It’s the values, stupid

One of life’s great mysteries for me is trying to imagine what was going through the minds of voters in last November’s election when they pulled the lever or checked the box or poked the chad giving Republican’s control over both houses of Congress. They continuously rate Congress lower than anal cysts, but then turn around and vote for the very people who are responsible for government gridlock.

Thanks to Congressional Republicans, with some help from gutless Democrats, the latest spending bill that funds the government through the end of the fiscal year is packed with goodies for Wall Street and wealthy political donors, and of course, contains very little in the way of relief for the average citizen.

THIS IS WHAT YOU VOTED FOR! [Screams of frustration, the sounds of garments being rendered, head banging against wall] And there will be plenty more of these shenanigans over the next two years.

The only analysis that makes any sense to me is that values trump everything when it comes to elections. Red staters perceive that Republicans share their values, and that seems to be enough to earn a vote. Actions don’t play into the equation…or logic or common sense or even self-preservation. Add to this a corporate controlled media and I guess you have the recipe for conservative success. The reality that Republicans consistently side with the wealthy elites over the average voter doesn’t seem to be important.

In my opinion, the antidote is for Democrats to stop trying to be Republican light and start standing up for progressive values, which are values that can truly help struggling Americans. If progressives get their wish and Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders decide to run for President in the 2016 election, it will be a very interesting and telling race regarding the future direction of the Democratic Party.

Is the key to a Democratic resurgence in repackaging our arguments or simply having the courage to make them in the first place?

There’s a lengthy interview in today’s Salon with a writer and intellectual I admire, George Lakoff. The title of the article is, “Progressives need to frame their values.” In the piece, Lakoff argues that progressives have to learn how to tie truths to values; to frame their arguments so that they better connect with voters’ values. It’s something that conservatives almost instinctively know how to do, but on the left end of the spectrum, we tend to offer laundry lists of intellectual solutions that are not connected to the voter’s values. Progressives need to do a better job of framing their political language to appeal to people’s deep-seated beliefs.

As someone who has worked in marketing most of my life, I do understand the importance of “framing” your appeals to consumers. You have to understand your audience and make your argument relevant to them. Where I work now, we are all about “behavioral economics,” and how to truly engage consumers to the point that they are not merely purchasers of your product, but brand advocates who champion your brand.

So I don’t necessarily disagree with Lakoff’s arguments about framing, but my question is this — Is the issue really about “framing” an argument correctly or is it about conveying progressive ideals, which are inherently about values, openly, enthusiastically and without apology, something too few Democratic candidates seem willing to do? Lakoff admires Elizabeth Warren and her ability to convey the values behind her progressive policies, but is Warren framing her argument or simply espousing progressive ideas clearly and confidently?

In other words, is the core problem for Democrats a marketing issue or more simply about finding their political courage? Again, I look at Al Franken’s recent campaign. Franken is a liberal, but during his tenure in the Senate, he has emphasized his work for Minnesotans and the value he’s brought to the state. In other words, he rarely gets on a soapbox to simply espouse liberal causes, but tends to link them with the needs of Minnesotans, and that has won him two elections. His Republican opponent used all of the “framing” arguments in the conservative playbook against Franken, but they didn’t work.

I am hoping that after the mid-term debacle, Democrats will stop reflexively running to the center, and begin to take their lessons from Warren and Franken and Sanders and other proud progressives. It’s important to understand “framing,” but I think success will really be achieved when Democrats find the courage to speak from their hearts and proudly convey their progressive beliefs and how those beliefs can help this country be far more successful and prosperous than it is today.