But not before explaining a bit about how the Republicans have learned a thing or two:<\/p>\n
We talk about the “Death Tax” and not the proper term, “Estate Tax.” Two little words\u2014”Death Panels”\u2014were capable of nearly derailing the best thing that’s happened to health insurance in this country in decades.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Um, yeah.<\/p>\n
That was a good one, actually. \u00a0Smart Democrats went “wow – that WAS effective”. \u00a0Democrats with intellectual opportunities said “there’s no such thing!”, ignorant of how managed care has always <\/em>worked. \u00a0Too much explaining for them to do; it was a great term.<\/p>\nMisleading? \u00a0Well, not really, not the way Republicans actually used it; in managed care, you do <\/em>have a group of doctors, attorneys and administrators figuring out what treatments would and would not be cost-effective. \u00a0Is it a death panel? \u00a0If you were 95 and had liver failure and the group figured a liver transplant wasn’t the best use of a donor liver, yes, it could very well be. \u00a0What DO you call that group? \u00a0Is it different when it works for the government, as opposed to an HMO? \u00a0Of course!<\/p>\nBut this isn’t about real explanations; this is about language:<\/p>\n
Harvard-educated President Obama is universally considered “elite,” while Yale-educated George W. Bush is considered “down home.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Give it a rest, Dems; not only did you spend eight years chanting that Bush was stupid, you’re the ones who claimed an Ivy League education one of Obama’s great qualifications! \u00a0Bill Maher – the exposed intellectual id <\/em>of the Democratic Party on the national level, in the same way that “Two Putt Tommy” is for the Minnesota DFL – once “joked” “you hate Obama because he went to Harvard, and you <\/em>resurface driveways for a living”.<\/p>\nSo while this article is <\/em>about using language to frame things, you sort of did his one yourself. \u00a0Just saying.<\/p>\nAnd it’s all a diversion, because the article actually is a useful primer on how framing is done.<\/p>\n
As Progressive Democratic linguist George Lakoff explains it, this “framing” is crucial to how they’ve managed to win so much of the debate…This sleight-of-tongue has managed to manipulate at least half the country into believing things that simply are not true.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Well, yes and no. \u00a0Rhetoric – “framing” – is never <\/em>about truth, and it’s never not <\/em>about truth; it’s about using language to get people to believe things.<\/p>\nIt can be a big, clumsy club, designed to woo the stupid – like Alliance For A Better Minnesota, whose “Tom Emmer Favorited Lowering DWI Penalties” gulled 43% of Minnesota’s less-gifted. \u00a0Or it can be incredibly subtle.<\/p>\n
Ms. Klausen has some suggestions of her own – the aforementioned “five things” Democrats shouldn’t say:<\/p>\n
1. Never say Entitlements.<\/p>\n
\u2013Instead, say Earned Benefits.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Which, worst case, would send Republicans into a frenzy of explaining that those benefits are almost never “earned”, while Democrats cash in all those votes from the dumb people whose egos they’ve stroked.<\/p>\n
2. Never say Redistribution of Wealth.<\/p>\n
\u2013Instead, say Fair Wages For Work.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
By which they mean “Fair Wages For Other Peoples’ Work”.<\/p>\n
3. Never say Employer Paid Health Insurance.<\/p>\n
\u2013Instead, say Employee Earned Health Insurance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
That’d be a tough one to reframe. \u00a0My suggestion would be “unicorn-paid health insurance”. \u00a0That’s where Dems think money comes from.<\/p>\n
4. Never say Government Spending.<\/p>\n
\u2013Instead, say The People Are Investing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
They’ve been trying this one for decades.<\/p>\n
5. Never say Corporate America.<\/p>\n
\u2013Instead, say Unelected Corporate Government.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Now, this is the first genuinely dumb idea in the article, and I do hope the Democrats run with this one hard hard hard.<\/p>\n
So as I’m working away at my day job today, paying for other peoples’ earned benefits and fair wages for my <\/em>work, wondering what rathole the people elected by the dumb people are “investing” my money down, I’ll be watching for the Unelected Corporate Government Press Department doing this sort of framing for our good-heavens-not-elite President.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Democrats have been waging a war for the English language. \u00a0Part of that war is harping on how the Republicans are…well, waging a war for the English language. Rhetoric – using language to try to control how people think about issues – is as old as politics itself. And Jill Klausen – writing at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[128,37],"tags":[115],"class_list":["post-26937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-battle-for-the-language","category-language","tag-abm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26937"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47845,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26937\/revisions\/47845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}