George Lakoff

Lakoff emphasizes "framing" -- how people select the words to express their ideas. "Framing is normal." Lakoff says: "Every sentence we say is framed in some way. When we say what we believe, we are using frames that we think are relatively accurate." Lakoff warns: "When we negate a frame, we evoke the frame.... This gives us the basic principle of framing, for when you are arguing against the other side: Do not use their language. Their language picks out a frame -- and it won't be the frame you want."

To complement that idea of selection, here I would emphasize that we look also at the omissions: what people omit, what people most commonly assume, or "take for granted."

The basic selection/omission process omits, necessarily, more than can be presented. All communication is limited, slanted, or biased to include and exclude items. Such omissions often conceal -- intentionally or unintentionally -- the basic belief, the basic premise, underlying the surface expression of words and slogans.

Aristotle recognized that most people in ordinary discussion omit the Major Premise upon which their conclusions-- their "opinions" -- are based. In "formal logic" in which the proper form is that of a 3 part syllogism (Major Premise, Minor Premise, Conclusion), the term "enthymeme" is used to identify an incomplete syllogism, or a fragment. (For useful help on fallacies and formal logic)

Enthymemes are very common, but need to be recognized because they often lead to problems when the basic premise (on which everything else depends) is omitted (unsaid, unspoken, unexpressed, assumed, "taken for granted") as a starting point, as a foundation.

Lakoff advises that people use "frames that they really believe, frames that express what their moral values really are." Further, he warns against "any deceptive framing" not only as immoral, but also as impractical. In response to a FAQ, "So all I have to do to reframe my issue is think up some sound-bite worthy terms," (Elephant, 105) Lakoff responds: "No! Reframing is not just about words and language. Reframing is about ideas. The ideas have to be in place in people's brains before the sound-bite can make any sense."

Rationally, we need to identify (specify or clarify) our own Major Premises, the foundations on which our own reasoning is built. For example, in a classic Nature/Nurture dilemma, some people have the unstated assumption (a Major Premise) that homosexuality is a choice, thus the words they use, frame it as a sinful "lifestyle." For other people, the unstated assumption is that homosexual orientation is genetic, "God-given."

Both sides will frame their positions with a appropriate choice of words with favorable connotations. But, the underlying basic premises are seldom expressed openly, debated, or established first. Alas, even if we do get others to specify their basic premise, we can still anticipate other problems: "begging the question," shifting the premises, and many other non-rational ways to avoid a rational resolution.

Rational arguments by serious people are possible, even on intensely emotional issues such as mercy killing of infants. Logically, if there is a shift from a univeral (ALL) to a particular (SOME), there's hope of negotiation, moderation, compromise to solve complex issues in a pluralistic democratic society.

Recognize, however, that these "wedge issues" or "hot button" issues are used profitably by both sides to rally their own believers. Both sides demonize the Other -- as a way of bonding their own group and raising money: "The greater the threat, the greater the need."

Hardliners and absolutists of either side are extremists: they want no compromises; they see themselves as the purists; they hate moderates within their own group as much as they hate their opponents. Elsewhere, I discuss the typical pattern of the "Pep Talk" (Threat, Bonding, Cause, Reponse) used by "Cause Groups" of all kinds.

Puzzles for Liberals
(pp.24-27)

Conservatives are fond of suggesting that liberals don't understand what they say, that they just don't get it. The conservatives are right. The ascendancy of conservative ideology in recent years and, in particular, the startling conservative victory in the 1994 congressional elections have left liberals mystified about a great many things.

Here are some examples. William Bennett, a major conservative politician and intellectual leader, has put a major part of his efforts into moral education. He has written The Book of Virtues, an 800-page collection of classical moral stories for children, which has been on the best-seller lists for more than eighty straight weeks. Why do conservatives think that virtue and morality should be identified with their political agenda and what view of morality do they profess?

Family values and fatherhood have recently become central to conservative politics. What are those family values, what is that conception of fatherhood, and what do they have to do with politics?

The conservative Speaker of the House of Representatives, embracing family values, suggested that the children of welfare mothers be taken away from the only families they have known and be placed in orphanages. This sounded like a contradiction of family values to liberals, but not to conservatives. Why?

Conservatives are largely against abortion, saying that they want to save the lives of unborn fetuses. The United States has an extremely high infant-mortality rate, largely due to the lack of adequate prenatal care for low-income mothers. Yet conservatives are not in favor of government programs providing such prenatal care and have voted to eliminate existing programs that have succeeded in lowering the infant mortality rate.

Liberals find this illogical. It appears to liberals that "pro-life" conservatives do want to prevent the death of those fetuses whose mothers do not want them (through stopping abortion), but do not want to prevent the deaths of fetuses whose mothers do want them (through providing adequate prenatal care programs). Conservatives see no contradiction. Why?

Liberals also find it illogical that right-to-life advocates are mostly in favor of capital punishment. This seems natural to conservatives. Why?

Conservatives are opposed to welfare and to government funds for the needy but are in favor of government funds going to victims of floods, fires, and earthquakes who are in need. Why isn't this contradictory?

A liberal supporter of California's 1994 single-payer initiative was speaking to a conservative audience and decided to appeal to their financial self-interest. He pointed out that the savings in administrative costs would get them the same health benefits for less money while also paying for health care for the indigent. A woman responded, "It just sounds wrong to me. I would be paying for somebody else." Why did his appeal to her economic self-interest fail?

Conservatives are willing to increase the budgets for the military and for prisons on the grounds that they provide protection. But they want to eliminate regulatory agencies whose job is to protect the public, especially workers and consumers. Conservatives do not conceptualize regulation as a form of protection, only as a form of interference. Why?

Conservatives claim to favor states' rights over the power of the federal government. Yet their proposal for tort reform will invest the federal government with considerable powers previously held by the states, the power to determine what lawsuits can be brought for product liability and securities fraud, and hence the power to control product safety standards and ethical financial practices. Why is this shift of power from the states to the federal government not considered a violation of states' rights by conservatives?

In these cases, what is irrational, mysterious, or just plain evil or corrupt to liberals is natural, straightforward, and moral to conservatives. Yet, the answers to all these questions are obvious if you understand the conservative worldview, as we shall see below.

Puzzles for Conservatives

Of course, most conservatives have just as little understanding of liberals. To conservatives, liberal positions seem outrageously immoral or just plain foolish. Here are some corresponding questions that conservatives have about liberal positions.

Liberals support welfare and education proposals to aid children, yet they sanction the murder of children by supporting the practice of abortion. Isn't this contradictory? How can liberals claim to favor the rights of children, when they champion the rights of criminals, such as convicted child molesters? How can liberals claim empathy for victims when they defend the rights of criminals?

How can liberals support federal funding for AIDS research and treatment, while promoting the spread of AIDS by sanctioning sexual behavior that leads to AIDS? In defending gay rights, liberals sanction homosexual sex; they sanction teenage sex by advocating the distribution of condoms in schools; they sanction drug abuse by promoting needle exchange programs for drug users. How can liberals say they want to stop the spread of AIDS while they sanction practices that lead to it?

How can liberals claim to be supporters of labor when they support environmental restrictions that limit development and eliminate jobs?

How can liberals claim to support the expansion of the economy when they favor government regulations that limit entrepreneurship and when they tax profitable investments?

How can liberals claim to help citizens achieve the American dream when they punish financial success through the progressive income tax?

How can liberals claim to be helping people in need when they support social welfare programs that make people dependent on the government and limit their initiative?

How can liberals claim to be for equality of opportunity, when they promote racial, ethnic, and sexual favoritism by supporting affirmative action?

To conservatives, liberals seem either immoral, perverse, misguided, irrational, or just plain dumb. Yet, from the perspective of the liberal worldview, what seems contradictory or immoral or stupid to conservatives seems to liberals to be natural, rational, and, above all, moral.

Models of the Family
(Pp. 33-34)

To date, I have found only one pair of models for conservative and liberal worldviews that meets all three adequacy conditions, a pair that (1) explains why certain stands on issues go together (e.g., gun control goes with social programs goes with pro-choice goes with environmentalism); (2) explains why the puzzles for liberals are not puzzles for conservatives, and conversely; and (3) explains topic choice, word choice, and forms of reasoning in conservative and liberal discourse. Those worldviews center on two opposing models of the family.

At the center of the conservative worldview is a Strict Father model.

