How You Help Trump

[homegirl]

How You Help Trump

By George Lakoff, Medium

28 May 18



Without knowing it, many Democrats, progressives and members of the news media help Donald Trump every day. The way they help him is simple: they spread his message.

Think about it: every time Trump issues a mean tweet or utters a shocking statement, millions of people begin to obsess over his words. Reporters make it the top headline. Cable TV panels talk about it for hours. Horrified Democrats and progressives share the stories online, making sure to repeat the nastiest statements in order to refute them. While this response is understandable, it works in favor of Trump.

When you repeat Trump, you help Trump. You do this by spreading his message wide and far.

Nobody knows this better than Trump. Trump, as a media master, knows how to frame a debate. When he picks a fight, he does so deliberately. He tweets or says outrageous things, knowing they will be repeated millions and millions of times. When the news media and Democrats repeat Trump’s frames, they are strengthening those frames by ensuring that tens of millions of Americans hear them repeated over and over again.

Quick: don’t think of an elephant. Now, what do you see? The bulkiness, the grayness, the trunkiness of an elephant. You can’t block the picture — the frame — from being accessed by your unconscious mind. As a professor of brain science, this is the first lesson I give my students. It’s also the title of my book on the science of framing political debates.

The key lesson: when we negate a frame, we evoke the frame. When President Richard Nixon addressed the country during Watergate and used the phrase “I am not a crook,” he coupled his image with that of a crook. He established what he was denying by repeating his opponents’ message.

This illustrates one of the most important principles of framing a debate: When arguing against the other side, don’t use their language because it evokes their frame and not the frame you seek to establish. Never repeat their charges! Instead, use your own words and values to reframe the conversation.

When you repeat Trump, you help Trump.

In the coming weeks and months, I’ll use this space to provide simple, practical advice on how Democrats, progressives and conscientious journalists can use the principles of effective framing to expose and undermine Trump’s propaganda. Knowledge is power! We must arm ourselves with the fundamentals of effective political communication. We must know our values and frame the debate — and avoid helping Trump.

When you repeat Trump, you help Trump.

[BigmanPigman]

1. I am very willing to NOT repeat him.

I can't even bare to write his name so give me any helpful tips you have to "defeat" and not "repeat".

[calimary]

3. Make SURE you don't repeat whatever messaging he's trying to imbed in the unsuspecting.

REPLACE IT with something YOU made up. I bet you can think of better and more appropriate substitutes, substitutes that deliver OUR messaging. And repeat it many times. This just made me think back to when I was a kid and had to get a vaccination - which consisted of the doctor making lots of little pin pricks in a small area of skin on the upper arm, and then applying the vaccine to the area thus "tenderized." You need a lot of little pin pricks to absorb that particular medicine, I guess. Well, so do we! LOTS of little pin pricks make it that much easier for whatever WE are trying to spread to be ABSORBED within. And once absorbed, the vaccine gets to work, the medication gets delivered, and the desired immunization is achieved.

Lakoff is THE MAN. Our Man on Messaging. He makes tons and tons of sense. I wish the DNC would hire him to guide our party's messaging!

[BigmanPigman]

4. Oh, I had those allergy tests on my upper arm when I was 8.

I got them every week for a couple of months and they hurt. My dad had to bribe me with apple pie from Howard Johnson's after each visit so I wouldn't cry. That was a big deal in my family since we never had sugar or fast food in our lives.

I never heard of Layoff before this. He seems to be onto something here. I wish the media would read this.

[calimary]

7. Lakoff is THE MAN.

It's posted up top, of course,, but sure bears repeating! (Particularly since repeating is part of the strategy!)

I LOVE this part:

The key lesson: when we negate a frame, we evoke the frame. When President Richard Nixon addressed the country during Watergate and used the phrase “I am not a crook,” he coupled his image with that of a crook. He established what he was denying by repeating his opponents’ message.
This illustrates one of the most important principles of framing a debate: When arguing against the other side, don’t use their language because it evokes their frame and not the frame you seek to establish. Never repeat their charges! Instead, use your own words and values to reframe the conversation.
When you repeat Trump, you help Trump.

[Kirk Lover]

2. That also means to not use his stupid fucking names for people either. nt

[NanceGreggs]

5. Sorry, but no.

The idea IS to spread Trump’s actual words – in all their stupidity, bigotry, and self-serving arrogance.

Repeating someone’s words verbatim is not allowing them to frame anything – other than their own words. Rebutting an actual statement is far more effective than alluding to it, or reframing it.

Thanks to Trump’s tweets, the media has his exact words to report, comment on, respond to. In this regard, there is no room for the usual “the pResident was mid-heard, or misquoted, or taken out of context” bullshit.

Words matter. And when you’re allegedly the “pResident”, your own words matter more than anything.

Yes, the media repeats Trump’s words endlessly, and millions of people hear them – well, shouldn’t they? Shouldn’t the populace know exactly what their “pResident” is saying?

Yes, this spreads his message far and wide – that’s the idea. The more people who hear that message, the better the chances that the ones who don’t already know who he really is will start getting the idea.

I love it when the media repeats his tweets over and over, displays them on the screen – This is what the ‘pResident’ of the United States of America said today. Let that sink in.

His base takes his words as laudable; the rest of us take them as lies, and demonstrative of ignorance and immature pettiness – and that same dynamic would exist whether his words were repeated or not.

[rock]

9. You're right Nancy

As usual.

[TomSlick]

10. Nancy is right.

Ignorance, racism, etc. have to be called out. Silence will be taken as consent.

Trump will not go away just because we ignore him.

[JohnnyRingo]

6. It's impossible to ignore the president of the United States.

...and as the most powerful person in the world, it's for good reason. What he says, no matter how petty it seems, has global significance.

Trump has figured that out and uses Tweet rage to distract from important news.

[Alethia Merritt]

8. I have been saying this ever since he set foot into the WH. Sent dozens of e-mails and letters

to the media outlets, especially CNN and MSNBC. The message that gets repeated is the message that is remembered. I even asked them to stop covering his daily activities except for major actions and report more about him lying, his obstruction actions, and all the conflicts of interest he and his family throw in our faces daily. But as far as his messaging goes leave it to him and his tweets and don't report on them. But we can see how the media does just the opposite.

Framing our message is important as well as re-framing theirs. And don't allow a discussion to be diverted from the original topic. The GOP has been well trained in manners of propaganda.