[Dialogue] The Reality of the Political Mind

[Harry Wainwright]

Published on Tuesday, September 2, 2008 by CommonDreams.org

The Palin Choice


The Reality of the Political Mind


by George Lakoff 

This election matters because of realities-the realities of global warming,
the economy, the Middle East, nuclear proliferation, civil liberties,
species extinction, poverty here and around the world, and on and on. Such
realities are what make this election so very crucial, and how to deal with
them is the substance of the Democratic platform
<http://www.demconvention.com/assets/downloads/2008-Democratic-Platform-by-C
mte-08-13-08.pdf>  [1].

Election campaigns matter because who gets elected can change reality. But
election campaigns are primarily about the realities of voters' minds, which
depend on how the candidates and the external realities are cognitively
framed. They can be framed honestly or deceptively, effectively or clumsily.
And they are always framed from the perspective of a worldview.

The Obama campaign has learned this. The Republicans have long known it, and
the choice of Sarah Palin as their Vice-Presidential candidate reflects
their expert understanding of the political mind and political marketing.
Democrats who simply belittle the Palin choice are courting disaster. It
must be taken with the utmost seriousness.

The Democratic responses so far reflect external realities: she is
inexperienced, knowing little or nothing about foreign policy or national
issues; she is really an anti-feminist, wanting the government to enter
women's lives to block abortion, but not wanting the government to guarantee
equal pay for equal work, or provide adequate child health coverage, or
child care, or early childhood education; she shills for the oil and gas
industry on drilling; she denies the scientific truths of global warming and
evolution; she misuses her political authority; she opposes sex education
and her daughter is pregnant; and, rather than being a maverick, she is on
the whole a radical right-wing ideologue.

All true, so far as we can tell.

But such truths may nonetheless be largely irrelevant to this campaign. That
is the lesson Democrats must learn. They must learn the reality of the
political mind.

The Obama campaign has done this very well so far. The convention events and
speeches were orchestrated both to cast light on external realities,
traditional political themes, and to focus on values at once classically
American and progressive: empathy, responsibility both for oneself and
others, and aspiration to make things better both for oneself and the world.
Obama did all this masterfully in his nomination speech, while replying to,
and undercutting, the main Republican attacks.

But the Palin nomination changes the game. The initial response has been to
try to keep the focus on external realities, the "issues," and differences
on the issues. But the Palin nomination is not basically about external
realities and what Democrats call "issues," but about the symbolic
mechanisms of the political mind-the worldviews, frames, metaphors, cultural
narratives, and stereotypes. The Republicans can't win on realities. Her job
is to speak the language of conservatism, activate the conservative view of
the world, and use the advantages that conservatives have in dominating
political discourse.

Our national political dialogue is fundamentally metaphorical, with family
values at the center of our discourse. There is a reason why Obama and Biden
spoke so much about the family, the nurturant family, with caring fathers
and the family values that Obama put front and center in his Father's day
speech: empathy, responsibility and aspiration. Obama's reference in the
nomination speech to "The American Family" was hardly accidental, nor were
the references to the Obama and Biden families as living and fulfilling the
American Dream. Real nurturance requires strength and toughness, which Obama
displayed in body language and voice in his responses to McCain. The
strength of the Obama campaign has been the seamless marriage of reality and
symbolic thought.

The Republican strength has been mostly symbolic. The McCain campaign is
well aware of how Reagan and W won-running on character: values,
communication, (apparent) authenticity, trust, and identity - not issues and
policies. That is how campaigns work, and symbolism is central.

Conservative family values are strict and apply via metaphorical thought to
the nation: good vs. evil, authority, the use of force, toughness and
discipline, individual (versus social) responsibility, and tough love.
Hence, social programs are immoral because they violate discipline and
individual responsibility. Guns and the military show force and discipline.
Man is above nature; hence no serious environmentalism. The market is the
ultimate financial authority, requiring market discipline. In foreign
policy, strength is use of the force. In fundamentalist religion, the Bible
is the ultimate authority; hence no gay marriage. Such values are at the
heart of radical conservatism. This is how John McCain was raised and how he
plans to govern. And it is what he shares with Sarah Palin. 

