From Buzzflash:
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BuzzFlash: As you have pointed out before, the Bush administration is incredibly skilled at using these framing phrases and concepts. And the right-wing think tanks laid the groundwork for it. But it seems to me that one characteristic of the framing phrases they use is that they are positive-sounding. It’s Medicare reform. It’s saving the forests by burning them down. It’s clean air by allowing deregulation of the industry. They’re not negative. The Democrats tend to use negative phrases a lot. Of course, at BuzzFlash, we think the Republicans are lying and being intentionally deceptive. Nonetheless, their framing is usually positive.
George Lakoff: Exactly. Don’t think of an elephant, right? The Democrats, by saying "stop this, attack that, overturn this," are shooting themselves in the foot. They’re being reactive, not active. And you don’t win by using the other guy’s terms and putting a "not" in front of it or a "stop" in front of it. The conservatives understand this. They have a language machine in place -- a very well-supported machine run by a man named Frank Luntz who uses all this think-tank research to come up with a manual of how to talk about each issue. Not just how to talk about it, but how to think about it, how to reason about it, what the arguments are from the Republican point of view. There’s an honest reasoning and talking part to what he does, but then there’s also a way to twist words, to use propaganda. That’s what you’re talking about.
For example, you have the "Clear Skies Initiative," which is getting rid of all the anti–air pollution laws. They use words like "healthy, clean and safe" for things like nuclear power plants or coal plants. They issue advisories that say when you’re talking to women, use words that women like, like "love" and "from the heart" and "for the children." Those things are propaganda uses. There are propaganda uses on the right, but that’s not most of what they do. Most of it is successful framing of the things they really believe.
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BuzzFlash: The idea of protection seems very close to what might be a central framing device. Since 9/11, the Bush Administration has been talking about "security" -- I imagine Frank Luntz might be behind that -- and it seems that the Bush Administration is confident of reelection because the "soccer mom" has become the "security mom," and the Bush Administration positions itself as providing "security." Now maybe some of that has been shifting, due to a growing perception that we’re "losing the war" in Iraq. But let’s go back to two months ago, when Bush was riding high in Iraq. Why can’t the Democrats convert the "protection" model into the "security" model?
George Lakoff: There are several factors involved, and you have to sort them out. To do this, we have to talk about the conservative worldview. In the conservative world view, which starts with a model of the family I call a "Strict Father" family, there’s an assumption that the world is a dangerous place, that there is competition, there will always be winners and losers, that children are born bad and have to be made good.
What is needed to deal with all this is a strict father who supports and protects the family, who raises children to know right from wrong, who raises his children to be able to take care of themselves in the world. He does it in only one way -- by strength and punishment. Only punishment works. Only shows of strength work. That is part of the family model that’s involved, and it’s also part of the politics involved. When you have fear in the country, fear evokes a strict father model. It’s to the conservatives’ advantage to keep people afraid, to keep having orange alerts, to keep having announcements that they have secret information that there might be a bombing somewhere in the country. As long as you keep people afraid, you reinforce the strict father model.
The opposite of fear in all of this is hope and joy. It’s important for liberals to stress the hope and promise of America, the joy of living in this country, and so on. You want to evoke that. But when fear is being evoked, the right-wing model is being evoked. Now, there are ways in which you can deal with the right-wing model. There are abusive fathers who betray the trust placed in them by the family -- and one of the things that Bush has been doing is betraying the trust that Americans have placed in him. He’s lying to them. He’s saying one thing and doing another. That harms people. There’s a great deal of betrayal of trust there, and the liberals have to come out and get that message across. It’s a hard message to get across because people don’t want to think that the head of their family or the head of their nation is betraying their trust.
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This interview clears up (for me anyway) a lot of the confusion I have had as to why people still are supporting * even though they know he's lying about how things are being done and why. It's because so many people are reacting on subconscious levels, that they don't even know what reactions they are truly having!
We Democrats have always thought that we should be able to win on the issues, and lately we've been confused as to why this isn't working. After all, how could anyone not want justice and equality, unless they were simply evil? Well, here's the answer: the Republicans through the Mighty Wurlitzer have redefined what justice and equality mean, so when we campaign against what the Republicans stand for, WE'RE the evil ones!
I think this is an eye-opening interview here. I'm hoping it doesn't simply get lost in the electronic ether, because we need to change the way we think about campaigning. We can't just put out the issues and expect people to buy them, because it clearly doesn't work like that anymore, and proof of that goes back as far as the 80's.
ON EDIT: Here is the interview:
http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/04/01/int04003.html
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