This model posits a traditional nuclear family, with the father having primary responsibility for supporting and protecting the family as well as the authority to set overall policy, to set strict rules for the behavior of children, and to enforce the rules. The mother has the day-to-day responsibility for the care of the house, raising the children, and upholding the father's authority. Children must respect and obey their parents; by doing so they build character, that is, self-discipline and self-reliance. Love and nurturance are, of course, a vital part of family life but can never outweigh parental authority, which is itself an expression of love and nurturance -- tough love. Self-discipline, self-reliance, and respect for legitimate authority are the crucial things that children must learn. Once children are mature, they are on their own and must depend on their acquired self-discipline to survive. Their self-reliance gives them authority over their own destinies, and parents are not to meddle in their lives,

The liberal worldview centers on a very different ideal of family life, the Nurturant Parent model:

Love, empathy, and nurturance are primary, and children become responsible, self-disciplined and self-reliant through being cared for, respected, and caring for others, both in their family and in their community. Support and protection are part of nurturance, and they require strength and courage on the part of parents. The obedience of children comes out of their love and respect for their parents and their community, not out of the fear of punishment. Good communication is crucial. If their authority is to be legitimate, parents must explain why their decisions serve the cause of protection and nurturance. Questioning by children is seen as positive, since children need to learn why their parents do what they do and since children often have good ideas that should be taken seriously. Ultimately, of course, responsible parents have to make the decisions, and that must be clear.

The principal goal of nurturance is for children to be fulfilled and happy in their lives. A fulfilling life is assumed to be, in significant part, a nurturant life, one committed to family and community responsibility, What children need to learn most is empathy for others, the capacity for nurturance, and the maintenance of social ties, which cannot be done without the strength, respect, self-discipline, and self-reliance that comes through being cared for. Raising a child to be fulfilled also requires helping that child develop his or her potential for achievement and enjoyment. That requires respecting the child's own values and allowing the child to explore the range of ideas and options that the world offers. When children are respected, nurtured, and communicated with from birth, they gradually enter into a lifetime relationship of mutual respect, communication, and caring with their parents.

See also: Model Citizens and Demons

"We have a metaphor of the nation as family," Lakoff explains. Within that family are two types of parents, two models. Lakoff views the conservatives as the strict father model and the progressives as the nurturing parent.

"The strict father family has a background assumption," Lakoff says of the conservative approach. "The world is a dangerous place. It's a difficult place. And kids are born bad and have to be made good."

The strict father model, to offer just one applied example, would not allow for social programs because they offer unearned rewards. Within this model, the very notion of such a program – an unearned reward – would be immoral because it would not serve to raise the "child" to be self-reliant.

The nurturant parent, on the other hand, Lakoff writes, believes "that children are born good and should be kept that way."

The two core ideas to the nurturing parent are empathy and responsibility. Lakoff emphasizes that the empathy component within the nurturing model should not be interpreted as weakness:

"The nurturant parent is neither permissive nor weak in being empathetic. Rather empathy-carried-out requires responsibility, both personal and social. Responsibility implies strength, competence, and promoting the value of both personal and social responsibility in others."

The key factor of these two models, as it applies to Howard Dean, is that according to Lakoff, "Most Americans have versions of both worldviews … many people use both models – in different parts of their lives."

Lakoff believes, and Dean's stump speech would suggest he agrees, that either element within the swing voter can be excited. And so it follows that Dean is trying first to excite the Democratic base, and by so doing attract swing voters by tapping into their nurturing model more than the Republicans tap into their strict model.

Sound easy enough, right?

Lakoff thinks not. The conservatives, he believes, have created the notion that they are representative of morality and liberals are not. "Liberals have morality but have not been able to articulate it," he says of their language.

Conservatives, Lakoff believes, have spent millions of dollars and 40 years to develop a language to convey their ideas. The language, exemplified in such terms as "tax relief" and "partial birth abortion" brings with it a moral interpretation that the Democrats have not been able to counter.

Lakoff uses tax relief to explain. By substituting the word "relief" for "cuts" when talking about Bush's tax policies, the Republicans are able to associate a sense of morality with their agenda.

"If you have relief there has to be affliction, an afflicted party," Lakoff says. Once the notion of affliction is activated, even if unconsciously, the parties at play are assigned their roles. The party that relieves the affliction is a hero, while that which attempts to thwart the relief is a villain.

What kind of moral person, after all, would want to undo relief of the afflicted?

As Dean continues to face questions about wanting to repeal all of the Bush tax cuts, he speaks increasingly of "tax fairness," a term Lakoff feels is good, but not good enough.

As much as Dean would like to focus the election on jobs, healthcare and education instead of "guns, God, and gays," Lakoff says trying to appeal to practical issues is no way to beat George Bush.

"The conservatives understand that poor conservatives are going to Bush not because it's in their self-interest," he says. "People vote their identity much more than their self interest."

To beat Bush, Lakoff believes, a Democratic candidate will have to establish a set of ideas, develop a language to represent them, then speak and repeat. And repeat.

While he's not especially impressed with "tax fairness," Lakoff says other elements of Dean's stump speech get to the right point. "If you’re going to quote people, you quote Lincoln," Lakoff says. Dean ends nearly every stump speech with Lincoln's famous line, "A government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from this earth."

Lakoff, who has spoken with Dean's speechwriters and campaign manager Joe Trippi a handful of times, said he also suggested using the term "Bush tax." On the stump and in press releases, Dean, in fact, does use the term to label what he claims is a rise in costs of property taxes, health care and college tuition because of the funding lost as a result of the Bush tax cut. (Lakoff does not take credit for Dean's use of the term, and the Dean campaign could not confirm the phrase's origin.)

Also key to Dean's speech is his reference to wanting to return U.S. foreign policy to its "high moral purpose" – an element Dean claims was lost when President Bush launched the war in Iraq. Lakoff believes the suggestion of a foreign policy with "high moral purpose" is not an effort to appeal to voters’ self-interests but rather a more important effort to connect with their sense of values.

This is not to say that Howard Dean is calculating his choice of words in every line of his stump speech. Senior adviser Steve McMahon says when Dean goes out to speak, the audience hears Dean's own words, not the recitation of some calculated, focus group-tested compilation of phrases and one liners.

Furthermore, Dean and his staff do not necessarily agree with all of Lakoff's theories. Campaign manager Trippi says he agrees with Lakoff roughly 80 percent of the time. Trippi thinks there is, in fact, an addendum to be made to the parent model that incorporates personality.

The nurturing parent in policy, Trippi believes, can be complimented with what he sees as Dean's disciplinarian style personality in a way that can ignite the interests of both components within a swing voter. "One of the reasons we appeal to Republicans and independents is because of that," Trippi says.

Certainly Dean is not a "feel your pain" politician. He's more of a doctor looking for a solution to what he sees as a great ailment. Like the doctor he is, Dean seeks to identify the root of the ailment (in his mind, Bush’s tax cuts and foreign policy) and provide a remedy quickly and directly. Lakoff believes Dean still needs to develop a language that expresses a values-based vision for America, but he feels the doctor is off to a good start.

"You have to have the ideas there first," Lakoff says. "The framing can only get out there if you repeat it over and over."

With upwards of six campaign stops a day planned during the final push to the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary, Gov. Dean shouldn't have any problem with the repeat part.

More definitions and commentary from William Safire, Safire's Political Dictionary

CONSERVATIVE a defender of status quo who, when change becomes necessary in tested institutions or practices, prefers that it come slowly, and in moderation. In modern U.S. politics, as in the "conservative" is a term of opprobrium to some, and of veneration so others.... Today the more rigid conservative generally opposes virtually all governmental regulation of the economy. He favors local and state action over federal action, and emphasizes fiscal responsibility, most notably in the form of balanced budgets.... But there exists a less doctrinaire conservative who admits the need for government action in some fields and for steady change in many areas. Instead of fighting a rear-guard action, he seeks to achieve such change within the framework of existing institutions, occasionally changing the institutions when they show need of it.
(p.137)

LIBERAL currently one who believes in more government action to meet individual needs.... In its present usage, the word acquired significance during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who defined it this way during the [1932] campaign for his first term: ". . . say that civilization is a tree which, as it grows, continually produces rot and dead wood. The radical says: 'Cut it down.' The conservative says: 'Don't touch it.' The liberal compromises: 'Let's prune, so that we lose neither the old trunk nor the new branches.' ".... Liberalism takes criticism from both right and left, leading to various terms of opprobrium.... To its opponents, liberalism and liberals seem to call out for qualifying adjectives expressing contempt. [ bleeding heart liberal, limousine liberal, knee jerk liberal, screaming liberal ....] p.373 Top

Conservative claims (key words, images) about themselves:

values, virtue, character, discipline, rules, strong, self-reliant, responsible, standards, authority, heritage, hard work, free enterprise, traditional, common sense, practical.

Liberal claims (key words, images) about themselves:

care, concern, compassion, conservation, protect, help. ecology, environment, health, safety, human rights, free choice, equal rights, justice, fairness.

When political strategist Frank Luntz speaks, Republicans listen... and repeat his word.
See: Luntz Research Company || New American Lexicon | & | Luntzspeak.com (an opposing website) See also George Lakoff, below, on same topic)
PBS Now (July 2, 2004) transcript: Interview with Frank Luntz

BILL MOYERS: Check your calendar. It's just four months until the second of November, Election Day. So naturally, George W. Bush and John Kerry are on the campaign trail this weekend in hot pursuit of happiness as defined by ambition and power. Right now the outcome is up for grabs. The polls show that much of the public knows very little about Kerry, even as the President's popularity has hit a new low.