Palin is the mom in the strict father family, upholding conservative values.
Palin is tough: she shoots, skins, and eats caribou. She is disciplined:
raising five kids with a major career. She lives her values: she has a
Downs-syndrome baby that she refused to abort. She has the image of the
ideal conservative mom: pretty, perky, feminine, Bible-toting, and fitting
into the ideal conservative family. And she fits the stereotype of America
as small-town America. It is Reagan's morning-in-America image. Where Obama
thought of capturing the West, she is running for Sweetheart of the West.

And Palin, a member of Feminists For Life, is at the heart of the
conservative feminist movement, which Ronee Schreiber has written about in
her recent book, Righting Feminism. It is a powerful and growing movement
that Democrats have barely paid attention to.

At the same time, Palin is masterful at the Republican game of taking the
Democrats' language and reframing it-putting conservative frames to
progressive words: Reform, prosperity, peace. She is also masterful at using
the progressive narratives: she's from the working class, working her way up
from hockey mom and the PTA to Mayor, Governor, and VP candidate. Her
husband is a union member. She can say to the conservative populists that
she is one of them-all the things that Obama and Biden have been saying.
Bottom-up, not top-down.

Yes, the McCain-Palin ticket is weak on the major realities. But it is
strong on the symbolic dimension of politics that Republicans are so good at
marketing. Just arguing the realities, the issues, the hard truths should be
enough in times this bad, but the political mind and its response to
symbolism cannot be ignored. The initial Democratic response to Palin - the
response based on realities alone - indicates that many Democrats have not
learned the lessons of the Reagan and Bush years.

They have not learned the nature of conservative populism. A great many
working-class folks are what I call "bi-conceptual," that is, they are split
between conservative and progressive modes of thought. Conservative on
patriotism and certain social and family issues, which they have been led to
see as "moral", progressive in loving the land, living in communities of
care, and practical kitchen table issues like mortgages, health care, wages,
retirement, and so on.

Conservative theorists won them over in two ways: Inventing and promulgating
the idea of "liberal elite" and focusing campaigns on social and family
issues. They have been doing this for many years and have changed a lot of
brains through repetition. Palin will appeal strongly to conservative
populists, attacking Obama and Biden as pointy-headed, tax-and-spend, latte
liberals. The tactic is to divert attention from difficult realities to
powerful symbolism.

What Democrats have shied away from is a frontal attack on radical
conservatism itself as an un-American and harmful ideology. I think Obama is
right when he says that America is based on people caring about each other
and working together for a better future-empathy, responsibility (both
personal and social), and aspiration. These lead to a concept of government
based on protection (environmental, consumer, worker, health care, and
retirement protection) and empowerment (through infrastructure, public
education, the banking system, the stock market, and the courts). Nobody can
achieve the American Dream or live an American lifestyle without protection
and empowerment by the government. The alternative, as Obama said in his
nomination speech, is being on your own, with no one caring for anybody
else, with force as a first resort in foreign affairs, with threatened civil
liberties and a right-wing government making your most important decisions
for you. That is not what American democracy has ever been about.

What is at stake in this election are our ideals and our view of the future,
as well as current realities. The Palin choice brings both front and center.
Democrats, being Democrats, will mostly talk about the realities nonstop
without paying attention to the dimensions of values and symbolism.
Democrats, in addition, need to call an extremist an extremist: to shine a
light on the shared anti-democratic ideology of McCain and Palin, the same
ideology shared by Bush and Cheney. They share values antithetical to our
democracy. That needs to be said loud and clear, if not by the Obama
campaign itself, then by the rest of us who share democratic American
values.

Our job is to bring external realities together with the reality of the
political mind. Don't ignore the cognitive dimension. It is through cultural
narratives, metaphors, and frames that we understand and express our ideals.

George Lakoff is the author of The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand
20th Century
<https://www.amazon.com/dp/0670019275?tag=commondreams-20&camp=0&creative=0&
linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0670019275&adid=1KQ5VVRGF50GXYHQFVNW&>  Politics
With an 18th Century Brain [2].

  _____  

Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org

URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/09/02

 

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