2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumJust polled this forum!
The number of times the candidates names are used in the title?
Obama 15
Romney 24
Is this a Democratic site or Republican?
I mean who are we talking about?
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rfranklin
(13,200 posts)can you explain a bit more?
Wild_Dog
(57 posts)"Quoting conservative language, even to argue against it, just strengthens conservatism in the brain of people who are morally complex. It is vital that they hear the progressive values of the traditional American moral system, the truth that The Public is necessary for The Private, the truth that our freedom depends on a robust Public, and that the economy is for all of us."
'George Lakoff
Chemisse
(30,809 posts)Perhaps a similar poll on one of those sites would be revealing.
Wild_Dog
(57 posts)
wandy
(3,539 posts)
DocMac
(1,628 posts)DocMac
(1,628 posts)Much has been said about how the Democratic party fails to articulate their position, especially here. The details about the ACA should be laid out for all to understand, who it benefits and in what way.
"Quoting conservative language, even to argue against it, just strengthens conservatism in the brain of people who are morally complex. It is vital that they hear the progressive values of the traditional American moral system, the truth that The Public is necessary for The Private, the truth that our freedom depends on a robust Public, and that the economy is for all of us."
Having seen this link, are you suggesting we just use the word 'conservative' and avoid Republican?
Is that what Paul Krugman is suggesting? I just feel like your post is rather a moot point. You're polling words, not language.
Wild_Dog
(57 posts)I'm saying we talk to much about Romney and to little about Obama and Democratic principles.
We already know we're voting for Pres. Obama. We don't need to talk non-stop about him. Discussing the idiocy of Romney takes up a lot of threads.
Oh, and you probably didn't to a search for "Rmoney". You'd come up with an even bigger deficit. 
Wild_Dog
(57 posts)Look up George Lakoff the expert and understand him then argue with him.
"Quoting conservative language, even to argue against it, just strengthens conservatism in the brain of people who are morally complex. It is vital that they hear the progressive values of the traditional American moral system, the truth that The Public is necessary for The Private, the truth that our freedom depends on a robust Public, and that the economy is for all of us."
Wait Wut
(8,492 posts)Talking about Romney and how to defeat him along with the rest of the GOP is not going to "strengthen conservatism" in our morally complex brains. We don't need to preach to the choir here. Granted, there are some on this site that claim they won't vote for Pres. Obama, but you won't find anyone claiming to vote for Romney or any other candidate.
Mr. Lakoff seems to be addressing the concerns of the general populace, not Democratic web sites that are already on board with Libera/Progressive ideals.
Wild_Dog
(57 posts)We need to make our position stronger with Democrats and make no room for Republican thinking.
We talk about jobs for the 99% without giving any room for someone to buy into Romney's, "EARNED his the American capitalist way."
We should say clearly that taking care of poor is Christian and not giving any voice to any Christian argument that conflicts with this theology.
I just listened to a debate between Michael Steele and a Democratic spokesman, if I don't listen to Steele or ever hear his position then I can NEVER agree with what he says; I didn't hear it.
scheming daemons
(25,487 posts)We already agree with Obama.
We are discussing the threat that a Romney presidency presents to our nation.
Your motives are suspect.
Any LW site will have more posts about Romney, and any RW site will have more posts about Obama. That's the nature of politics.
Your slip is showing.
Rosanna Lopez
(308 posts)"We already agree with Obama."
We agree with SOME of Obama's policies, but not all.
Obama is much too conservative and not progressive enough. He has been pushing an agenda that is much farther to the right than that of FDR and other Presidents. Obama is to the right of most of the leaders in Europe.
So while we agree that Obama needs to be re-elected instead of Romney because he is much better, he still is very far away from doing what a Democratic President should be doing.
Wild_Dog
(57 posts)This gives comfort to our enemy and I use the word enemy exactly and precisely.
Wild_Dog
(57 posts)"we discuss the opposition. it is a political site"
I don't want to argue, I want to win with Obama.
"Your slip is showing."
My slip isn't showing, your lack of scholarship is showing.
You haven't read Lakoff or even know who Lakoff is!
Wild_Dog
(57 posts)Progressive worldview is modeled on a nurturing parent family......
Conservative worldview, the strict father model....
http://beauproductions.com/usworld/forum/index.php/topic,1105.msg2566.html#msg2566
Wild_Dog
(57 posts)AlterNet / ByJoshua Holland
[size=14pt]George Lakoff: How Right-Wingers Scam People Into Buying Their Toxic Philosophy[/size]
Here is what progressives can learn from right-wing messaging.