DAVID BRANCACCIO (Interviewer) : And when the going gets tough, Republicans call in the master. No one has been more successful at the rhetoric of political seduction than Frank Luntz. He's a magician with a gift for the politics of words and what words best connect with the hearts and minds of the public, especially voters. When others talk, it's often Frank Luntz speaking.

TV CLIP of BUSH: This new approach is based on this common sense idea, that economic growth is key to environmental progress.

BRANCACCIO: "Common-sense environmental policies," the "Clear Skies Initiative," the "death tax" are all catchy phrases channeled by the Bush administration and championed by one man: Frank Luntz, wordsmith, public opinion researcher, and political analyst. He's a very influential Republican who knows that with the right words, you can frame a debate before it's started.
And just last week, a new Luntz political memo leaked out. This one provides a strategy for explaining the "policy of preemption and the war in Iraq" and it advises Republicans that "no speech about homeland security or Iraq should begin without a reference to 9/11."

Something the Vice President had already mastered.

TV CLIP: VP CHENEY: Our mission in Iraq is a great undertaking that is part of a larger mission that the United States accepted now more than two years ago. September 11, 2001 changed everything for this country.

BRANCACCIO: You may hear the voice of Frank Luntz in some of that rhetoric. He joins us now. Frank Luntz doesn't just advise politicians. He was a consultant to the television series THE WEST WING and has worked for several FORTUNE 100 companies. Frank Luntz, welcome to NOW.

LUNTZ: It's a pleasure.

BRANCACCIO: The reputation is that the Democrats don't get this ability to frame political language. But the Republicans are very good at it. Is this 'cause of you? Your magical ear, as it's been described?

LUNTZ: Well, it's funny because I actually have trouble hearing in some cases. That for me I'm picking up information in focus groups. I don't hear that well in bars which is where a lot of political people get their language and their alcohol.

I think that the Democrats have always done a better job at setting the context than Republicans. And that's because they explain the "why" of the problem. If you just go in and you provide three or four solutions when someone asks you a question, you haven't set the context.

You haven't explained why you believe what you believe or why you support what you support. And that's where the Democrats have always been good. Bill Clinton was the best context setter of the 20th century. He never gave you a full answer. He never told you what he was gonna do. But he always told you why he was gonna do it. And I think that's why he ended up so popular.

BRANCACCIO: And if you're good at setting the context and at deploying the information in a set order, can you convince a voter what to think?

LUNTZ: That's a good question. But the way that I look at it is not to convince the voter what to think, it's to convince the voter that what they think is correct. Some of this is not a matter of re-educating them. Some of this is a matter of just explaining that their gut instincts are correct.

That they should not be fooled by either what they see or what they hear. That what they feel is what is correct. And that's a lot of it, by the way. It's not just language. It's style, it's presentation.

Look, the fact that I'm not wearing a tie means that the viewing audience will assume that I'm casual. They will also assume that I'm not intellectual because I've got this kind of shirt on. How we present ourselves has as much impact as what we say. And I tried back in the past to bring that kind of knowledge into politics.

And you also gotta bring it to the CEOs as well. And I know you wanna talk politics. But corporate America is even worse off than the politicians. The average CEO cannot communicate their way out of a paper bag. The average CEO only knows facts, figures, statistics and what to say on a balance sheet. And so there's no resonance. There's no empathy. There's no understanding of the anger and frustration that some Americans feel towards corporate America. The politicians are beginning to get it because they use focus groups and polls and dial sessions. The CEOs, they just speak from their head and it's not coming from their heart.

BRANCACCIO: Do you see what needs to be done as a manipulation? In other words, messing with people's heads?

LUNTZ: No, I've heard that before. And it's not messing with their heads because it's these thoughts, these ideas, these assumptions already exist. I would not... I do not believe in calling something that is white, I won't call it black.

I do not believe in calling something that's up, calling it down. This is not Orwellian. This is listening to what you care about. This is understanding who you are, what you believe, all your life experiences and then explaining things in that way. Look, if we were to do this interview and you asked me questions in English and I responded in Greek, none of your viewers with the exception of three or four people in L.A. are gonna understand me.

That's all that I do is I help people understand politics or products or services. It's an explanation. It's an education, not a manipulation.

BRANCACCIO: But it's not just translation out of the Greek, out of the fancy language into the plain English which I'm all for, plain English. You know there's a memo circulating that is attributed to you that talks about the need, among other things, for politicians to always mention the terrible events of September 11th.

LUNTZ: And what's wrong with that?

BRANCACCIO: Nothing at all, but...

LUNTZ: What's wrong...

BRANCACCIO: ...before mentioning Iraq.

LUNTZ: But what is wrong with mentioning why these things took place? What is wrong with mentioning the fact that there are enemies to America? What is wrong with talking about the fact that it is better to fight this war in Afghanistan and Iraq than fighting it in Washington and New York?

See, that kind of thing in some ways... I find that frustrating if not outrageous that you can't talk about the root cause. That you can't talk about the fact that there are people out there that hate America so much. And I know the viewers, some of them, we're split as a country, 50/50. But 9/11 changed everything. And I think not only do politicians have a right to talk about 9/11, they have a responsibility to talk about 9/11.

BRANCACCIO: Well, what's cool is you just illustrated a perfect version of what you want a politician to do. And then you just acted it out essentially. And it was... it's fascinating to watch...

LUNTZ: You say acted it out. It's what I believe. Maybe for you it's acting because you're the host. I'm...

BRANCACCIO: I'm not a real anchorman. I just play one on TV.

LUNTZ: But you do a good job at it. I'm listening to the American people. And this is how they feel. And not just here in New York. You go out to Kansas, you go out to Alabama. You go to places thousands of miles away from here and 9/11 had just as strong an impact on them. And 9/11, we've never experienced anything like... this wasn't Pearl Harbor.

This was worse. Because this was on American territory. This was on right in the center. These were the biggest buildings. These were the icons of American success, of the American economy, of the American free market system. And they don't exist. Not just two buildings but seven buildings. That was a day that nobody's ever gonna forget. And that's a day that we should always, always remember.

BRANCACCIO: When you poll Americans, and you're the man on this, they will tell you it's decreasing but certainly in the run up to the war and after the war started, that 9/11 was caused by Iraq. And that percentage of people who believe that has been decreasing it's now down to about 40 percent... at one point it was more than... so, that's what they tell you. But then a politician who takes that information...

LUNTZ: No, no, no.

BRANCACCIO: ...and tries to conflate the two is doing a disservice perhaps to the facts.

LUNTZ: Okay. But you say caused by. That's actually not the wording of the research. It's did Iraq play any role or is there a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda? I don't even know if it's Al Qaeda or Al "Kida". I hear Bush Administration officials call it both.

They don't say cause. And this is where I focus on words. Is there a relationship? Are these bad people? Was Saddam Hussein a bad person? Is Osama bin Laden a bad person? The answer is absolutely yes.

And we are better off if Osama bin Laden did not exist and I hope we catch him. And we are certainly better off that Saddam Hussein is not in power. So, I pay attention to the words, the exact phrases. And to the American people, they don't know up or down when it comes to this. But they do know that these are bad people. They know that they have killed Americans. They know that they are a threat to our national security and they want them gone. What's wrong with that?

BRANCACCIO: What the Bush Administration is up against among many things now is this 9/11 Commission which is pouring cold water on that link between our policy in Iraq and who did 9/11.

LUNTZ: Yeah, but they're also saying that there are people in Iraq that hate us and would like to do anything they could against us. And the people who caused 9/11 hate us and would like to do anything against us. It doesn't matter whether they are related. It doesn't matter whether they are best friends.

It doesn't matter whether they hung out at a Starbucks and drank coffee together and planned against us. The fact is if there are people who are prepared to use the most God-awful means to hurt this country and the citizens in this country, it's far better for us to stop them from doing it than try to catch them after they do it. And I don't even think you disagree on that.

BRANCACCIO: So, there is a point, though...

LUNTZ: By the way, I just used the... at that time I did use a technique on you.

BRANCACCIO: Yeah, tell me about it.

LUNTZ: I asked a rhetorical question that you had no answer to. Which was, you know, isn't it better that we stopped them before they hurt us? Of course the answer is yes. Ninety-nine percent of your viewers will say the answer is yes.

BRANCACCIO: Which is why I didn't answer.

LUNTZ: Right.

BRANCACCIO: It's a nice rhetorical device. But I wasn't gonna go there...

LUNTZ: But that's "The Responsive Chord." I was taught that by Tony Schwartz, one of the top Democratic media consultants, the guy who created Lyndon Johnson's famous advertising campaign from '64. He's the guy who taught me that sometimes you ask a rhetorical question of which there is no answer.

