by Alan Journet, Conservation Chair, Trail of Tears Group
What Happened?
Following the 1964 GOP debacle when Republican Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater was trounced by incumbent Lyndon Johnson, a group of right wing extremists embarked upon a scheme to turn the tide. Back then ‘conservative’ was as dirty a word as ‘liberal’ is now. A consequence of that plan was the wave of electoral victories that swept George Bush back into the White House and a host of right wing Republicans into federal and state legislatures.
Prompted by a 1970 memo from Chamber of Commerce Chief Counsel (soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice) Lewis Powell, the right wingers sought corporate funds to establish foundations and think tanks that would promote the right wing cause in the media and on campus. A primary goal was to frame issues to favor their policies and plans.
One result of their success is that progressive and moderate Americans are finding themselves increasingly unrepresented. It is important to understand that this is essentially not a contest between Democrats and Republicans. Moderate and progressive members of Republicans for Environmental Protection, for example, have lost their voice as much as have progressive and moderate Democrats. As Thomas Frank pointed out in his 2004 discussion (What’s the Matter with Kansas? Metropolitan Books, N.Y.) moderate Republicans are being muscled out of their own Party by right wing extremists. Unless genuine moderates and progressives in both parties understand what happened, the right wing extremists will continue their march to political domination at the expense of those values that the rest of us hold so dear.
It’s a Matter of Framing
If you play with me for a moment you’ll see the problem. To paraphrase George Lakoff (don’t’ think of an elephant! KNOWYOUR VALUES AND FRAME THE DEBATE 2004 — Chelsea Green Publishing, Vermont), for the next five minutes, whatever you do, “do not think of an elephant!” Even if you’re trying to play along with me, I bet you’ve already conjured up the trunked, big-eared image in an attempt to block it. Essentially, this is what framing is all about. By generating favorable images and frames for offensive and distasteful programs and policies that would be rejected if their details were known, the right wing radical regressive Republicans soothe the electorate into supporting a legislative platform that they should and otherwise would reject. Sometimes the act of framing can be achieved simply by giving a soothing name to a policy or bill. A couple of examples will illustrate the problem: The Bush plan of cutting taxes in an attempt, not only to shift the tax burden from wealthy to middle and low income Americans, but also to bankrupt the nation and force the cessation of government programs has been called “tax relief.” The beauty of this frame is that it is impossible to fight. If there is relief, there must be an affliction; in this case the affliction is taxes. So taxes are immediately depicted as evil. And who could possibly argue against relief from an affliction except someone who has evil intentions? So, the problem faced by opponents of dismantling government programs is that they must first build a competing frame that paints taxes as something other than evil. In this case, an alternative frame could be to identify taxes first as an investment in the nation—current and future, and second as the patriotic responsibility of all Americans.
In the environmental arena, Bush has identified his plan to promote air pollution as “Clear Skies” and his plan to log our national forests as the “Healthy Forests Initiative” Clearly these frames set up images that many moderate Americans concerned about air quality or our public lands will find attractive. The alternative frames that depict these as “Dirty Skies” and “No Tree Left Behind” would be more accurate. However, until we can associate such frames with Bush programs in the minds of voters, we will not be successful.
The master of the right wing framing language is Frank Luntz who has written tomes on the correct language to use to generate appealing frames for unappealing ideas. A valuable attribute of a successful frame is that if critics use the frame even when negating it with evidence and argument, they have conjured up the image, and the evidence and argument have already been lost.
The Nation as Family
In his analysis, Lakoff identifies two competing visions of the nation as family. On the one hand, the prevailing right wing perception is of the authoritarian father/parent who through discipline and punishment must train children (who are born bad) to obey. Without this punishment and training there will be no morality and the world will go to hell. Through his writings, James Dobson is a prime proponent of this school of thought. The reward for obedience is prosperity – thus wealth becomes a measure of one’s morality. Those who do not learn to obey are doomed to fail. Economic failure becomes the penalty for disobedience and immorality. The extension of this philosophy is that social programs that take taxes from the moral wealthy and divert money to the immoral poor must be wrong. It is, therefore, only proper that the government should be bankrupted to the point that it can no longer fund social programs. Many other right wing values stem from this authoritarian model.
On the other hand, the Progressive vision is a gender neutral caring nurturing parent model. According to this model, children are born good but can be made better (i.e. happy, caring, and fulfilled) through a caring nurturing environment. Essential elements in this environment are freedom, opportunity, fairness, trust, honesty, open communication, and a sense of community responsibility. Many progressive values stem from this model. Three Progressive Errors of Judgment During the last election cycle, progressives continued to make three fundamental errors about voters: “The truth will set us free.” According to this myth, if only we provide the necessary information and education, the superiority of progressive policies will be seen by voters and they will cast their votes accordingly. Unfortunately, this fails to acknowledge the strength of frames. Thus, the frame that Saddam Hussein and Iraq were responsible for 9-11, had links with Al Qaeda, had W.M.D. and posed a direct immediate threat to the U.S. was so skillfully set that even now millions of Americans still believe one or more of these claims that have so soundly been rejected by subsequent and well-publicized evidence. Given a choice between maintaining the frame and accepting contrary evidence, the voter maintains the frame and rejects the evidence. Without changing the frame, education just bounces off.
‘It is irrational to vote against self-interest.’ Although modern economic theory and foreign policy are founded on this assumption, voters actually vote their identity or their perceived values even if these are contrary to self-interest. “Political campaigns are marketing campaigns of issues.” Although both parties apparently developed campaigns based on this principle, the Republican success is because they communicated using the frames of the voters. While progressive candidates evaluate polls on issues and move to the ‘Center’ to capture the electorate, the Republicans campaign on their frames, make no move to the center, and still get elected. By using Orwellian language that labels a policy the opposite of what it does, they mollify the moderate voter with nurturing rhetoric camouflaging an authoritarian program.
Responsibility and Reframing
One concern about framing is whether it is purely manipulative public relations—spin to coin a current term.The basic answer to this is that every news story, even every sentence, is framed in some way; we use frames all the time.The question is whether we wish to compete with right wing Republicans by continuing to use their frames when we know they are dishonest and conceal a deeper and extremely menacing agenda or whether we wish to generate our own frames. These frames should both reflect our reality regarding our policies, but also should more accurately depict their policies. Frames can be based on honesty and evidence and designed to reflect accurately a policy goal, or they can be based on concealment and camouflage when they are designed to divert attention from underlying motives. The nurturing and caring progressive view demands openness, honesty, communication, and fairness. There is, therefore, no subterfuge involved in seeking frames that accurately reflect progressive goals.
What to Do?
If the Lakoff thesis is correct, it behooves progressives to work on identifying their moral values, linking these to issues and developing frames that present the progressive positions in a context that will be greeted favorably by the electorate. We must work together to achieve this end, and must start now—if not sooner. To this end, the Ozark Chapter has identified developing the message on environmental issues as one of its top priority campaigns for 2005. Sierrans interested in exploring this idea further are encouraged to visit the web site of the Midwest Center for American Values: http://209.61.245.210/ or the Rockridge Institute: http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/. Also, Sierrans interested in joining the campaign by engaging in reframing activities within Missouri should contact Alan Journet at ajournet@semo.edu.