Progressives often find themselves explaining the details of their preferred policies, and arguing that they would maximize the common good if enacted. Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to eschew the fine print to embrace sweeping, moral narratives to back their positions. For the Right, debates over concrete public policies are often framed as contests between good and evil, freedom and tyranny; that's how, for example, conservatives can transform a modest 3 percent tax hike on the wealthiest Americans into pernicious “class warfare” and an intolerable example of “socialism.”
Call it a "rationality trap." For years, George Lakoff, a cognitive linguist at the University of California Berkeley, has argued that these tendencies put progressives at a huge disadvantage in our political discourse because the human brain simply doesn't process information in coolly analytical terms. Rather, people judge ideas against a larger moral framework, and by offering policy analysis rather than morality tales, liberals go to bat for their policies two strikes down in the count.
Lakoff and co-author Elisabeth Wehling discuss how these dynamics play out every day in American political debates in his new book, The Little Blue Book: The Essential Guide to Thinking and Talking Democratic. He appeared on this week's AlterNet Radio Hour; below is a lightly edited transcript of the discussion (you can listen to the whole show here).
Joshua Holland: George, in the book you talk about what you call “moral frames.” Can you give us a quick definition of what that is and how it plays out in our discourse?
George Lakoff: Yes. All politics is moral at the base. Any political leader who gives you some sort of prescription of what to do does it because he says it’s right, not because he says it’s wrong or doesn’t matter. Everybody thinks it’s right.
But there are two different ideas of what right is. This is very important. Let me give you a short version of this that applies mostly to economics. The basic idea behind democracy in America is the idea that citizens care about each other; that they act socially as well as individually to cash out that care, and they try to do as well as they can in doing that both for themselves and for others. They do this by having the government create what we call “the public.” The public provision of things; things for everybody – roads, bridges, sewers, public education and public health, like the Centers for Disease Control. Clean air, clean water, the provision of energy, communications and so on. These are all the sorts of things that you can’t live a life without. A private life or a private enterprise. Every business depends on all of these things. The private depends on the public. That is a moral issue. That is how we care about each other.
Conservatives have a very different view of democracy, which follows their moral system. Their moral system is more complex than ours is. The basic idea in terms of economics is that democracy gives people the liberty to seek their self interest and their own well-being without worrying or being responsible for the well-being or interest of anybody else. Therefore they say everybody has individual responsibility, not social responsibility, therefore you’re on your own. If you make it that’s wonderful. That’s what the market is about. If you don’t make it, that’s your problem.
Those are two opposite views of a moral system applied to economics. Those are straightforward, everyday examples. They apply very interestingly in the case of privatization. The right says, 'privatize as much as possible. Get rid of as much of the public as you possibly can. Make everything private if possible.' The other side says no. The public requires hiring private contractors all the time -- to build roads or public buildings -- but there’s a limit. And the limit has to do with morality. When it comes to moral issues like education, health or the environment -- which has everything to do with morality and people caring about each other -- there you don’t put that in private hands for private profit. That is the line that needs to be drawn.
Those are truths that are deeply embedded in the point of view of a progressive morality. There are other truths that are from conservative morality. They’re opposites, and because they’re opposites you’re going to get conflict. One thing that’s important to understand is that most people have a little of both. Most people are conservative about some things and progressive about others. Some people are almost all progressive and some are almost all conservative.
But there are a lot of people who are mixed and they’re called moderates or centrists, though there is no explicit ideology of the moderation. There’s no ideology of the independent or the swing voter. What you have are two different moral systems in the same brain which inhibit each other. One is active and the other is inactive. Activity in one turns off the other. The more one is active the stronger it gets and the weaker the other one gets.
What’s happened in this country is that language activates that moral system. The moral system is realized in frames. Frames are conceptual structures that we use to think in context. Language is defined in terms of those frames. When you use language that is conservative it’ll activate conservative frames which in turn activates conservative moral systems and strengthens those systems in people’s brains. That’s been happening for the past three decades. Conservatives have a remarkable communication system and a language system that they’ve constructed. They get out there and use their language and frames and repeat them over and over. The more they repeat it the greater their effect on people’s brains. Democrats don’t do that and as a result the conservatives have framed almost every issue.
What The Little Blue Book does is show how to deal with that. How to understand your own moral frames and how to see deep truths that conservative frames hide. For example: that the private depends on the public.
JH: I think this is a really important point that you get at in the book – that people don’t evaluate issues in isolation. Sometimes you’ll see the polling on something -- one example is that overwhelming majorities of people, even those who identify as conservative, say the government should do more to alleviate poverty. But when you get into specific policies that would achieve that end, you find very different results.
