Our worldviews are part of our psychology which involves emotion. To connect to people's belief systems related to one's goals, one can't ignore the emotional component. Political activists have strong feelings about those matters they choose to be active in. Those emotions are natural. There's nothing wrong with being emotional about issues of "right" and "wrong". If you want to promote what you believe is right and to work against what you believe is wrong, it is helpful, effective and consistent with human mental activity to appeal to people's feelings about right and wrong. Conveying the intended feelings of right and wrong depends on the wording.
2) Identification of "right" and "wrong" is connected in the brain to our positive and negative emotions. Even if you were to convince a person that something was "right" or "wrong" using purely cold-calculating logic, once they believed it to be "right" or "wrong", it would have emotional significance for the person. Whether or not you like the idea of emotional content in political persuasion, it is a fact of human life.
3) What is better: (a) for what is "right" to lose and what is "wrong" to win because advocates of "wrong" used both logic and emotion but as a matter of principle you only used logic; or (b) for "right" to win and "wrong" to lose?
4) A major mechanism for progressive beliefs is empathy - a sense of fairness, caring about others, a feeling of a bond to people (not just family and friends), a feeling of satisfaction when we cooperate with others rather than acting selfishly. Emotion is good and significant.
5) We don't consciously think about every single word we use when speaking and we don't analyze every word we hear when we are listening. Part of this process takes place subconsciously, analogous to how much of the effort in riding a bicycle occurs in the subconscious part of the mind. Structures are built into our brains based on experiences, the process isn't conscious. If we've had certain wording drummed into us, we may use it even if it's not the optimal choice for what we are trying to express. It takes conscious effort to compensate for this. With effort, knowledge of the subconscious significance of words and experience, we can learn to use words that will better convey what we mean.
6) When the only terminology in general use activates conservative responses, we need to create new expressions to activate progressive mental responses.
7) A greater percentage of highly educated people tend to be progressive. They have studied alternative views, they can imagine alternatives. Less bright or less educated people may not as easily envision alternatives to traditional forms and ways. More education and higher intelligence may also make many progressives use only intellectual discussion, and shy away from using emotional cues to motivate people towards their goals. Conservatives are more likely to have acquired their understanding through taking their familiar world for granted, or from hearing representatives of traditional power repeat traditional texts to be taken on faith. This kind of conservative doesn't so much adhere to thoughtful understanding, but is used to accepting what authority figures have said. This can make them more likely to appeal to emotion.
8) Conservatives and corporations have spent vast sums of money to learn the psychology of influencing people. They've built up extensive knowledge of how to manipulate people. It will be much harder for progressives to win if they ignore the science of how people are influenced. Whether it is to "fight fire with fire" by using similar methods to promote progressive choices, or whether it's just to learn how to de-fuse what the conservatives are already doing, progressives must learn those arts of persuasion and use the knowledge to counter-act conservatives.
9) Some words that are important to politics and are frequently used in political discussion have very different meanings to conservatives and progressives. These words include freedom, fairness, accountability, prosperity. It may be advantageous for progressives to use these words in phrases that help specify the intended meaning. "Freedom from [corporate] [government] abuses", "prosperity for the average American", "fairness for the disadvantaged"...
10) The mind better understands direct causation where a visible force or person acts and brings about a resulting change. The mind doesn't as easily accept systemic causes such as the general use of fossil fuels bringing about a chain of events that leads to climate change. More effort needs to be placed in conveying such concepts which the human mind is less adept in perceiving as proven.
11) Science shows conservatives have more need for order, certainty and closure. They do not do as well when dealing with situations that are ambiguous. Knowing this may give us options.
12) People respond differently depending on whether a choice is presented in a positive (in favor of or will do) or a negative (against something or won't do). They are more likely to go along with the positively presented alternative. For instance, when a patient is told there's a 90% chance of surviving surgery (positive) he's more likely to agree to the surgery than if he is told there is a 10% chance of dying as a result of having surgery. The two option have the same objective meaning, but elicit different responses. Unfortunately, progressives are often in the position of responding to bad actions ("against" injustices). Finding a positive way to present our position is important.
13) When you use the other side's terminology but express opposition, the use of their terminology still can activates the brain structures associated with their perspective. As a result, you can be adding strength to that side of a person's brain that favors the other side. When responding to something said using the other side's terminology, you need to understand what terminology favors each side. Use terminology about helping others, empathy, government providing essential services, protection and empowerment for citizens, guaranteeing freedom from need/abuses, and freedom to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". We need terminology which indicates conservatives don't want to help the needy, want to reduce your civil liberties, will bankrupt the government, will give your money to wealthy corporations, etc.
14) Humans have deeply held concerns about vulnerability, injustice, distrust, superiority, and helplessness.
To motivate people we can stimulate those concerns in a way that moves them in a progressive direction.
15) Talk about "the majority", "average folks", "the 99%", "regular Americans".
16) Lakoff theorizes that the existence of progressive and conservative brain pathways is a result of nurturing parenting (progressive) and strict father parenting (conservative). I'm not so sure the shifts in the number of people with mostly progressive to more conservative pathways between the 1960's and the 2000's is explained by a shift in parenting methods. My personal experience has mostly shown me less strict parenting in recent times. If the two social perspectives aren't the result of socio-economic changes over those decades, it might be a result of two somewhat conflicting evolutionary factors in primates: (a) The alpha male/female strong leader and (b) cooperative group efforts.