Any of you out there that happen to be musicians or know a little bit about the physics of sound realize you can take a sound and make it perceived loudness greater by allowing it to resonate in an acoustic chamber like a guitar body or a big music hall.
You can also stop a sound too. Pluck a guitar string then try to stop it from making a sound. If you pick the right point on that string you can stop it and its resonance with little effort and without muting it with your whole hand.
In language, you have realize it is analogous. So when you work with it from this angle you have to come from a position of considering cliché's, modality, and habituation. To me, there exists resonance in politics which happens to be natural (when it is populist) and then artificial which requires a big top down amplifier to pump out the talking points.
This recent hubbub with McCain’s VP pick comes from the fact that the folksy meme has resonated with the public. Take for example the joke that she told which was her hook line
"What’s the difference between a hockey mom and a pit-bull, lipstick".
This created a resonance wave where the supporters repeated the line with great pride and began to use it as their badge.
They felt it resonated with their hometown experience ..."Hey, I know that kind of person!" "I’ve taken my kids to hockey and cheered them on the sideline". These people identify with that. Heck, I identify with that. I was from that kind of town. It was a great part of my life. Too bad it has nothing to do with her fitness for the job!
With this, you might wonder how do you counter a massive resonance wave based on a joke? Match the modality and make another joke back. It is true that Barack didn’t call Palin a pig. But that comment had its own hidden genius just the same. It matched the phrase’s language and took the shine off of it by also making a comment truthfully refuting the policies they put forth at the same time.
He found the right point. He also did not apologize. That resonates too.
I think in order to speak to the people that the McCain campaign’s mesmerizing frame is working on, we must match the resonance tone so that we are on their frequency then we have their attention that we need to start speaking to it.
The overall frame I believe that has been created here is one of an outward view of Honor, Maverick-ness, and perceived attractiveness. In other words, the campaign is trying to cast itself as the bright shiny object for everybody to look at.
This demands that this mode be matched and countered as thus. (A sample of what I’d write)
We all know Alaska to be a beautiful place with a wildlife refuge which showcases the best that nature has to offer in the United States. However Sarah’s policies towards nature are the ugliest you can imagine. The horrific slaughter of wolves being shot from the air is a leaves a horrendous reminder that through all the folksy down-home everyday Alaskan Palin appears to be, her actions dictate a grotesque reality.
I’m not so sure that the Obama camp isn’t aware of this when they responded to the Sex Education ad as thus:
(emphasis mine)
"It is shameful and downright perverse for the McCain campaign to use a bill that was written to protect young children from sexual predators as a recycled and discredited political attack against a father of two young girls - a position that his friend Mitt Romney also holds. Last week, John McCain told Time magazine he couldn't define what honor was. Now we know why,"
A couple things were done here:
- He matched the implied accusation (perversity) but only to throw it back in their face thus halting their projection onto him.
- Used it as a springboard to dampen the resonance of honor that McCain wants to create. McCain left himself wide open to that
- Attacked McCain on his perceived strength.
A multi leveled attack from just one attack on Obama. Genius. However, this needs to get picked up by the media to effectively go further, and go further it has with articles from the likes of Joe Klein.
From Time Magazine:
McCain's lies have ranged from the annoying to the sleazy, and the problem is in both degree and kind. His campaign has been a ceaseless assault on his opponent's character and policies, featuring a consistent—and witting—disdain for the truth. Even after 38 million Americans heard Obama say in his speech at the Democratic National Convention that he was open to offshore oil-drilling and building new nuclear-power plants, McCain flatly said in his acceptance speech that Obama opposed both. Normal political practice would be for McCain to say, "Obama says he's 'open to' offshore drilling, but he's always opposed it. How can we believe him?" This persistence in repeating demonstrably false charges is something new in presidential politics.
As of late, we've seen a massive resonance wave from the coincidental disaster that was created by the current Wall Street collapse. This is currently the wave the conservatives are trying to mute and its a wave the Democrats should ride all the way in, showcasing how the conservatives brought us to this disaster.
We should also match the tone of the wave and use the language we want to redefine who they are using the words they often attribute to themselves...
Thus contructing this narrative with the their language built in would go as follows:
"If the Republican party and John McCain had ever honored the middle class, we would never have seen them implement the cynical and degrading policies that led to this collapse in the first place"