So, you can criticize me for doing that, for teaching these techniques to politicians and to CEOs. But you can't criticize me for the language that they use as long as the language is accurate.

BRANCACCIO: Well, that's what I wanted to understand. As long as the language is accurate. I know you read a lot of George Orwell.

LUNTZ: I love 1984. In fact, the only time ever... Kaminski [sic] Park in Chicago where two baseballs were hit out of the stadium. They were both done by Greg Radzinski. The only time ever in the history of that stadium that a player hit two balls out in the same game and I was reading the last 100 pages of 1984.

BRANCACCIO: You were looking down?

LUNTZ: I was looking down and I missed the first home run.

BRANCACCIO: Were you...

LUNTZ: So, 1984 means something to me.

BRANCACCIO: Well, you know what Orwell writes, he says, "Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

LUNTZ: And I get that. And you know what? Language, it's just like fire. It can either heat your home or it can burn it down. In the hands of someone like a Ronald Reagan, it's used to illustrate a philosophy and a principle. In the hands of less decent politicians, it is used to obscure or even lie. It's the difference between, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall." And, "It depends on the meaning of the word 'is' is."

BRANCACCIO: Language, of course, as we're all taught... and you make money off this. I guess I do, too. Language really does matter. I mean, isn't it a crime to go to war if it's later shown that it was based on a false premise?

LUNTZ: Oh, but what is... I mean, this is something where I've been critical of the Bush Administration. They've offered seven different premises for this. And some of them are just as valid today as they were back then.

BRANCACCIO: Such as?

LUNTZ: The world is a better place without Saddam Hussein. Others, like weapons of mass destruction, have not been validated. We don't know. Look, we know that there are planes in the desert. We know that there are football fields worth of armaments.
We know that hundreds of thousands of Kurds were gassed and killed. We know what he did in Iran. We know what he's done to his own people. We know what he tried to do to Israel. We know that this guy has paid for terrorism in the past. Saddam Hussein, in my definition, is a weapon of mass destruction. I will tell you that the Bush Administration won't use that phrase. They really believe that you should define a WMD the way it is.

BRANCACCIO: They can't. I mean, they can't go around saying WMD right now. It's not gonna work for them for obvious reasons.

LUNTZ: Right. And, in fact that is the one way where they have lost some of their credibility. But, and this is an important but, on some of these other reasons to go to war, the public still supports it. And the public still believes that the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein.

And I'll tell you something, I think that's one of the reasons why Howard Dean, in the end, did not become the Democratic nominee. He was not willing to accept that premise. When Saddam Hussein was captured, instead of rejoicing, it almost looked like Dean was disappointed. He communicated ineffectively and even Democrats who hate the war are prepare to say that Saddam is better off in prison or dead.

BRANCACCIO: Frank, talk to me about who hasn't made up his or her mind about this Presidential election? Who could not have an opinion already?

LUNTZ: I've actually tallied that and there are now 11 people in America who haven't made up their minds. I know your audience to some degree, there isn't a single person watching and what they'll say is even if they'll claim, well, I haven't made up my mind. Oh, so you might vote for Bush. No, no way. There's no way I'm voting for Bush but I haven't made up my mind. Well, that person has made up their mind.

It represents about four percent overall of the country. And only half of them are in truly swing states. So you are really looking at two million of the 105 million Americans who will vote. And when all is said and done we may spend up close to a billion dollars on the election. And we are fighting for the votes of two million people. We've never had anything like this before.

It would be far better for you swing voters out there to buy them a steak dinner, they'd appreciate it more than the negative ads that they're gonna see.

BRANCACCIO: How do you connect with them though? I mean... like how do you resonate with this odd bunch of people frankly who don't represent the greater...

LUNTZ: And they don't.

BRANCACCIO: ...population?

LUNTZ: First off they tend to be more female than male. They tend to be younger. If they're under age 25 they're not even voting. If they're over age 40 they've made up their minds. They tend to have just gotten married or had their first child because that's what causes them... when you get married you start to look at politics differently. When you have your first child that causes a major shift.

They tend to be working women who are both trying to raise a family and hold down a job. They're not college graduates. They're not focused on politics, it doesn't matter to them. And they vote in Presidential elections but not in any others. And you have to empathi... the very first thing you have to do, it's not about issues, it's about empathy. They have to know that you care, that you understand them. That you understand the frustrations.

And I'll tell you something about these women... I haven't done this publicly before. The number one issue to them is not education, it's not healthcare, it's not budgets, it's not even the war.

BRANCACCIO: What could it be?

LUNTZ: The lack of free time. The number one thing that matters to them is that they don't have the time that they want for their job, for their kids, for their spouse, for themselves, for their friends. The issue of time matters to them more than anything else in life.

BRANCACCIO: So let's say you hear that in a focus group.

LUNTZ: Yep.

BRANCACCIO: And you start to notice...

LUNTZ: And I did hear it. Yeah.

BRANCACCIO: So what do you do as a politician to show that you understand just that issue?

LUNTZ: You speak to them that way. You actually ask the question, "So, I want to talk to the ladies in the room. I want you to..." The "women in the room" is how I would put it. "I want you to tell me what really matters to you. Don't just give me issues. What's your greatest challenge? Because I think I know what it is. And I just... let's ask the men first what you think it is."

So you ask three or four men, they all give the wrong answer because men have no idea what women are really concerned about. And then you say, "Well, I'm gonna throw this out, I want you to tell me if I'm right or not. Ladies here, I'd say that your lack of free time is one of the greatest challenges." And they'll all sit there and they'll raise their hands and they'll all nod yes.

At that moment you have bonded with those women. At that moment when they hear that you understand the challenges that face them they're ready to listen to your solution.

BRANCACCIO: So then I get up and I say, "My fellow Americans..."

LUNTZ: No.

BRANCACCIO: "If elected..."

LUNTZ: You start that way and you're already done. You're finished. My fellow Americans...

BRANCACCIO: "I would put leisure in every pot."

LUNTZ: Or, "I am not a crook." Any of that. That just comes across as being political.

BRANCACCIO: So what do you do? What do you do?

LUNTZ: Well, I mean look you're dressed this way too. I mean this is PBS and you're not wearing a tie. So you're cutting against the grain. This is a more intellectual place. People come to this channel, they expect politicians to be dressed that way. You've already dressed down, you've already taken the first step, which is you don't look like a politician. And then you don't want to sound like a politician.

You basically want the women to say, "You know what, he gets it. He gets the hassles and he's gonna try to do something about it." And they'll say, "I don't know if you can, I don't know if you'll succeed. But at least you're listening to me, at least you empathize with me so I'm gonna give you a chance." And right now no one has created an agenda, what I would call the free time agenda. So it's up for grabs. Just like these swing voters are.

BRANCACCIO: Well, Frank Luntz, thank you very much for joining us.

LUNTZ: It's my pleasure. Thank you.

PBS Now (July 23, 2004) transcript: Interview with George Lakoff

DAVID BRANCACCIO: With the Democrats gathering in Boston for next week's convention, we thought we'd give you a field guide to some of the rhetoric you'll be hearing from the podium.

A couple of weeks back, we examined "Republican speak" with pollster Frank Luntz, an opinion researcher who comes up with resonant phrases and slogans for politicians, usually conservative ones. Tonight you're going to meet a fellow who has a hand in the ways that some Democrats put their ideas.

His name is George Lakoff. Four years ago, he and colleagues at the University of California Berkeley and UC Davis decided to start a think tank called the Rockridge Institute. They felt Republicans were awfully good at winning the battle of words and they wanted to come up with new rhetorical weapons for the other side
.
Lakoff is a noted linguist and the author of eight books including MORAL POLITICS: HOW LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES THINK. We began our conversation with ways that language builds the frame in which we view political issues.

BRANCACCIO: Now you say "frame," that's a key to understanding this. What kind of frame?

LAKOFF: Well, frames are everywhere. Think of what happened on the very first day that George Bush took office. A press release came out using the words "tax relief." Now a linguist who looks at the word "relief" would say, "Ah-hah, there's a frame in which there is an affliction, an afflicted party who's harmed by this, a reliever, who takes away this affliction. And if anybody tries to stop them, they're a bad guy.

You add "tax" to that, and you get taxation is an affliction. And if the Democrats oppose the President's tax relief plan, they're bad guys.

TV CLIP: BUSH: We need tax relief now…in fact we need tax relief yesterday. And I will work with Congress to provide it.

LAKOFF: So the word "tax relief" goes out to every radio station, every TV station, every newspaper, day after day after day. Soon, everybody's thinking tax relief with the idea that taxation is an affliction unconsciously, automatically.

TV CLIPS: BUSH: We're going to talk about some of that tax relief right quick.
What was in the tax relief package…
If you pay taxes you're going to get relief…
Tax relief…
Tax relief…
Because of the tax relief we passed.