You write, “when you mention a specific issue all of the frames and values higher up in the hierarchy are also activated. They define the moral context of the issue.”
So, are we all just fooling ourselves when we cite public opinion on some issue or another, and assuming that people will rationally support politicians who agree with us on those issues?
GL: Yes, you’re fooling yourself. Let me give you some striking examples of that. A lot of it depends on how the questions in the poll will be framed. When Obama was elected, before he took office, he had his pollster go out and check to see what possible provisions of a healthcare plan people would like. It turned out the provisions like capping expenses, or covering people with preconditions, or allowing your children to be on your healthcare plan when you go to college -- everybody liked those, like 60 to 80 percent of people, and they still do.
What was interesting is that conservatives never attacked them. Conservatives never came out and said we shouldn't cover preconditions or you shouldn’t have your children on your healthcare plan. They didn’t attack any of those provisions. What they did is they went to morality, as it is from their perspective. They said we’re going to have two moral principles here, freedom and life. From their perspective this was a government takeover and there were death panels. And they repeated government takeover and death panels over and over until a lot of the public – people who liked all of the provisions of the plan -- were now against the plan. The plan got minority support.
So here you have the president come out week after week, and David Axelrod coming out, saying this is a wonderful plan and here are the provisions. David Axelrod at one point sent out a memo to all the people on the Obama list -- 13 million -- saying go to your neighbors and here are 24 points of the plan to remember, but just to make it easier there are three groups of eight. Nobody remembers those three groups of eight. Meanwhile the other guys are saying government takeover and death panels.
JH: A while back, I interviewed Richard Viguerie, who is a longtime conservative activist. He said something very interesting to me. He said that his fellow travelers were descendants of monarchists, and as a result, they were very receptive to top-down messaging strategy in a way that liberals are not.
We do see this again and again where you get very similar talking points from the lowest level of the conservative blogosphere to members of the Senate Republican Caucus. Is there a tendency for liberals or progressive people to not be as easily swayed by messages that are coming from above?
GL: No. They’re just as easily swayed. Turn on MSNBC and you’ll hear the same messages every night. You get talking points from the DNC and they’re all about policies. You’re going to talk about this policy and that policy and so on, but you’re not going to talk about morality.
There was a period when I was involved with a think tank called the Rockridge Institute, and MoveOn, when it was a young organization, asked its members for the 2004 election what they wanted to see in the future of the country. They thought they would get hundreds and hundreds of new proposals. They had people pair up and have a discourse about the kinds of things they wanted to see. We got a big stack of all these things and started going through them. After about the first half inch, they were all the same. Everybody said the same thing.
If you go and look at progressive foundations and look at their mission statements there are between a dozen and two dozens things they all say, and then they’re all the same. Progressive are just the same as conservatives on it, but they don’t know how to communicate their messages. What they wind up doing is talking about policies, rather than the moral basis of those policies.
JH: I think one of the most important trends in our politics these days is the mainstreaming of extremism on the Right. I certainly remember when Bill Clinton was in office you had these militia guys running around. There were these crazy conspiracy theories – Clinton was accused of drug trafficking and murdering a bunch of his political opponents. Those views were kind of consigned to the fringe -- your crazy right-wing uncle would forward chain emails with this stuff.
Now you see politicians like Michele Bachmann who believe that energy efficient lightbulbs are some sort of UN plot to undermine the free enterprise system. You have elected politicians going on Fox and saying that Obama wasn’t born in this country. In the book, you talk about this trend. How does this new extremism fit into your analogy about families? You've long said that conservatives look toward a strict father figure in governance, and liberals tend to embrace a more nurturing parent model.
GL: This goes back to 1996 to a book I wrote called Moral Politics, which talks about that at great length. The idea is this: we understand that we have two very different family models in this country. They rise from two different understandings of morality. Morality as nurturing and morality as obedience to legitimate authority. Those give rise to different types of families. A strict father family has a father who is the ultimate authority which cannot be challenged. His job is to teach kids right from wrong, assuming he knows that, and his wife’s job is to uphold his views. The children are taught right from wrong by punishment, and painful enough punishment so that they’ll try to discipline themselves to do right and not wrong. And then if they have that discipline they can go out into the world and be prosperous. If they’re not prosperous that means they’re not disciplined and so they deserve their poverty.
