Reply #9: A.) Gore's not pushing classic rationalism B.) Gore is reframing the debate [View All]

[AlGore-08.com]

Away from "Are the Democrats framing the debate effectively" to more important issues like "How can we restore a healthy, working democracy to America" and "How can we make sure our democracy survives future eras run by incompetents, ideologues and/or political cowards".

"Framing" is another way to say "Spin". Framing is the same technique used by McDonald's to convince folks that their food is part of a healthy lifestyle, or Jeep to convince folks that environmentally conscience folks all drive Hummers. Framing is what the Bush admin did in the run up to the Iraq war to convince the majority of Americans that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11. Framing is what the Nazis did in Germany and what the Soviets did in Russia, only they called it "Propaganda".

By itself, framing cannot defeat the framing of an opponent who has greater access to mass media and/or less critical reception from the mass media. It doesn't matter if you come up with the greatest talking point in history to sell the Democratic party's position on the Iraq war if George W. Bush gets 24/7 TV coverage of his every utterance, and all you get is a chance to stand at the intersection of county road six and U.S. 41 waving a hand painted cardboard sign. It doesn't matter if you come up with the most effective stump speech ever framing the Democratic party's position on poverty, if every time the mainstream media report on you that they turn your microphone off after three seconds and then spend ten minutes discussing whether your $600 haircut or your McMansion or your latest tax return has ruined your credibility as a populist.

To paraphrase Gore (which is always dangerous to do because he's a lot smarter than me) the point of the book is that American democracy is in trouble because the primary way our policies and campaigns are decided is through 30 TV ads (the ultimate framing device). These ads are a one way conversation from the politician at the voter, designed to manufacture the voter's consent. Manufacturing consent is, by definition, not democratic. But manufacturing consent is even less democratic when voters are intentionally mislead about what they're consenting to.

(Back to me and my thoughts.) A good example of why the question is much bigger than "Are the Democrats framing the debate effectively" occurred here in LA recently. We had a run off special election for where the only races were a couple school board seats and a couple community college board seats. My school district had one of the open seats, so I saw one school board candidate's TV ads run for three weeks straight before the election!

It was the same ad over and over (and I can't begin to tell you how sick I was of it by the time the election was held). The ad said: "The other candidate is on the school board and voted himself a huge raise. He opposes charter schools. Our candidate is a mother of school aged children and supports charter schools. Vote for our candidate." The frame was obvious - - the other guy was a corrupt career pol who voted for the special interests (in this case, the teacher's union); our candidate is not a politician, she's a real person, just like me.

There is nothing about political ads or the theory of framing that would ensure that this framing was accurate. As we have seen in over the last six years, it would have been easy for "our candidate" to have twisted the record of "the other candidate" to make something innocent like him voting for the first increase in school funding in twenty years sound like he is just in politics to line his own pockets - - and to strip a statement or vote out of context to make a life long advocate of charter schools look like an opponent.

So how did "the other candidate" frame his counter attack? "Our Candidate" was the mayor's choice to take the school board seat, and the mayor helped line up major funding for her. "The other candidate" did not have a political machine behind him, he did not have the funds to run TV ads, so his counter attack was not on TV. He didn't have enough money for radio ads. He went out and talked to voters and called reporters requesting interviews but the media did not cover him - - their attitude was why bother, it's only a school board race.

Is anybody surprised that "our candidate" won?

There you have a race won by superior framing. But democracy was not necessarily served. Was "our candidate" the better candidate? Was she more experienced? Did she have better solutions to our problems? Was she even remotely competent? We have no way of knowing, based on the one campaign commercial that was her campaign. After she's been in office awhile, we may know - - because if she turns out to be Bush level incompetent or corrupt, the local media will eventually notice. But if she's just run of the mill incompetent, or run of the mill corrupt - - or even if she turns out to be one of the all time great school board members in U.S. history, the media will never report on her.

My role in this process can only be passive. I am supposed to watch "our candidate's" TV ad, react emotionally to her framing ("That other candidate is a typical scumbag pol!" "Our candidate seems so authentic!" etc.), and take that emotional reaction into the voting booth with me. There's no place in this process for my feedback - - no way for me to enter the TV commercial and ask what's so great about charter schools in the first place or offer my own suggestions for improving charter schools or warn other voters that "our candidates" TV ad distorts the records and positions of her and "the other candidate".

The only way I can reframe this race is if I am rich enough to create and broadcast my own TV ads. (And sometimes, just having the money to pay for ads can't get you air time, as MoveOn.org has discovered in the past.)

What Gore wants us to think about (again, blame me for inaccuracies, not Gore) is how can we change the political system so that the primary political conversations are two way conversations between the voters and their Representatives? How can we change the political debate so that as many people as possible can participate, rather than just the super rich? How can we ensure that our national policy decisions are made by people who respect facts and respect other peoples' opinions, rather than by people who are too ideologically driven or too corrupt to listen to anyone else?