LAKOFF: And then the words become part of normal everyday language, and the conservative frame becomes part of the way you think about it.

If you're a Democrat, you want to really change the frame. The problem is that there is no existing frame out there. You have to create it.

How do you think about taxes? Taxes are what you pay to be an American, like paying your dues to have democracy and freedom and opportunity, and all the infrastructure that America provides.

BRANCACCIO: At what point do we, as voters, notice that being used on us? Whether or not we're conservative, whether or not we're liberal?

LAKOFF: Only when it's framed in the right way.

A lot of liberals believe that the facts will set you free. It's in our inheritance from the enlightenment. Where, in the enlightenment that everybody is a rational person, all you have to do is just tell them the facts, they'll reason to the right conclusion. It's false. And the Republicans have learned that it's false. They've set up a frame, they set up a narrative, and they set it up in terms of their values. And they get it as part of normal, everyday language and normal everyday thought.

Once they've done that, the facts are irrelevant unless the Democrats can learn to re-frame the issues from their point of view, and then make the facts fit other frames.

BRANCACCIO: Well, controversial issue that perhaps frames would help: trial lawyer. John Edwards is one. How do you use that as a political weapon or an asset?

LAKOFF: Well, you use it as a weapon because it's been made into a weapon with terms like "frivolous lawsuits," and so on.

LAKOFF: That is a frame that has been constructed by conservatives to attack trial lawyers, because trial lawyers, you know, support the Democratic Party in many parts of the country. So they're trying to de-fund the Democrats by attacking trial lawyers. Now instead of trial lawyers, you should say what folks really are doing. These are public protection attorneys. They're doing public protection law. These are…

BRANCACCIO: Protecting the public.

LAKOFF: Protecting the public from corporations and professionals who are either negligent or unscrupulous. And they're the last line of defense we have.

That's what, you know, public protection law is really about. And the Democrats need to come back and talk about public protection law and public protection.

BRANCACCIO: It's interesting how these phrases get inserted into the synapse. You say through repetition is one good way. Want you to take a look at this. We have President Bush couple years ago talking about his Healthy Forest Initiative. And he doesn't, as you'll see, talk about cutting down trees.

TV CLIPS: BUSH: Forest policy can be common sense policy.
A policy that is based upon common sense.
We need to make our forests healthy by using some common sense.
Common sense.
Common sense.
Common sense forest policy.

BRANCACCIO: If I were covering that speech, I'd say that the lead might have something to do with common sense.

LAKOFF: Yes. And what does that mean? It means experts are not needed. And who are the experts? They're ecologists, environmentalists. This says, "Don't listen to the experts. Just think about it yourself. And we're going to tell you how to think about it."

Now when they say Healthy Forest for a bill that's going to, you know, clear cut forests and destroy forests, what do you do if you're on the other side? Well, what you have to do is rename it.

Now, I mean, if it had been renamed something like Leave No Tree Behind, that would have been, you know, perfect. Or, you know, The Forest Destruction Act. You know?

Then what that does is allow you to bring it up as an issue, and allow you to ask the experts in as the arbiters. That's the way you deal with the attempt of common sense to say, "This isn't an expert issue. We don't listen to the experts."

Now the person who I think taught me most about this is one of your former guests, Frank Luntz.

BRANCACCIO: Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster and opinion researcher.

LAKOFF: That's right.

Luntz puts out a little workbook every year or so. And last year in his section on the environment, he said something very interesting.

He said that on global warming, the Democrats have the science on their side, but we can win with language. What we need to do is use words environmentalists like, like "healthy," "clean," and "safe."

Now what that does is each word like that evokes a frame. But what they do is they evoke frames that are the opposite of what they know they mean. These are sort of Orwellian frames. These are ways to manipulate the public.

So whenever you hear an Orwellian term like "Clear Skies Act" or "Compassionate Conservative," means they know they're weak on something. And what you have to do is rename it. Rename it to fit the truth.

It is the Dirty Air Act. It is the Forest Destruction Act.

BRANCACCIO: A lot of the hot button political issues of the moment really can be framed and re-framed. Big debate this summer over gay marriage. You might re-frame it, I don't know, you could call it "right to marry the one you love." That's a different kind of frame.

LAKOFF: Exactly right.

You have to change the terms and change the words to make them your words all the time. As soon as you say, "gay marriage," the image of gay sex is going to come up.

Most people, you know, if you say, "Are you in favor of gay sex," will say, "Who me? No." But if they say, "Do you think the state should tell people who they should marry?" Different question. Different frame.

BRANCACCIO: So what do you do, say it over and over?

LAKOFF: Over and over and over, just as they say it over and over. That's how they get people to think the way they want them to think.
And it's not an unfair, people think it's an unfair tactic. It's an effective tactic. It's true. It works that way. That's how people do think.

BRANCACCIO: Republicans tend to talk about being moral, family values. But I don't know if you've seen some of Kerry's speeches this summer.

TV CLIPS: KERRY: For values that make America strong.
The values that matter most.
Values that you live by.
The values that unite us, the values that define us.
Values, values.
Narrow values.
Shared values.
Now I'll tell you what values mean.

BRANCACCIO: Spot the key word there. I think it has something to do with values. About a 40 minute speech, we counted 28 usages of the word "values." What's he trying to do there?

LAKOFF: Well, he's bringing up the issue of values, and he's right. You have to say it over and over. But now here's the next step, you can't just repeat the word "values." You have to say what they are. You have to start talking about things like fairness, safety, freedom, community, trust, honesty. I mean these are values. Integrity.

Then he has to say why he has them, why progressives have them, why the Democratic Party has them, in detail. And then every time he mentions a program or an idea, he has to say why they follow from these values, and what they have to do with values. That's the sort of things that conservatives have been doing for many, many years.

BRANCACCIO: When you see that, though, where's that values word going? Who does John Kerry hope this word will resonate with?

LAKOFF: Everybody. Because everybody is looking for a candidate who shares their values.

BRANCACCIO: And that applied to George W. Bush as well? In other words, people who voted for him saw something in him that they could identify with?

LAKOFF: Absolutely. They saw it not only in the words, but in his body. They saw it in his gestures, they saw it in his dialect, in his choice of a particular, this kind of bubba dialect.

This is a guy who grew up in Kennebunkport, Maine around his father. His father didn't use that dialect. He went to Andover. He went to Yale. He went to Harvard Business School. He heard people not using the bubba dialect all the time.

But he also grew up in Texas, and he learned the other dialect, too. And he's used that very effectively to get people in the red states to identify with him and to say, "Hey, that guy is like me."

BRANCACCIO: You sometimes see that when you see a conservative critique of John Kerry. They say, "Well, that guy went to Yale." Now of course the President of the United States also went to Yale.

LAKOFF: Exactly. They both went to Yale. You know? President United States went to Andover. I mean these are, you know, elite institutions.

BRANCACCIO: A couple of times you've used the word "progressive" interchangeably with I think the other word is liberal.

LAKOFF: Yes.

BRANCACCIO: We moving away from liberal? Is liberal finally… even you admitting it's a dirty word?

LAKOFF: Well, it's been branded by the other side. For the last 20, 30 years they've been putting other adjectives with liberal, like limousine liberal, latte liberal, you know, Chardonnay and brie liberal, even though more Republicans eat brie than Democrats do. Very important, you know…

BRANCACCIO: There's research about this?

LAKOFF: There's research about this. Everything has market research. But the fact is that the identity has been given to the word "liberal." And people talk about the liberal elite when, in fact, it's the conservatives who have the real money in the country and the elitism. The Democrats should use that. The Democrats have to call the people who get those big tax cuts, not just the rich, but the elite. "Rich" is a good word in America. You know, remember, you have rich experiences. You want a rich life. You know? "Rich" is a good word. But "elite" isn't a good word.

BRANCACCIO: If you ever watch the Comedy Central program THE DAILY SHOW, they have a mock newscast. But they seem to have caught the conservatives trying to use this word "liberal" as a weapon. Take a look.

[CLIPS FROM DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART]
CNN CLIP: "two of the foremost liberal senators"
CNN CLIP: "two of the foremost liberal US senators"
MSNBC CLIP: "the most liberal member of the United States Senate"
CNN CLIP: "the most liberal member of the United States Senate"
FOX CLIP: "who was the number one rated liberal in the United States Senate"
FOX CLIP: "the number one most liberal senator in the United States Senate"
STEWART: Wow! Those guys are liberal! In fact if I didn't know better I'd say they were the first and fourth most liberal senators in the whole Senate. And while we don't have any idea what that means or where those rankings come from or how they were arrived at or whether it's even true, I don't like the sounds of it.
[END CLIP]

BRANCACCIO: Liberals have lost the battle to hold onto the word "liberal," wouldn't you say?

LAKOFF: They've lost it at least temporarily. There's no way they can get it back before November. They could take the word back over a period of years.

