I was baffled when Sen. John Kerry conceded in November. But I
wasn’t confused regarding why Kerry thought there was no way
he could take Ohio. What baffled me was how conservative the United
States has become. Bush appeared to grab his second term so easily
despite debate blunders, a shabby economy and a problem-ridden war
on Iraq.
Conservatives had, yet again, done a much better job appealing
to everyday people than any liberals or Democrats had managed. I
just didn’t get it. Why did the conservatives emerge so
jubilantly good, and the liberals so embarrassingly bad?
In his latest book, “Don’t Think of an Elephant!:
Know Your Values and Frame the Debate,” George Lakoff, a UC
Berkeley professor of linguistics and cognitive sciences, argues
that the answer is all about frames. The frame, as he calls it, is
the way in which politicians communicate big ideas through wording
and language.
The trick of the frame, he explains, is to flaunt an easy,
no-brainer hook, such as tax relief, that remains both broad-based
and idealistic. Tax relief, for example, never states specifically
what’s wrong with America today. It merely implies that
everything’s too expensive and problematic ““ so people
should pay fewer taxes.
The final product? Popular appeal. Everybody loves it. “A
conservative on TV uses two words, like tax relief,” Lakoff
writes, “and the progressive has to go into a paragraph-long
discussion of his own view.”
That’s the problem with progressives today, Lakoff
continues. They lack a frame. Unlike conservatives who throw out
words like “climate change” or “tax relief”
and appear mysteriously spared, liberals endlessly deliberate over
singular political issues, like global warming or abortion. And
they fail miserably.
Lakoff has a point. Kerry, for example, was considered a
perpetual flip-flopper throughout his presidential campaign. People
complained they didn’t know him and they didn’t
understand what he really wanted for this country. What was his
over-arching goal? His big political message? What was his frame,
anyway?
Kerry spoke endlessly on an assortment of hot issues ““
weapons of mass destruction, his own war record, Bush’s lack
of integrity ““ that the great majority of Americans fell deaf
to. So Kerry became the loser, appearing to many as lacking any
sort of vision.
But Lakoff probes further. He argues that progressives, for lack
of their own frame, have consequently accepted the conservative
frame. They’ve bought into the system they’ve tried to
dismantle. For example, progressives often employ conservative
language ““ welfare reform, for one ““ to justify their
own arguments.
We saw the effects of these tactics following the Sept. 11, 2001
attacks. “Protection,” Lakoff explains, “is part
of the progressive moral system. … And on Sept. 11, progressives
didn’t have a whole lot to say. That was unfortunate because
nurturant parents and progressives do care about protection.
Protection is important.”
There lies the foundation of Lakoff’s argument.
Progressives should have created their own language ““ and
their own frame ““ following Sept. 11. But they didn’t.
Instead, they either remained quiet or followed in the language and
footsteps of conservative leaders and thereby reinforced
conservative political dominance.
Yes, liberals may lack a “frame”, as Lakoff argues.
But it’s not that simple. This alone can’t explain
Bush’s re-election. For one, Kerry wasn’t perfect. He
was an awkward candidate, thrown into the race late in the game.
People didn’t know what to make of him. Also, lots of
Americans trusted Bush more than Kerry. They liked that he had
disarmed the Taliban, and they liked that he was a “wartime
president.”
And politics, like our economy, travels in waves: More liberal,
then more conservative, more liberal, and then more conservative.
Social trends are much bigger than any party’s agenda of
yesterday or today.
I would have loved to discuss these issues with Lakoff himself,
but I couldn’t reach him. Still, many of Lakoff’s
points hit the nail dead center.
His point is also politically and historically accurate.
Conservatives, he writes, have been working together since the
1950s. It was the establishment of massive conservative think-tank
groups such as The Heritage Foundation or the Olin Professorship
program at Harvard University that formed a framed political
message that most conservatives have embraced.
Grover Norquist, currently president of Americans For Tax
Reform, also holds weekly meetings with top conservative analysts
and politicians to debate and discuss relevant affairs. They plan
for different political scenarios years in advance. Meanwhile,
“nothing like this,” Lackoff writes, “happens in
the progressive world.”
That’s because, as he explains, progressives all think
they’re right. They’re so intensely divided that the
job never gets done as well as it could. And this “is not
smart. It is self-defeating.”
So, there it is. Kerry may not have exclusively lost the
election because he lacked a frame. But it certainly didn’t
help.
“If only,” wrote Howard Dean in the preface to
Lakoff’s book, “the Democrats had read George Lakoff a
few years ago, we might not be in the position we find ourselves in
today: out of power in the White House, out of power in Congress,
and out of power in the Courts.”
Hopefully, not only Dean gets it; other important progressives
need to as well. But that’s wishful thinking for now.
I’m still waiting for the frame.
Fried is a second-year history student. E-mail her at
ifried@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to
viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.