This article is also published on Alternet and CommonDreams.
In forming his administration, President Obama abandoned the movement that had begun during his campaign for deal-making and a pragmatism that hasn’t worked. That movement is still possible and needed now. Here is look at what is required, and how a version of it is forming in California.
We begin with this week’s triple whammy.
Freedom vs. The Public Option
Which would you prefer, consumer choice or freedom? Extended coverage or freedom? Bending the cost curve or freedom?
John Boehner, House Minority Leader, speaking of health care, said recently, “This bill is the greatest threat to freedom that I have seen in the 19 years I have been here in Washington. . . It’s going to lead to a government takeover of our health care system, with tens of thousands of new bureaucrats right down the street, making these decisions [choose your doctor, buy your own health insurance] for you.”
This is exactly what Frank Luntz advised conservatives to say. They have repeated it and repeated it. Why has it worked to rally conservative populists against their interests? The most effective framing is more than mere language, more than spin or salesmanship. It has worked because conservatives really believe that the issue is freedom. It fits the conservative moral system. It fits how conservatives see the world.
The Democrats have helped the conservatives. Their pathetic attempt to make any deal to get 60 votes convinced even Massachusetts voters that government under the Democrats was corrupt and oppressive, not just inept, but immoral.
All politics is moral
All political leaders argue that they are doing the right thing, not the wrong thing, that their policies are moral, not evil.
Conservatives understand this, liberals tend not to. Conservatives know a morality tale when they see it: Greedy Wall Street bankers, who have cost people their homes, their jobs, and their savings get billion-dollar bailouts from the government, while those honest hard-working people get nothing. Corruption. Oppression. A threat to freedom.
The conservatives are winning the framing wars again – by sticking to moral principles as conservatives see them, and communicating their view of morality effectively. In the 2008 election, Barack Obama ran a campaign based on his moral principles and communicated those principles as effectively as any candidate ever has.
But the Obama administration made a 180-degree turn, trading Obama’s 2008 moral principles for the deal-making of Rahm Emanuel and Tim Geithner, assuming it would be ‘pragmatic’ to court corporations and move to the right, in the false hope of bipartisan support. A clear unified moral vision was replaced by long laundry lists of policy options that the public could not understand, and that made ordinary folks feel they were being bamboozled. And in many cases, they were.
Even the language was a disaster. Liberals thought that conservatives would like consumer choice. That’s why they used “public option.” As Harry Reid said, “It’s public and it’s an option – a public option.” But what did a conservative hear in the words “public option?” Say “public” and he hears “government.” “Option” is a policy-wonk term, from the language of bureaucracy. Say “public option” and the conservative hears “government bureaucracy.”
The results of deal-making in the name of pragmatism have been considerably immoral, as documented thoroughly by progressives like Drew Westen, Matt Taibbi, Robert Kuttner, and many others. Advice on what to do instead has not been lacking from other progressives. Advice is all over the blogs. Guy Saperstein is an excellent example.
We progressives are long on factual analysis, critique, suggestion – and ridicule. Rachel Maddow is one of the best, and her popularity is well-deserved. What’s more fun than ridiculing Tea Party-ers, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and the like, by showing the factual errors, the flaws in their logic, and the cruelty of their positions.
But we have been dealt a triple blow. A year of failed deal-making by our side, the Tea Party win in Massachusetts, and worst of all, the 5-4 Supreme Court decision to turn our democracy into a corporate plutocracy. This is serious.
Democrats still have the presidency and a majority in the House and Senate, but the momentum is on the conservative side. Their victories in the framing wars have inevitably led to a crucial electoral victory and to a Supreme Court death threat to democracy itself, framed as free speech.
Democrats have electoral power, but progressives have not created an effective movement to take advantage of that power.
“Where’s the movement?”
In the emerging Obama mythology, this is the question attributed to President Obama whenever he is asked to take the lead on a progressive issue. It is not an idle question. Leaders can only lead if there is a pre-existing movement for them to get in front of.