This idea projects onto every aspect of social life, not just to our national life but also onto the market, onto religion, onto foreign policy, the military and so on. What that does is create a very different view than progressives have about all of these things. When you have a lot of people with both of these views -- we all grow up with both of them there -- each one is in a neural circuit. That neural circuit is in mutual opposition to another neural circuit. Each of those two inhibit each other. When one of those circuits is activated over and over, more than the other, the stronger it gets and the weaker the inactive one gets. The stronger one of these circuits gets, the more influence it’s going to have over various issues.
What has happened over the years since the “Gingrich revolution” is that he worked to get rid of candidates in the Republican Party who were partly progressive. He made them as conservative as possible and he got conservative messaging. That messaging went unchallenged by Democrats. They just responded with policies. So the conservative messages have been getting stronger over the years and conservative populism has been growing because there are a lot of working people in this country, especially men, who are strict fathers at home. Those ideas of “family values” can then be extended into political, economic and religious ideas. That’s what’s happened.
There has been more and more of an audience for conservatism because those ideas become stronger in the brain because of the media control of the Right. It’s not illegitimate media control. The Left could do just as well but they don’t because they don’t know how to speak in moral terms. What happens is that as the parts of those people’s brains gets stronger you get more and more extreme conservatism. That’s not surprising. It just follows from the fact that they have a very strong and communicative system that Democrats don’t and don’t want to put into effect. That has been a very effective system. The way that people’s brains work will just give this result.
Wild_Dog
(57 posts)Has no one studied George Lakoff?
Wild_Dog
(57 posts)arguments around our principles.
Equal rights
Voter rights
Educational rights
Worker rights
Health Care rights
Housing rights
What did I forget?
Marzupialis
(398 posts)How does mentioning Romney more makes a site Republican? What if the things DU'ers say about Romney are against him and not in favor of him? Do Republicans go around saying bad things about Romney more so than about Obama?
Wild_Dog
(57 posts)I am not making that argument, I am saying we play into Republican hands.
"Progressives often find themselves explaining the details of their preferred policies, and arguing that they would maximize the common good if enacted. Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to eschew the fine print to embrace sweeping, moral narratives to back their positions. For the Right, debates over concrete public policies are often framed as contests between good and evil, freedom and tyranny; that's how, for example, conservatives can transform a modest 3 percent tax hike on the wealthiest Americans into pernicious “class warfare” and an intolerable example of “socialism.”
Lakoff here; http://beauproductions.com/usworld/forum/index.php/topic,1332.0.html
Do a little research and argue with the expert; Lakoff not me.
I do offer that many have noticed that the Republicans get the high ground and we fight up hill. Please don't try to win the argument with me until you understand the argument made by a real thinker!
Marzupialis
(398 posts)Your logic is that a forum with predominantly negative comments about the opponent is a member of the opposition. That logic is flawed.
Wild_Dog
(57 posts)Read Lakoff and tell me what you think he says about Democratic messaging (framing) his word.
mucifer
(23,530 posts)when they were being maligned and the focus was taken off reagan and bush.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)Simple enough.
A word count means little. Read the threads.
No one here is discussing the goodness of Romney's proposals. He has none. He's a clown.
And in many / most of the threads that mention him, he is being mocked, ridiculed, or laughed at for being a clown.
Wild_Dog
(57 posts)Trust me, while we are patting ourselves on the back they are working on new framing.
Please don't argue with me who is a poor spokesman for the real expert Lakoff, I've given several references.
Here is a good example of Lakoff's thinking;
George Lakoff: All politics is moral at the base. Any political leader who gives you some sort of prescription of what to do does it because he says it’s right, not because he says it’s wrong or doesn’t matter. Everybody thinks it’s right.
But there are two different ideas of what right is. This is very important. Let me give you a short version of this that applies mostly to economics. The basic idea behind democracy in America is the idea that citizens care about each other; that they act socially as well as individually to cash out that care, and they try to do as well as they can in doing that both for themselves and for others. They do this by having the government create what we call “the public.” The public provision of things; things for everybody – roads, bridges, sewers, public education and public health, like the Centers for Disease Control. Clean air, clean water, the provision of energy, communications and so on. These are all the sorts of things that you can’t live a life without. A private life or a private enterprise. Every business depends on all of these things. The private depends on the public. That is a moral issue. That is how we care about each other.
Conservatives have a very different view of democracy, which follows their moral system. Their moral system is more complex than ours is. The basic idea in terms of economics is that democracy gives people the liberty to seek their self interest and their own well-being without worrying or being responsible for the well-being or interest of anybody else. Therefore they say everybody has individual responsibility, not social responsibility, therefore you’re on your own. If you make it that’s wonderful. That’s what the market is about. If you don’t make it, that’s your problem.
