Just Say What You Want: Will Progressives Ever Pass Political Linguistics 101?

By Theo Anderson It’s easy to imagine Frank Luntz—the baby-faced Republican wordsmith and marketing guru—as a kind of outsize trickster in a political fairy tale. When he comes across words and phrases that don’t pack enough punch, or that pose a threat to conservatism, he waves a magic wand and they become rhetorical winners for the GOP. Oil drilling? Poof. Energy exploration! The estate tax? Poof. The death tax! Healthcare reform? Poof. Government takeover of medicine! Global warming? Poof. Climate change! Government eavesdropping? Poof. Electronic intercepts! Riding roughshod over civil liberties? Poof. Tools to combat terrorism! In the video below, Luntz talks with Glenn Beck about strategies for creating effective rally signs: In truth, there’s less magic in Luntz’s wordplay than endless rounds of focus-group testing. His methods are well known. So the interesting question is, why can’t two play this game? Why are Democrats still so pitiful at framing public-policy debates? Why are progressives still talking about government “regulations” rather than, say, “fair-play guarantees”? In the healthcare debate, why was reforming the widely despised insurance industry such a hard sell? Why did Republicans hammer away at bureaucratic “death panels” while Democrats talked about the sleep-inducing “public option.” I came across an interesting theory about this question from George Lakoff, a progressive who’s aware of the problem and has actively tried to address it. Lakoff is a linguist based at the University of California, Berkeley, and he’s written two books on the subject: Don’t Think of an Elephant! and Thinking Points. In 2003, he and several colleagues founded the Rockridge Institute, a think tank devoted to creating new linguistic “frames” for popularizing progressive ideas. In a story about the Institute’s founding, the U.C. Berkeley News asked him why conservatives are so good at this and Democrats so bad. Here’s part of his answer. There's a systematic reason for that. You can see it in the way that conservative foundations and progressive foundations work. Conservative foundations give large block grants year after year to their think tanks. They say, 'Here's several million dollars, do what you need to do.' And basically, they build infrastructure, they build TV studios, hire intellectuals, set aside money to buy a lot of books to get them on the best-seller lists, hire research assistants for their intellectuals so they do well on TV, and hire agents to put them on TV. They do all of that. Why? Because the conservative moral system, which I analyzed in "Moral Politics," has as its highest value preserving and defending the "strict father" system itself. And that means building infrastructure. As businessmen, they know how to do this very well. Meanwhile, liberals' conceptual system of the "nurturant parent" has as its highest value helping individuals who need help. The progressive foundations and donors give their money to a variety of grassroots organizations. They say, 'We're giving you $25,000, but don't waste a penny of it. Make sure it all goes to the cause, don't use it for administration, communication, infrastructure, or career development.' So there's actually a structural reason built into the worldviews that explains why conservatives have done better. The whole thing is worth reading. But the fate of Lakoff’s think tank doesn’t bode well for progressives. It folded in 2008 due to—big surprise—a lack of funding. As the Institute’s brief life suggests, progressives haven’t yet gotten the message about the importance of framing. Which seems ironic since—as conservatives frame it—we control the mainstream media as well as Hollywood. The good news is that there’s plenty of material to work with, if we ever find the money and the will. “Big government” is responsible for so many things that Americans love—parks, libraries, free education through high school, subsidized higher education, roads, Social Security, drinkable water—the list goes on. Why not figure out ways to frame that fact with some political and marketing savvy? It will be difficult after 30 years of aggressive anti-government animus from the right. But it can be done. Another piece of good news is that one of the most influential progressives in recent American life, Frances Moore Lappe, is on the case. In 1971, she published Diet for a Small Planet, which is partly a cookbook but mostly a manifesto calling for a dietary revolution and arguing that what we choose to eat is a deeply moral question. I noticed that in her just-published Getting a Grip 2, Lappe devotes a chapter to “talking democracy,” and she writes that “a big piece of the challenge is disciplining ourselves to find and use words that convey a new frame, one that spreads a sense of possibility and helps people see emerging signs of Living Democracy.” Some of her suggestions for using better words to create this new frame? Empowered citizen instead of activist. Pro-conscience instead of pro-choice. Public protections instead of regulation. Fair-opportunity state instead of welfare state. Corporation-favoring trade instead of free trade. Global corporate control instead of globalization. Sure, that Luntz-like magic is still a ways off. But it’s a start.