Moreover, there are other conditions. The idea behind a movement, and the language expressing its goals, must also pre-exist in public discourse. In other words, the movement must already have:
- a popular base;
- organizing tools;
- a generally accepted morally-based conceptual framing;
- an overall narrative, with heroes, victims, and villains;
- a readily recognizable, well-understood language;
- funding sources;
- and a national communication system set up for both leaders and ordinary citizens to use.
The base is there, waiting for something worth getting behind. The organizing tools are there. The rest is not there.
That is the present reality. Expecting Obama to be FDR was politically unrealistic. And complaining that he isn’t doesn’t move anything forward.
Howard Dean was right when he said, “YOU have the power.” What is needed is an organized activist public with a positive understanding of what our values are and how to links them to every issue. Barney Frank was only half-right when he said that the public gets active only when it is angry. That may be true for isolated issues – he was talking about regulating Wall Street. But anger is directed at isolated negatives. An effective movement must be positive, organized, and long-term, where an overall positive understanding defines the isolated negatives. And it must have all of the above.
The California Democracy Movement
We have the beginning of such a movement in California.
The central issue in California is basic democracy. California is the only state in America where the legislature is controlled by a relatively small conservative minority. Because it takes a 2/3 vote in both the Senate and Assembly to pass a budget or any tax, 1/3 plus one – 34% – in either house can control the vote by saying no to measures that would finance public needs.
Conservatives exercise that control for the simple reason that they don’t believe that government should serve public needs, that instead government should be privatized and shrunk to fit in a bathtub, as if governing would disappear with government.
But governing doesn’t disappear when government shrinks; instead corporations come to govern your life – like HMO’s, oil companies, drug companies, agribusiness, and so on, with accountability only to maximizing profit, not to public needs.
An overwhelming majority of Californians – over 60% – disagree. They believe that government should serve public needs, and they have elected sensible legislators. But they don’t quite make up 2/3. And so an extreme right-wing minority – about 37% – controls the state, its present and its future.
Luckily, there is a way out for the majority in California. The initiative process that created this situation can get us out. I have proposed The California Democracy Act as an initiative in the November 2010 election. It changes two words in the California Constitution – “two-thirds” becomes “a majority” in two places. It can be described in one simple sentence: All legislative actions on revenue and budget must be determined by a majority vote. That ballot initiative needs only a majority to pass. It would return majority rule to the legislature on everyday economic issues, bringing democracy back to California. Those interested can join the campaign by clicking on www.CaliforniansForDemocracy.com
Democracy is the central issue, and that is what our movement is about. We are setting up an infrastructure in California, with a statewide organization and a speakers’ bureau, for those who want to continue democratizing the state after the election.
Democracy is The Issue
The majority vote campaign gives us a chance to talk not only about this particular issue, but about democracy as it affects all issues. The clearest articulator of what democracy is about has been Barack Obama – the campaigner we cheered for, campaigned hard for, and voted for.
Democracy, he has observed, is based on empathy – on citizens caring about one another. That’s why we have principles like freedom and fairness, for everybody, not just for the rich and powerful. True empathy requires responsibility, not just for oneself, but also for others. And since we, as individuals and as a nation, are far from perfect, empathy demands an ethic of excellence, of making oneself better, one’s family and community better, and one’s nation better.
That view of citizenship in a democracy comes with a view of government. Government has two sacred moral missions: protection and empowerment.
Protection goes well beyond police and the military and the fire department to consumer protection, environmental protection, worker protection, health care, investor protection, social security, and other safety nets.
Empowerment is what the stimulus package was about: building and maintaining roads, bridges, public transportation, and public buildings; systems for communication, electricity, water; education, from pre-school through graduate and professional schools; scientific research and technological development; a banking system that works; a stock market that works; and a judicial system that works.
No one earns a living or lives well without protection and empowerment by the government. That is what taxes pay for. And the more you make from what the government gives you, the more you should contribute to keeping it going
Tax Shifts
When you cut taxes that pay for public needs, you are actually shifting taxes. You are taxing others. In California tax cuts for corporations last year led to cuts in the support for public universities, which led to 32% higher tuition and a drastic cut in the number of students educated. That 32% constituted a tax on those students and their parents, and when they had to borrow the money for college, interest payments on the loan effectively double the cost of the loan. That’s a very high tax shift. But an even higher tax is shifted onto students who cannot afford the higher tuition: the tax of a lost education lasts all one’s life and its cost is not only monetary, but a cost in human potential. It is also a cost to employers, who get less educated workers, and to society, which gets less educated citizens.
