Lakoff: Conservatives Determined to Preserve Moral System, like Ron Johnson's "discipline, hard work and common sense."

I'll be honest, I was stump by the three reasons why GOP/tea party candidate Ron Johnson would be a better senator than Russ Feingold. As you can see by the list in Johnson's TV ad, we're not given actual policy ideas, only moral platitudes. There's a reason for that, and George Lakoff knows why, as he explains in the piece below from the Huffington Post:

In the conservative moral system, the highest value is preserving and extending the moral system itself. That is why they keep saying no to Obama's proposals, even voting against their own ideas when Obama accepts them. To give Obama any victory at all would be a blow to their moral system. Their moral system requires non-cooperation. That is a major thing the Obama administration has not understood.

The conservatives understand the centrality of morality. They attacked the Obama health care plan as immoral for violating the moral principles of freedom ("government takeover") and reverence for life ("death panels.") The Obama administration made a policy case, not a moral case. The conservatives have characterized the bailouts as thievery and Obama's ties to Wall St. as immoral -- as being in bed with the thieves.

The attacks on government are seen as moral attacks, with government seen as taking money out of working people's pockets and giving it to people who don't deserve it. Whether it is the birthers, or the anti-Muslims, or the anti-immigrants, of the pro-lifers, the attack is a moral attack. The Tea Party cry is moral -- for "freedom" (see my book Whose Freedom?), for God, for patriotism. Even jobless benefits are seen as giving money to people who are not working and don't deserve it. Even social security that workers have earned, that are deferred payments for work, are seen as undeserving people "sucking on the tits of the government."

Why are so many people about to vote against their interests?

The Republicans are not offering kitchen-table benefits. The "swing voters" are really "swing thinkers." And it is language -- moral language, not policy language, heard over and over -- that strengthens one political moral system over the other and determines how people vote. The kitchen table arguments must become moral arguments as well -- arguments about freedom, life, fairness, and the most central of American values.

Argue for your values. Frame all issues in terms of your values. Avoid their language, even in arguing against them. There is a reason that I wrote a book called, Don't Think of an Elephant! Don't list their arguments and argue against them using their language. It just activates their arguments in the brains of listeners. Don't move to the right in your discourse or action. That will just strengthen the conservative moral system in the brains of swing thinkers.

Frame your arguments from your moral position.

Finally, Democrats need a truly effective communication system. They need unified, morally-based framing of issues. They need to train spokespeople all over the country in using such framing and avoiding mistakes. They need to organize those spokespeople. And they need to book them, as conservatives do, on radio, TV, in civic and religious groups, in schools and universities.

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• George Lakoff: The Cry for Democratic Moral Leadership and Effective Communication (chelseagreen.com)
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• Lakoff on how Democrats frame messages (americablog.com)