Now remember that the word "conservative" used to be a dirty word. Back in 1964, when Goldwater lost, nobody wanted to be called a conservative. But the conservatives took the word back over many, many years of working at it.

BRANCACCIO: Let's take a look at the President of the United States this summer. And he's making a speech, and he has a refrain which you're about to see.

TV CLIPS: BUSH: And the American people are safer.
The American people are safer.
And the American people are safer.

BRANCACCIO: Post-Iraq, presumably, the American people are safer.

LAKOFF: He has to say the American people are safer, whether they are or not. Now notice what would happen if you went out and said the opposite. The American people are not safer. That's why…

BRANCACCIO: Say you were a Democrat…

LAKOFF: You're…

BRANCACCIO: You said, "The American people are not safer."

LAKOFF: Yeah. It's like Richard Nixon getting up there and saying, "I am not a crook," and people think of him as a crook. Right?

They think of the American are safer… not. Right? You have to say why they're not safer. You don't just say they're not safer. They say you have to say, "More terrorists have been created by the war in Iraq than were eradicated in, you know, in Afghanistan."

You have to say that things are more dangerous now.

BRANCACCIO: Are you going to hear that from Kerry-Edwards, all that their opponents will say is, "Well, you voted for the war, too?"

LAKOFF: I don't know. So far a lot of Democrats are used to simply negating what the other side said. You know, like "Not safer." They have to learn to re-frame and put it in their terms.

Take, for example, the war on terror. You should never use the word "war on terror." Why? First of all, "war" gives the President war powers. And secondly, "terror" talks about everything that could possibly make anyone afraid. It's like it's a pervading thing in the world.

Whereas if you talk about terrorists, there are only a handful, several thousand terrorists. They're dangerous. But if you're a nation of 250 million people, you can deal with the several thousand terrorists if you really go at it.

The issue is fighting terrorists. You know, as opposed to this general thing on terror. If you use "war" then you have the President having war powers. He's Commander-In-Chief. And, you know, you go on a wartime basis where people can't criticize the government.

BRANCACCIO: But Democrats don't want to understate the threat. There's more than a couple of hundred or a couple thousand terrorists.

LAKOFF: Whatever the estimate is, it's not millions. It's not hundreds of millions of al-Qaeda. The point is there is a threat, and there's a threat having to do with groups of individuals, not nations.

BRANCACCIO: Among George Lakoff's latest books IS MORAL POLITICS: HOW LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES THINK. George Lakoff, thank you so much for having come by NOW.

LAKOFF: Okay. My pleasure. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MOYERS: In closing, a confession.

I haven't seen Michael Moore's FAHRENHEIT 9/11. Not that I haven't wanted to; it's just that I have not been able to tear myself away from the live show — the political theatre playing out in full sight right before our eyes. Who needs a movie when you have the news?
Michael Moore's weird alright, but not as weird as Michael Powell, our cartel-loving chairman of the Federal Communications Commisson whose idea of the press seems to be channeling William Randolph Hearst.

Michael Moore's outrageous, but not as outrageous as George W. Bush and Tom Delay conspiring to let the ban on killer assault weapons expire. Bush says he doesn't like all that loaded hardware lying around but, hey, it's up to the House of Representatives to vote. The aptly named Tom Delay, the House majority leader, on the other hand, says, wink, wink, he can't let a vote happen because Bush hasn't asked him to. After you, Alphonse; after you, Gaston - and will the last man out please turn on the lights?

Michael Moore has a keen eye for the absurd; I know that from his earlier wickedly funny films. But we don't need a seeing-eye absurdist to understand how wacky it is for Ralph Nader to get on the ballot in different states with the help of a conservative outfit that's a front group for all those corporate interests Nader has spent his life trying to cut down to size. Imagine: 43,000 Michigan Republicans suddenly seized by the vision of Nader the savior, putting their names on a petition urging him to run for President! Save us, Ralph; save us. Politics makes strange bedfellows, but this is a ménage a trois, as John Kerry might say, that would shame the Marquis de Sade.

No, I don't need to shell out $9 for a movie when I can watch the Democrats in Boston next week piously pretending to be taking seriously a homily on values from Al Sharpton. Or when I have C-Span to watch Congress in action. Or not.

There was to be a congressional hearing this week into the safety of anti-depressant medicine. Seems some pharmaceutical companies are suspected of keeping secret the bad news about their products. The hearing was abruptly cancelled when word spread that the committee chairman is under consideration for a big-paying job representing — are you ready for this? — the biotech and pharmaceutical industries. You think I'm kidding. Believe me, I couldn't make this stuff up if I wanted to. Unfortunately, I don't have to.

That's it for NOW. David Brancaccio and I will be back next week. Thanks for joining us.

BRANCACCIO: Connect to NOW online at pbs.org…

Explore the history of the terms "conservative" and "liberal" in American politics. Find out how much news coverage your local election is getting. Follow this week's news from the campaign trail.

Connect to NOW at pbs.org.

Linguistics professor George Lakoff dissects
the "war on terror" and other conservative catchphrases
By Bonnie Azab Powell, UC Berkeley NewsCenter | 26 August 2004

BERKELEY – With the Democratic National Convention over and the Republican one beginning next week, it seemed a good time to check in with George Lakoff, the UC Berkeley professor of cognitive linguistics whose scrutiny of the language of politics has begun to bring him national recognition. The author of the seminal book "Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think," Lakoff's specialty is dissecting "framing," or the ways in which conservatives and liberals position issues to fit their respective moral worldviews. (For more on framing, read this excerpt from the NewsCenter's October 2003 interview with Lakoff.) He grasps how Republicans use language more effectively than Democrats, and what Democrats can do about it.

When we last talked to Lakoff, he had just embarked on a one-year sabbatical from UC Berkeley to work on three books, none of them about politics. He got sidetracked. Presidential candidate Howard Dean made "Moral Politics" required reading for his campaign staff, more than 200 advocacy groups called for Lakoff's advice, the Democratic senators invited him twice to their policy retreats, and he began getting calls from progressive groups around the country. The Rockridge Institute, the progressive think tank he cofounded with seven other UC professors to reframe public debate, began buzzing with activity. In response to demand, Lakoff set aside his linguistic research for intense — and in many ways more challenging — study of the application of linguistics and cognitive science to politics.

In the last couple of months he has written a short book, "Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate," which will be marketed at first over the Internet with the help of a host of advocacy groups. Available on Amazon.com around September 8, the $10 paperback is billed as the "essential guide for progressives" and is praised by such members of the liberal pantheon as Dean, former labor secretary Robert Reich, the founders of MoveOn.org, the Sierra Club's Carl Pope, and billionaire political activist George Soros.

Next week Lakoff returns to teaching at UC Berkeley with Linguistics 290L, a seminar that will train students to recognize frames and follow their usage in the presidential election. (Note to students: the 50-person course still has openings, see the departmental description for details.) And starting August 30, he will comment for the NewsCenter on how issues are being framed by Republican Convention speakers.

What's in this new "essential guide for progressives"? Even the Democratic Party seems to have trouble defining what makes a liberal.

Well, for that reason I wrote a chapter on what unites progressives — a moral system, certain political principles, and what I call policy directions as opposed to policies. A policy direction is something like "Let's have a sustainable environment" and "Working people shouldn't be living in poverty" and "Everybody should have health care." The problem is that the Democrats have wanted to talk about programs rather than policy directions, and programs call up distinctions, which tend to separate people. For example, Kerry should be talking about health care for everyone, and just put a white paper with the details of the program on his website. The values, principles, and general directions are what people care about and what brings them together. It's pointless to argue about the policy-wonk details, because they're going to change anyway.

In another chapter I tell progressives how to talk to conservatives. This is not rocket science: you should show respect, know your values, always reframe, and say what you believe. The important thing is not to accept their framing of the issues, nor just negate their framing — that just reinforces it. Simply confronting them with facts won't help. Frames trump facts. The facts alone will not set you free. You have to reframe the issues before the facts can become meaningful and powerful.

Some conservatives are ideologues and you're not going to sway them. But most conservatives are nice people. What you want to do is activate their nurturing model, engage their empathy. Ask them who they care about, what they care about, and why. Find out where their empathy lies. Connect with the part of them that shares your values, and get that to spread to other issues.

Last October you said that "liberals don't get it" — they don't even realize that conservatives are controlling the terms of debate. Have they gotten any better at framing?

There's been a lot of improvement. In nine months we've managed to reach a lot of people. You saw it in action at the Democratic Convention, in the speeches by Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Barack Obama, and John Kerry. They talked about values. That's a big change, and it's not an accident. They talked about unity, not the culture war. They began to explain why Democratic values are traditional American values — an important step. The idea is very simple: Look at the things we are most proud of in this country, from the Declaration of Independence to the present. We had slavery then. We abolished it. Only male property owners could vote. Now both non-property owners and women can vote.