The Movement
We will be talking about all of this and more. Take economic democracy. California is the world’s seventh richest economy. It is ludicrous to say that there is no money in California. If the money for public needs is there, where is it? In California, the richest one percent owns more assets than the bottom 95 per cent. The money is concentrated at the top.
Just about every issue comes down to the issue of democracy. That is why we are starting with the California Democracy Act, which would finally end the rule of the state by a small minority of ultra-conservative legislators. It would finally give the voters of the state a voice in their own future and the future of their children and grandchildren.
If you live in California (one out of eight Americans does), then join the California Democracy Movement. If you live elsewhere, form your own democracy movement and unite with us. The principles are simple, and they are Obama’s:
Democracy is about empathy – caring about your fellow citizens, which leads to the principles of freedom and fairness for all. Empathy requires both personal and social responsibility. The ethic of excellence means making the world better by making yourself better, your family better, your community better, and your nation better. Government has two moral missions: protection and empowerment for all. To carry them out, government must be by, for, and of the people.
It’s only a paragraph. The principles apply to all issues. That’s the basis of a democracy movement. That’s what separates a movement from a coalition. Coalitions are based on interests. Movements are based on principles. We need a movement that transcends interests and goes beyond coalitions.
Movements also transcend particular policies. The framing of moral principles comes first and the policies elaborate on the principles. The way to unite a movement is to form policies that carry out the principles in ways that everyone can understand.
The time is now
We have a triple disaster on our hands: the administration’s failure at deal-making in the name of pragmatism and bipartisanship; the Tea Party victory in Massachusetts fueling and propelling ultra-conservatism; and the anti-democratic 5-4 ruling of the Roberts Court. We can no longer sit on our hands and just criticize the President, or give him advice and hope he can do it alone. We have to provide the answer to his question: Where’s the movement?
George Lakoff is the author of Moral Politics, Don’t Think of an Elephant!, Whose Freedom?, and Thinking Points (with the Rockridge Institute staff). He is Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, and a founding senior fellow at the Rockridge Institute.
——–
Enjoy this article? Perhaps you’d like to sign up for our newsletter.
——–
Hi Chuck,
Thank you for sharing this immensely valuable on-the-ground perspective. I’m with you all the way about local civic engagement being the ultimate foundation for building a political system that serves people. As the great business management educator Peter Senge would say, we need to become aware of the systems we operate in and update our mental models about how the world works.
Only when we make these changes in ourselves will our politics reflect a different set of values. Change always begins within.
Best,
Joe
Here in Ohio we are in a primary season. That means that in all 88 counties the elected county party membership called the “central committee” has to run for re-election.
There are 10,120 precincts in Ohio each made up of no more than 1400 neighbors. Most of these seats remain unfilled because BOTH parties are satisfied with little participation because it is easier to run a small group from the top.
At least here in Ohio people of empathy and responsibility for self and others haven’t figured out how to “institutionalize” these values in their parties through this election process, but we’re trying.
I’m running again in my county and I’m in a rural county with few precincts so my voice is a slight irritant and enough to effect the conversation.
The presidency is only 1 of 3 of the branches, not to mention the other 50 states with a 3 branch government. We need to start at the bottom.
”
a generally accepted morally-based conceptual framing;
an overall narrative, with heroes, victims, and villains;
a readily recognizable, well-understood language;
funding sources;
and a national communication system set up for both leaders and ordinary citizens to use.”
Much of this exists, what does not exist and will likely never really exist is lavish funding sources. We must work out ways to accomplish our goals with funding that will never be a penny to a dollar compared to what is against us.
We currently have a magical communication system for as long as it is at least as accessable as now.
Dr Lakoff has lead the way with a morally based conceptual system, there are plenty of heros, villains, and we are awash in victims, all we are really missing is the ole’ “generally recognised” part.
The other side handed us the hammer to smash them with over a year ago but Liberals were too fearful to grab the handle. I grabbed it but have mostly had to swing it alone for all that time.
