More On Semantics

For those who wondered, yes, I was indeed referring obliquely to George Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant. Kevin Drum has thoughts on it somewhat similar to mine.

I think the descriptive argument, about the semantics behind Republican success, is on the right track, but I find the positive argument, about using alternate moral values framing, fairly unpersuasive (ditto for the Thomas Frank book).

Rather than try to sell liberal policies as moral imperatives---as if there's a Kantian strain in the American electorate---the Democrats need to reframe them as an appeal to the very things Republicans have made their own, in other words, to borrow the Karl Rove strategy of attacking your opponents at their strongest. Democrats have allowed Republicans to be the "anti-tax," "small government," "personal responsibility," "individual freedom" party, even though they do not believe in nor do they support policies conducive to lowering taxes (for most people), shrinking government, or expanding the spheres of responsibility and freedom. It's just boneheaded of the Democrats to concede this territory---the territory that has won the presidency with few interruptions since 1968---on the vain hope that exhortations to subsidize the very people who are the targets of white working class resentment is somehow going to be a magical formula for electoral victory.