The New Deal, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act — these too are all products of progressive, liberal values. They represent advances of the nurturant parent model versus the conservative "strict father" model [articulated in Lakoff's "Moral Politics," see here for a brief discussion]. These movements are also seen as stemming from traditional American values, part of our shared heritage. So, when you start looking at what this country is rightfully proud of, it's the extension of progressive values. And it's time to say that loud and clear.

One of the values that Democrats seemed to drop into every sentence of the Convention was "strength." How is that part of the progressive canon?

You have to fight strength with strength. That's straight out of "Moral Politics": the strict father has to be strong, but the nurturant parent must also be strong. However, I don't think the Democrats did a good job of defining what the difference is in Kerry's kind of strength, because they refused to use the word "weak" in reference to Bush. They wanted to have a completely positive campaign — which it isn't anyway — but they didn't want to say that Bush has made the country weaker. The issue of weakness awakens the stereotype of liberals, so instead they said, "Look, we just want America to be stronger."

But "stronger" doesn't necessarily imply weak. They could have talked more directly about all the ways Bush has weakened the country. When they have a case to be made on the basis of a pattern of behavior, they don't tend to use a grammar that really nails the message, like "We're weaker in education, and here's why. We're weaker in security, and here's why." You could write this argument in half a page. The Democrats aren't there yet, by any means.

'A "war president" has extraordinary powers. And the "war on terror," of course, never ends. There's no peace treaty with terror. It's a prescription for keeping conservatives in power indefinitely.'

Why do conservatives like to use the phrase "liberal elite" as an epithet?

Conservatives have branded liberals, and the liberals let them get away with it: the "liberal elite," the "latte liberals," the "limousine liberals." The funny thing is that conservatives are the elite. The whole idea of conservative doctrine is that some people are better than others, that some people deserve more. To conservatives, if you're poor it's because you deserve it, you're not disciplined enough to get ahead. Conservative doctrine requires that there be an elite: the people who thrive in the free market have more money, and they should. Progressives say, "No, that's not fair. Maybe some should have more money, but no one should live in poverty. Everybody who works deserves to have a reasonable standard of living for their work." These are ideas that are progressive or liberal ideas, and progressives aren't getting them out there enough.

What progressives are promoting is not elite at all. Progressives ought to be talking about the conservative elite. They shouldn't be complaining about "tax cuts for the rich," they should be complaining about "tax cuts for the conservative elite," because that's who's getting them.

Speaking of taxes, Democrats seem to have at last stopped falling into the trap of using the phrase "tax relief" — thereby adopting conservative framing that taxes are an affliction from which citizens need to be rescued. But they haven't yet presented an alternate frame for taxes.

Every now and then they slip and say "tax relief for the middle class," but yes, they're learning. The Republicans, meanwhile, have increased their usage.

Recently I've been talking about taxes as investments for the common good. In the past the government made certain wise investments in things like the interstate highway system. You just get in your car and drive; you don't think about how every time you use the highways you're getting a dividend on that previous investment — and so is every business that sends a truck over the interstate highway system. The Internet is another example. It started out as a network funded by the Defense Department, by the government investing taxpayers' money. Now, every time you surf the Web, you're getting a dividend. Drugs and medical advances that come out of National Institutes of Health grants are financed by taxpayers. Computer chips in our computers and cars exist because of the government's early investment of taxpayers' money in semiconductor research.

But wouldn't conservatives argue, as they have with Social Security, that individuals can invest their money better than the government?

That's simple. Would you prefer to have the government build and maintain the highway system, or do it yourself? Would you rather have a private company owning the highway system and the Internet, and charging you God knows how much to use them? You like the army, but do you want to build your own? How about your own police and fire departments? No. You want a government that can do the things you need, in the areas where private companies can't or won't do them or simply can't be trusted to do them right. One of progressives' main goals is a better future for all. A wise and efficient government is needed for that in hundreds of ways.

When it comes to government investment of your tax money, businesses benefit even more than ordinary people. To start a business, you don't have to invent computer science or the telephone network, you don't have to build a highway system. They're just there for businesses to use, as is the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department, the SEC, the Commerce Department, and the courts. A company doesn't have to make up a way to adjudicate its disputes with other companies; we paid for it already. Nine-tenths of the courts are there for corporate law. Corporations get enormous benefits paid for by other taxpayers, but they've stopped paying their way. Corporate income tax used to make up about 38 percent of all U.S. taxes. Now it's less than 10 percent. Ordinary taxpayers are making the investments in infrastructure, and corporate stockholders are getting the dividends. And that's just not fair.

You've said that progressives should never use the phrase "war on terror" — why?

There are two reasons for that. Let's start with "terror." Terror is a general state, and it's internal to a person. Terror is not the person we're fighting, the "terrorist." The word terror activates your fear, and fear activates the strict father model, which is what conservatives want. The "war on terror" is not about stopping you from being afraid, it's about making you afraid.
Next, "war." How many terrorists are there — hundreds? Sure. Thousands? Maybe. Tens of thousands? Probably not. The point is, terrorists are actual people, and relatively small numbers of individuals, considering the size of our country and other countries. It's not a nation-state problem. War is a nation-state problem.

What about the "war on drugs" or the "war on poverty"?

Those are metaphorical. Real wars are wars against countries, and in the "war on terror," we are attacking countries. But those countries are not the same as the terrorists. We're acting at the wrong level. Meanwhile, by using this frame, we get a commander in chief, as the Republicans keep referring to Bush — a "war president" with "war powers," which imply that ordinary protections don't have to be observed. A "war president" has extraordinary powers. And the "war on terror," of course, never ends. There's no peace treaty with terror. It's a prescription for keeping conservatives in power indefinitely. In three words — "war on terror" — they've enacted vast political changes.

Bush has positioned war with Iraq as part of the "war on terror." How can progressives frame opposition to the Iraq war without being tarred as unpatriotic or as in league with the terrorists?

By criticizing Bush for weakening us. By saying out loud, while waving the flag, that the Iraq war has made us more vulnerable to terrorists in many ways. Iraq had nothing to do with 911 or al Qaeda. By moving troops from Afghanistan to Iraq, Bush may have let Osama bin Laden escape, and he certainly allowed al Qaeda and the Taliban to regroup. Moreover, the Iraq war has recruited more terrorists. The $200 billion we've spent there could have been used to enhance homeland security, which has mostly been ignored. It could also have been used to address the root causes of terrorism, which the Bush administration is ignoring. Moreover, Bush has allowed North Korea and Iran to move toward becoming nuclear powers, while he concentrated our efforts on Iraq, which had no nuclear weapons program. Allowing nuclear proliferation aids terrorism.

The Bush reply is always avoidance: that we're better off without Saddam Hussein. Clinton gave the clearest rebuttal of that argument: There other bad guys like Saddam Hussein in the world, in North Korea, Iran, and Sudan. There are bad guys all over the place. Are we going to invade all these countries? As Clinton said, we can't possibly attack, imprison or kill everyone who's against us. We have to make friends.

You can also take a patriotic stand and criticize Bush for being ineffectual. You have to be on the offensive. Why did we go into Iraq without a peace plan? Without properly equipping our troops? Without our allies?

How do you frame this issue of Iraq? You say, "We go to war when we have to, when it's really necessary, when we're being attacked. We don't go to war as an instrument of economic policy. We don't go to war as an instrument of geopolitical positioning. We go to war when we have no other choice. We go with a plan for winning the peace, and we go with enough troops to be effective. Those are the minimal conditions." In short, you don't have to go on the defensive at all.

The old definition of a conservative was someone in favor of maintaining the status quo, that is, upholding tradition and opposing major changes in laws and institutions. Are Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft et al. mainstream conservatives?

As I say in the new book, they're radicals. They're not trying to conserve anything. They're trying to impose a strict father model taken from a terrible, disastrous parenting method — one ruled by the use of abusive power and force — on America and the world. If you're disciplined enough to make enough money to buy good health care, you deserve it, and to buy a good education for your children, you deserve it. Otherwise you don't deserve it and you won't get it.

This goes against American egalitarianism and the idea of economic equity — that is, if people work hard and play by the rules, they should have a decent standard of living, assuming there's enough money in the economy as a whole. There is enough money in this economy. To deny people who work good health care and education goes against the best in American policy. It's radical and it's un-American.

More information

• The website for the Rockridge Institute has many articles describing framing and progressive policies in more detail
• Lakoff was interviewed July 23, 2004 by David Brancaccio for PBS's "NOW with Bill Moyers." | Transcript Above.
• "Framing the Dems: How conservatives control political debate and how progressives can take it back," by George Lakoff, The American Prospect, Sept. 1, 2003
• "Wiring the vast left-wing conspiracy," by Matt Bai, New York Times Magazine, July 25, 2004
• "Framing the issues: UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff tells how conservatives use language to dominate politics," by Bonnie Azab Powell, UC Berkeley NewsCenter, October 27, 2003
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Lakoff's Two Laws
by George Lakoff

Lakoff's First Law: Frames trump facts.