Those are two opposite views of a moral system applied to economics. Those are straightforward, everyday examples. They apply very interestingly in the case of privatization. The right says, 'privatize as much as possible. Get rid of as much of the public as you possibly can. Make everything private if possible.' The other side says no. The public requires hiring private contractors all the time -- to build roads or public buildings -- but there’s a limit. And the limit has to do with morality. When it comes to moral issues like education, health or the environment -- which has everything to do with morality and people caring about each other -- there you don’t put that in private hands for private profit. That is the line that needs to be drawn.
Those are truths that are deeply embedded in the point of view of a progressive morality. There are other truths that are from conservative morality. They’re opposites, and because they’re opposites you’re going to get conflict. One thing that’s important to understand is that most people have a little of both. Most people are conservative about some things and progressive about others. Some people are almost all progressive and some are almost all conservative.
But there are a lot of people who are mixed and they’re called moderates or centrists, though there is no explicit ideology of the moderation. There’s no ideology of the independent or the swing voter. What you have are two different moral systems in the same brain which inhibit each other. One is active and the other is inactive. Activity in one turns off the other. The more one is active the stronger it gets and the weaker the other one gets.
What’s happened in this country is that language activates that moral system. The moral system is realized in frames. Frames are conceptual structures that we use to think in context. Language is defined in terms of those frames. When you use language that is conservative it’ll activate conservative frames which in turn activates conservative moral systems and strengthens those systems in people’s brains. That’s been happening for the past three decades. Conservatives have a remarkable communication system and a language system that they’ve constructed. They get out there and use their language and frames and repeat them over and over. The more they repeat it the greater their effect on people’s brains. Democrats don’t do that and as a result the conservatives have framed almost every issue.
What The Little Blue Book does is show how to deal with that. How to understand your own moral frames and how to see deep truths that conservative frames hide. For example: that the private depends on the public.
appleannie1
(5,067 posts)Wild_Dog
(57 posts)Lakoff is on our side!
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Both sides prefer to focus on the other side's record.
orpupilofnature57
(15,472 posts)Why are you at 50 posts , after 5 right here?
Wild_Dog
(57 posts)I'm tired of doing the same thing over and over expectiing different results.
We play the Republican game and help them.
And I ask you if you know who Lakoff is?
Even after 2006 and 2008 we still could not get legislation through Congress.
We thought we had the world by the ass and along comes 2010.
I don't want another 2010!
orpupilofnature57
(15,472 posts)Wild_Dog
(57 posts)This time I'll address your chicken shit "SNIFF SNIFF". post
I am; on your side and this is not unusual for Democrats to attack each other while Republicans stick together and laugh at us.
W.D. "Butch" Ragland
9450 John Smith Rd
Depauw, IN 47115
502-594-8363
My web site: http://beauproductions.com/usworld/forum/index.php
So, I challenge you to do a little schorlarship.
BTW who exactly are you and where are YOU?
orpupilofnature57
(15,472 posts)I won't trade barbs ,And I really don't mean to be trite . I've been so infuriated by apathy ,casuistries ,and esoteric members memes that sometimes get a bit weary . I offer the thing that made me a DUer as a peace offering and maybe you'll understand ,that I understand. http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/04/09/03_hard.html
maddezmom
(135,060 posts)
orpupilofnature57
(15,472 posts)I wish I paid attention like you ,Thanks.
maddezmom
(135,060 posts)but the copious amount of links to the site is a turnoff to me. Seems more interested in getting hits to the site then they are in a discussion.
emilyg
(22,742 posts)Romney from DU. Why not focus on Dems?
Wild_Dog
(57 posts)How about talking about;
Social Security
Medicare
The GI Bill
Affordable Education
Voter Rights
Civil Rights
Womens Rights
ADD TO THIS LIST
I don't give a shit what they want to talk about,
I want to talk about Democratic principles.
WI_DEM
(33,497 posts)so post away.
Wild_Dog
(57 posts)Following my understandING of Lakoff I made this argument about the recall;
Unions and others of course, were all hopped up about the recall with the marches in the streets, etc.
I argued that they and me (I made calls to WI calling for the Walker recall) were not creating messaging for what I call "pseudo-farmers" who where not quote (unionist) that would bring (those who were not union friends) in to vote for Walker's recall.
Of course I don't know why Walker wasn't recalled but one argument was the framing Republicans used that: "it was the wrong issue" and "it was the wrong time". This is framing according to Lakoff and he says such things work so I preach his sermon.
WE NEED TO STUDY FRAMING MORE CAREFULLY AND DO A BETTER JOB
