Comments on: Baucus Plan: No One Likes It, So It Must Be Good

By: Richard Gray

Richard Gray — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:56:43 +0000

Right on Ivan! You speak for me. George Laykoff has got this "framing" figured out. So unfortunately has the conservative movement and are using it very effectively. The key seems to be for Progressives to learn how to always come from our values. We believe that all we have to do is lay out the facts and reasonable folks will come to a sensible conclusion. Unfortunately that's not the way the science of learning works. People reach their understanding of and position on issues when the information is paired with an emotional reference. We need to act and communicate from a moral imperative that is about sharing, caring for each other, fairness, and justice.
We could also communicate our moral outrage at the lies, greed, insensitivity and unfairness of conservative positions so long as we do not repeat what they say. Repetition also reinforces those neural pathways! When we land on a metaphor or "frame' that makes our case effectively with an emotional underpinning, that's when we repeat it on every talk show, blog, and progressive site, over and over again. This is how public opinion shifts.

By: Dandelion

Dandelion — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 04:39:02 +0000

Ivan – Thanks so much for the Lakoff link. It's an important article. I wish everyone would read it and begin applying his prescriptions to the debate.

By: Celes King IV

Celes King IV — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 02:07:21 +0000

I am a Republican. I want Universal Healthcare. We are getting a Universal mandate, tanamount to a welfare planf or Insurance Companies. Healthcare Reform was Drad Before Arrival and the Hearse was paid for by Insurance Companies, AMA , Big Pharma, and the Hospital Associations.

Simply put we elect our legislators not to listen to us, they listen to the Insurance lobbyists spending over a million and a half dollars a day to make sure they keep depriving us of Healthcare in the name of profits

By: Ivan

Ivan — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 00:21:17 +0000

This is a very logical analysis and I definitely support a Public Option. Indeed, Baucus's bill is extremely scary for poor people. Under it, people who don't have Health Care would be fined. If poor people can't afford Health Care, they can't afford the fine!

However, I think that progressive rhetoric is failing to reframe the issue from our perspective. We all have the facts, but conservatives have framed this issue successfully in terms of "keeping government out of people's lives" and in terms of capitalism, and therefore private corporations seem good. Under this frame, Baucus's bill is good, because it privatizes Universal Health Coverage. Obviously, I disagree, as I've said, but I think that's why conservatives have been so successful.

The problem is that we progressives have failed to reframe the debate from our perspective. Here's an article by UC Berkeley Linguist and progressive George Lakoff about this:

http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/20090821120111491

According to Dr. Lakoff, the problem is that there's more to logic behind how voters make decisions on issues. Values play a big role. Only communicating the logic fails to communicate the values. Progressives are only communicating our logic. Conservatives are communicating both their logic and their values (their logic comes from their values and, under their values, privatization is better than a government run public option). They express their values through reframing. As long as this continues, Dr. Lakoff says (and I agree), we progressives will continue to lose the debate. What we should do instead is reframe the debate ourselves so that people understand our values as well as our logic.

We progressives claim to believe in communication, so let's walk the walk and communicate our value system to the American people! :)