All of our concepts are organized into conceptual structures called "frames" (which may include images and metaphors) and all words are defined relative to those frames. Conventional frames are pretty much fixed in the neural structures of our brains. In order for a fact to be comprehended, it must fit the relevant frames. If the facts contradict the frames, the frames, being fixed in the brain, will be kept and the facts ignored.

We see this in politics every day. Consider the expression "tax relief" which the White House introduced into common use on the day of George W. Bush's inauguration. A "relief" frame has an affliction, an afflicted party, a reliever who removes the affliction and is thereby a hero, and in the frame anyone who tries to stop the reliever from administering the relief is a bad guy, a villain. "Tax relief" imposes the additional metaphor that Taxation Is an Affliction, with the entailments that the president is a hero for attempting to remove this affliction and the Democrats are bad guys for opposing him. This frame trumps many facts: Most people wind up paying more in local taxes, payments for services cut, and debt servicing as a result of the Bush's tax cuts.

There is of course another way to think about taxes: Taxes are what you pay to live in America-to have democracy, opportunity, government services, and the vast infrastructure build by previous taxpayers-the highways, the internet, the schools, scientific research, the court system, etc. Taxes are membership fees used to maintain and expand services and the infrastructure. But however true this may be, it is not yet an established frame inscribed in the synapses of our brains.

This has an important consequence. Political liberals have inherited an assumption from the Enlightenment, that the facts will set us free, that if the public is just given the facts, they will, being rational beings, reach the right conclusion.

It is simply false. It violates Lakoff's Law.
Lakoff's Second Law: Voters vote their identities, not their self-interest.

Because of the way they frame the world, voters vote in a way that best accords with their identities and not in accord with their self-interest.

That is why it is of no use for Democrats to keep pointing out that Bush's tax cuts go to the top 1 percent, not to most voters. If they identify with Bush because they share his culture and his world view, they will vote against their self-interest. We saw this in California in the recall election, when, for example, union members overwhelming favored Gray Davis' policies as being better for them, yet voted for Schwartzenegger.

"Biconceptualism"
By George Lakoff and the Rockridge Institute
BuzzFlash | September 9, 2006

When pundits talk about "moderates," or "the center," or "centrists," what exactly are they talking about? And why does the answer matter?

There is no single, consistent worldview, or set of ideas, that characterizes any of these terms. The terms instead refer to what we have called "biconceptuals," people who have both conservative (strict) and progressive (nurturant) worldviews, but apply them in different domains of life. The question is, Which worldview will they apply in voting?

A given political worldview can be activated by language. Thus, conservatives talk to "the center" the same way they talk to their base. The idea is to use conservative language to activate the conservative worldview in the brains of such voters. Progressives should be doing the same, talking to the center the same way they talk to their base. The worst mistake they can make is to "move to the right" on the rationale that "that's where the voters are."

Here's the explanation. Biconceptualism (An Excerpt from Chapter 2 of the new book, Thinking Points: Communicating Our American Values and Vision, by George Lakoff and the Rockridge Institute)

Understanding whom we are talking to-and whom we want to talk to-is crucial before progressives begin to articulate what it is they have to say and how best to say it. This is true for progressive candidates as well as activists and activist groups. The real challenge in this area is twofold: First, we want to activate our base while reaching swing voters at the same time; second, we want to do so without having to lie, distort, mislead, or pretend to be something we aren't.

The pressure to dissemble comes from certain commonplace myths about swing voters and the "center." So for starters, let's put to rest the notion of the political or ideological "center"--it doesn't exist. Instead, what we have are biconceptuals--of many kinds.

When it comes to progressive and conservative worldviews, we are all biconceptuals. You may live by progressive values in most areas of your life, but if you see Rambo movies and understand them, you have a passive conservative worldview allowing you to make sense of them. Or you may be a conservative, but if you appreciated The Cosby Show, you were using a passive progressive worldview. Movies and television aside, what we are really interested in are active biconceptuals-people who use one moral system in one area and the other moral system in another area of their political thinking.

Biconceptualism makes sense from the perspective of the brain and the mechanism of neural computation. The progressive and conservative worldviews are mutually exclusive. But in a human brain, both can exist side by side, each neurally inhibiting the other and structuring different areas of experience. It is hardly unnatural-or unusual-to be fiscally conservative and socially progressive, or to support a liberal domestic policy and a conservative foreign policy, or to have a conservative view of the market and a progressive view of civil liberties.

Political biconceptuals are commonplace, and they include those who identify themselves as having a single ideology. Biconceptuals are not to be confused with "moderates." There is no moderate worldview, and very few people are genuine moderates. True moderates look for linear scales and take positions in the middle of those scales. How much should we pay to improve schools? A lot? A little? "A moderate amount" is what a true "moderate" would say. Such folks may exist, but moderation is not a political ideology. Nor is the use of two strongly opposed ideologies in different arenas a matter of "moderation." It is biconceptualism.

Partial Conservatives

Consider Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who describes himself as a moderate. In fact, little about him is moderate. He doesn't typically stake out middle-of-the-road positions on particular issues. Instead, his politics include both liberal and conservative positions, but on different issues. This makes him a biconceptual. His progressive worldview appears in his staunch support of environmental protection, abortion rights, and workers' rights. His conservative worldview emerges in areas like his support of faith-based initiatives, school vouchers, and most notably, the current policy on Iraq. Because he tends to adopt progressive positions more often than conservative ones, we refer to him as a "partial conservative."

Many liberals are biconceptual. The "cold war liberals" were divided between a progressive domestic policy and a conservative foreign policy based on using force-or the threat of it-to further the nation's military, economic, and political strength. Other Democrats may be economic progressives and social conservatives, or vice versa. Unions, for instance, have genuinely progressive goals but are often organized and run in a strict way. "Militant" progressives commonly have strict means and nurtur-ant ends, while courtly, gentlemanly and ladylike conservatives may have nurturant means and strict ends. Such a split between means and ends is not unusual.

Partial Progressives

Similarly, within the wide range of those who tend toward a conservative worldview, many are "partial progressives." If we want to communicate with these conservatives, we'd better recognize that they may live by the progressive moral system in extremely important areas of their lives.

In fact, their progressive values may be their defining characteristics, who they most essentially are-even if they do not see themselves as progressives or liberals. Let's look at five of the more common types of "partially progressive conservatives" and see how their values match up with those of self-defined progressives.

Lovers of the land. A lot of conservatives may be hunters and fishermen (who want to fish in unpolluted waters so they can eat their catch); they may be cyclists, hikers, and campers who love to take their families to the national parks; they may be farmers or ranchers who are viscerally connected to their land; or they may be devout Christians who take seriously their biblical obligation to be stewards of the earth. They might never call themselves "environmentalists" or toss around words like "sustainability" or "biodiversity," but they share many of the same values-values that are ultimately progressive.

Communitarians. There are conservatives who believe in progressive communities. Across the nation, for instance, self-styled conservatives often live in communities-rural towns or suburban neighborhoods-where leaders care about people and act responsibly, where everyone looks out for one another, cares about one another, helps others in need, provides community service, and emphasizes progressive empathy and social responsibility instead of conservative strictness and individualism. They may thus be conservative in their national voting patterns and yet progressive in their communities.

People of faith. A sizable chunk of Americans who are conservative in certain parts of their lives are also progressive in their religion. For instance, religious Christians, both Catholics and Protestants, are progressives at heart if they believe they should live their lives according to the teachings of Christ-help the poor, feed the hungry, cure the sick, forgive the sinner, turn the other cheek. They will most likely see God as nurturant and loving, not strict and punitive. Even evangelicals (like former president Jimmy Carter) are often progressive.

Socially conscious employers. Many conservative entrepreneurs run their companies as progressive businesses-whether they see it that way or not. They treat their employees well, pay living wages and offer decent benefits, would not dream of harming the environment or their customers, and believe other businesses should also practice a morality that extends beyond just maximizing profit and following the letter of the law.

Civil libertarians. Some of the most ardent civil libertarians in America identify themselves as conservatives or simply as libertarians. They believe in the Bill of Rights and especially the Fourth Amendment. They want their privacy protected and don't want the government spying on them or interfering with personal moral decisions or with their sex lives. They want free speech and freedom of association and want the government to stay out of religion and religion to stay out of government. They want constraints on the powers of the police and want strong protections from the courts. On issues of personal freedom, they abide by progressive morality.

Understanding this opens up a powerful way for progressives to communicate with swing voters on the basis of real shared values.

The complete text of Chapter 2 from which this excerpt is taken is available to download on the Rockridge Institute's website, along with more information about Thinking Points, which is now shipping from selected online bookstores and will be available this week in bookstores across the country.

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