Travis Smiley interviews George Lakoff

See and read it in this link. He discusses how framing is used to manipulate people. E.g., the Twamp swamp wants to get rid of regulation, seeing them as preventing freedom. But freedom to do what? Eliminate protections for clean water and air. Freedom to eliminate protections for safe and effective drugs. Freedom to get rid of protections against vampire banks that rip you off for their own gain. Yeah, it's freedom for the corporate oligarchs, but certainly not freedom for you and me.

Unfortunately, to counter the effects of all the lying frames created takes repeated vigilance. And many Americans have not been trained to effectively counter it so ultimately just unconsciously succumb to the oft repeated lies. If one has been inculcated in a strict father, authoritarian morality then that will trump knowledge that what their fed is a sack of lies. It's the unconscious moral structure that matters.

Lakoff describes this moral universe quite well in the link. And how to talk with those so inculcated. Like focus on how they care about others in their community, how they contribute to charity, or how they helped a neighbor in need. Reinforce their nurturant side. When they are so engaged you frame government as being protective of our rights, or caring for our health, of supporting clean water, all things that engage our nurturant side.


He then discusses that those in the media have to redefine their purpose. It cannot be as the CBS President said, just to create more wealth for the network. It has to be about public service, informing the public with accurate, factual information to make informed judgments. The media has to return to some form of moral and ethical baseline, and framing it that way appeals to conservatives and liberals alike.

And we need to recognize that with some that are so brainwashed it is hopeless. We need to focus on those that have at least some genuine care and compassion in their hearts and connect with them on that level. But that may be enough, for the die-hard authoritarians that are too far gone to open to such caring are still a minority that cannot in themselves win elections. If we can connect with those with at least some progressive values and reinforce them, combined with the already mostly progressive voters already inclined toward a Sanders or a Warren, we just might tip the scales.