Framing Versus Spin: Rockridge as opposed to Luntz
by George Lakoff and Sam Ferguson | Buzzflash.com | June 9, 2006
Two weeks ago, Rockridge published The Framing of Immigration by George Lakoff and Sam Ferguson, an analysis of the framing surrounding immigration used by progressives and conservatives, as well as a discussion of framings not being used, but which would reveal important truths.

Late last week, the DailyKos leaked a memo by Frank Luntz, the Republican messaging strategist, advising Republicans how to talk about immigration. If you want to compare what Rockridge does with what Luntz does, this is your chance.

The Rockridge Institute is a non-partisan progressive think tank that goes behind the language (the surface words and slogans) to reveal the deep frames — the moral values, political principles, and fundamental ideas, both progressive and conservative — that are implicit in political discourse.

Our goals are simple:
• First, to educate the public about how issues are being framed and what hidden agendas lie behind the words being used.
• Second, to point out how truth and fundamental American values can better be served by alternative framings, both deep and surface.
• Third, to help progressives better express what they really believe.
• And fourth, to caution progressives against accepting political frames that either hide the truth or undermine our moral values.

We seek to empower the public to recognize framing on their own, to be less susceptible to the spin tactics of political operatives, to express their deepest beliefs, and to come up with the best framings, both deep and surface, for revealing important truths. Language matters, and we show why.

The Framing of Immigration exemplifies these goals. Framing the situation in terms of “illegal immigrants” skews the discourse. It characterizes people who are almost all honest and hardworking as criminals, thereby ignoring their contributions to American lifestyles and the American economy. And it ignores the systemic causes and problems: our cheap-labor economy that drives down the cost of labor, and the many political and economic causes that contribute to pushing so many people to leave their home countries.

Contrast this approach with Luntz’s. Luntz understands the power of language and political frames. However, he uses it for manipulative ends. Here’s a sample: “This is about overcrowding YOUR schools, emergency room chaos in YOUR hospitals, the increases in YOUR taxes, the crime in YOUR communities.”

Luntz understands, as we have pointed out, that there is a large split in the Republican party between nativist and free-market activists. The nativists want to expel undocumented immigrants, whereas the free-marketeers want to keep the undocumented immigrants here as a permanent non-voting source of cheap labor. Luntz suggests using the language of prevention to gloss over this rift in the party:

Put simply, the solution to immigration reform starts with the Principle of Prevention. Not only is it seen as critical to effectively implementing all other reforms, but it is also politically neutral. Those who take a less aggressive approach to illegal immigrants currently in the country still agree with the idea of preventing new illegal immigrants from entering.

What this hides are the two ugly sides of the conservative split:
• The nativists whipping up fears of a cultural takeover, calling honest people criminals, promoting inhuman treatment of decent human beings, and seeking deportation.
• The free-marketeers profiting from the desperation of others and proposing a permanent underclass of temporary workers with no voting rights and few other rights.

Luntz is working to hide the ugly truth. He is a spin-doctor, and this is what spin-doctors do — use language to maneuver out of sticky situations.

Where we shed light on the information masked by frames — presenting as many considerations to the public as we can, Luntz uses frames to mask information in the service of conservative ends. We use frame analysis to open the debate. Luntz uses frames to constrain and manipulate public discourse for the sake of Republican victories.

Our paper predicted much of what Luntz wound up suggesting — framing the debate about “illegal immigration,” a pre-eminent concern for “border security,” a central focus on the immigrants themselves and a wholesale disregard for issues of international trade, foreign policy, human rights and a cheap labor economy. Luntz simply scapegoats the immigrants for the sake of Republican votes.

Luntz is at his most manipulative when he tells Republicans first how to appeal to nativists for their votes and then to Hispanics for theirs. Here is Luntz, appealing to anti-Hispanic nativists.

Let’s talk about the facts behind illegal immigrants. They do commit crimes. They are more likely to drive uninsured. More likely to clog up hospital waiting rooms. More likely to be involved in anti-social behavior because they have learned that breaking the law brings more benefit to them than abiding by it.

And here is Luntz advising on words that do NOT work with Hispanics. It’s worth quoting at length what he tell Republicans NOT to say to Hispanics:

Illegal immigration has a corrosive impact not just on LEGAL immigration but also on all of our society. Illegal immigrants operate outside of the law. They are a part of an underground economy and underground society. They are more likely to commit crimes. More likely to drive uninsured. More likely to clog up hospital waiting rooms. More likely to be involved in anti-social behavior because they have learned that breaking the law brings more benefits than abiding by it.

Note that it is almost the identical language. Luntz is advising Republicans to be two-faced, to speak one way to the nativists and avoid that very language when speaking to Hispanics.

The purpose of spin is to get oneself out of tricky political situations, to repackage bad political ideas and sell them under a different name. The Republicans are in such a situation. According to Luntz, they have made significant inroads in the Hispanic community. To keep these gains, Republicans must be cautious. Overzealous nasty rhetoric about immigrants might reach the ears of Hispanics and threaten these gains. So he urges speaking to the nativist base out of one side of your mouth, and to Hispanic supporters out of the other.
As Luntz says:
It would be a shame if poorly chosen words and overheated rhetoric were to undermine the credibility the [Republican] party has built within the [Hispanic] community. Communicating your position on illegal immigration will require a different approach among Hispanics and Latinos [emphasis added].

We deplore these tactics.

Nevertheless, critics have continued to confuse what Luntz does and what we do here at Rockridge. We are using this as an opportunity to demonstrate the wide differences. Yes, we both analyze language and we are both involved with framing. The similarities end there.

Luntz’s aim is to unify Republicans by pointing out which frames work to their political advantage — whether or not they serve the truth and whether or not they are moral. We use frame analysis coming from a cognitive science perspective to educate the public and help progressives to better understand and express their deepest values and to better serve the truth.

Luntz creates secretive messaging for political elites (his memo was leaked—all of our papers are public). We empower grassroots progressives by articulating our shared values openly, and hope that political leaders might be listening as well.
Luntz spins and creates slogans to sell right-wing policy to the American public and to keep hidden agendas hidden. We examine and critique political framing to expose implicit values and agendas.

Where Luntz suggests language for manipulating the public, we are interested in authenticity — in helping progressives say what they believe, in advancing traditional progressive values, and in framing important truths so that they can be recognized.

We take an honest look at our own beliefs as well as those of others. Our intentions are explicit and open.

We believe that you can abide by the deepest of democratic values, say what you believe, tell the truth, and win elections — and that deep and honest framing is essential to those ends.

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
Sam Ferguson is a Research Associate at the Rockridge Institute. He is facilitating the development of the Progressive Handbook and comments on the framing of current issues.
George Lakoff is a Senior Fellow at the Rockridge Institute and a Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley.
Dr. Lakoff has published a multitude of articles in major scholarly journals and edited volumes. He is the author of the influential book, Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, Second Edition, (2002). He is also the author of Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About The Mind (1987) and co-author of Metaphors We Live By (1980) [with Mark Johnson], More Than Cool Reason (1989) [with Mark Turner], Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge To The Western Tradition (1999) [with Mark Johnson], Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics Into Being (2000) [with Rafael Núñez] and, most recently, Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values, Frame the Debate (2004).
© 2006 The Rockridge Institute, www.rockridgeinstitute.org
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Staying the Course Right Over a Cliff
George Lakoff | New York Times | October 27, 2006


The Bush administration has finally been caught in its own language trap.

"That is not a stay-the-course policy," Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, declared on Monday.

The first rule of using negatives is that negating a frame activates the frame. If you tell someone not to think of an elephant, he'll think of an elephant.
When Richard Nixon said, "I am not a crook" during Watergate, the nation thought of him as a crook.

"Listen, we've never been stay the course, George," President Bush told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News a day earlier. Saying that just reminds us of all the times he said "stay the course."

What the president is discovering is that it's not so easy to rewrite linguistic history. The laws of language are hard to defy.

"The characterization of, you know, 'it's stay the course' is about a quarter right," the president said at an Oct. 11 news conference. " 'Stay the course' means keep doing what you're doing. My attitude is, don't do what you're doing if it's not working -- change. 'Stay the course' also means don't leave before the job is done."

A week or so later, he tried another shift: "We have been -- we will complete the mission, we will do our job and help achieve the goal, but we're constantly adjusting the tactics. Constantly."

To fully understand why the president's change in linguistic strategy won't work, it's helpful to consider why "stay the course" possesses such power. The answer lies in metaphorical thought.

Metaphors are more than language; they can govern thought and behavior. A recent University of Toronto study, for example, demonstrated the power of metaphors that connect morality and purity: People who washed their hands after contemplating an unethical act were less troubled by their thoughts than those who didn't, the researchers found.

"Stay the course" is a particularly powerful metaphor because it can activate so many of our emotions. Because physical actions require movement, we commonly understand action as motion. Because achieving goals so often requires going to a particular place -- to the refrigerator to get a cold beer, say -- we think of goals as reaching destinations.

Another widespread -- and powerful -- metaphor is that moral action involves staying on a prescribed path, and straying from the path is immoral. In modern conservative discourse, "character" is seen through the metaphor of moral strength, being unbending in the face of immoral forces. "Backbone," we call it.

In the context of a metaphorical war against evil, "stay the course" evoked all these emotion-laden metaphors. The phrase enabled the president to act the way he'd been acting -- and to demonstrate that it was his strong character that enabled him to stay on the moral path.

To not stay the course evokes the same metaphors, but says you are not steadfast, not morally strong. In addition, it means not getting to your destination -- that is, not achieving your original purpose. In other words, you are lacking in character and strength; you are unable to "complete the mission" and "achieve the goal."

"Stay the course" was for years a trap for those who disagreed with the president's policies in Iraq. To disagree was weak and immoral. It meant abandoning the fight against evil. But now the president himself is caught in that trap. To keep staying the course, given obvious reality, is to get deeper into disaster in Iraq, while not staying the course is to abandon one's moral authority as a conservative. Either way, the president loses.
And if the president loses, does that mean the Democrats will win? Perhaps. But if they do, it will be because of Republican missteps and not because they've acted with strategic brilliance. Their "new direction" slogan offers no values and no positive vision. It is taken from a standard poll question, "Do you like the direction the nation is headed in?"

This is a shame. The Democrats are giving up a golden opportunity to accurately frame their values and deepest principles (even on national security), to forge a public identity that fits those values -- and perhaps to win more close races by being positive and having a vision worth voting for

Right now, though, no language articulating a Democratic vision seems in the offing. If the Democrats don't find a more assertive strategy, their gains will be short-lived. They, too, will learn the pitfalls of staying the course.
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