When they called Obama and the liberal agenda “Socialist” they declared themselves “Anti_Socialists’ and proudly Unsocialized. They did not hand such a prize in calling themselves “Teabaggers”. As long as we can grab the “Socialist” banner and insist on the “Socialized Child” definition we can very much win the Day.
Their entire value system is based on the legitimacy of whoever ends up as the “leader” no matter how they got there, that all success is deserved by its existence. This divine right of Kings was not much promise when first stated, but to grab the GOP initials that few people know the source of and make “Gang Of Pirates” the words everyone hears when they see the initials, the instantly accessible implication is that all leadership is NOT legitimate, and needs accountability if it is to act responsibly.
Make those narratives generally known and repeated and the movement will need little else, but to stand with all the real people while they storm the gates.
I’ve read Mr. Lakoff and I voted for Mr. Obama. Now one year later everything is clear…crystal. President Obama is a corporatist. His first official policy efforts were NOT to assist working and poor Americans and their communities. Instead, his economic advisors, who all have connections to Goldman-Sachs, handed over hundreds of billions of dollars in government capital to the TBTF banks and insurance companies while saddling taxpayers with the liability for trillions of dollars in guarantees and “off-the-books” transfers from the Fed to these same corporations.
President Obama mistakenly believes that the economy can be “reinflated” for long term economic growth. Nothing could be further from the truth. Peak-oi and declining net energy will push our industrial civilization off the cliff and into a terminal decline and possible catastrophic collapse. Policy makers have only 10-20 years at the most to avoid the worse of what lies ahead, which will likely be nuclear war if TPTB insist on a business as usual approach.
The recent Supreme Court decision on corporate money in politics will turn the country completely over to corporate control within 10 years. The political class is firmly in their grips now so matters can only get worse. The only hope would be for millions of Americans to occupy the streets of Washington D.C. for as long as it takes to effect a ban on all government lobbying by corporations by making it a crime, removing the status of corporations as persons, separating political policy making from economics by using panels of scientists and engineers to advise the government (no economists or religious leaders) and publicly financing all federal elections. If the money and lobbying by corporations cannot be banned from our system the game is over and WWIII will be inevitable.
Tim Wessels
It’s important to keep in mind that many people in the Democratic Party are actually quite progressive. The Progressive Caucus is the fastest growing portion of the Congress and represents our values with authenticity and legitimacy.
The problem lies in the top-level management structure of the party, where consultants like Mark Penn and James Carville push a pro-corporate/anti-progressive agenda that supports the cozy position of Blue Dog Dems who have sold out to their corporate masters. Last year we saw people like Alan Grayson (representative from Florida) and Anthony Wiener (representative from New York) stand up for progressive values with fervor and effectiveness during the shell game of health care reform. There are people in the party on our side. How can we help them while also advancing a “democracy movement” that focuses on the power of corporate corruption in the media and our political system?
Part of the tool set for moving in this direction will be a clear moral vision and language of authenticity that shifts the power imbalance back toward the collective will of the people (those 80% of us who support universal health care, desire to live in a clean and safe environment, and want an economic system that promotes the well-being of all people). We remain the majority, despite the decades of intense propaganda to the contrary.
Thanks Paul, I seldom see even the most progressive person be that cynical of the Democrats but I agree completely with you. I’ve tried to describe what the Democrats are doing, with other words such as: The Democrats are there to facilitate the Republicans or the Dems & Repubs are a “good cop/bad cop” scenario . . . remembering that both parties must keep up the facade of a competing two party system.
- Arlen
Hi Paul,
I totally agree with you about the Democratic Party leadership (as noted in my article last week). It may be time to finally organize progressives around the need for much deeper change than even Obama had suggested while on the campaign trail.
How do you feel about organizing donors to the Democratic Party and having them withhold funds unless candidates promise to act on progressive principles? Going one step further, perhaps it’s time to call for a Constitutional Convention and replace the broken system through a massive populist campaign.
Regardless of how far we feel change needs to go, George Lakoff is right about the need for a strong moral vision and strategically framed agenda that resonates well with the populace and empowers people to bring real change to our broken politics.
Best,
Joe Brewer
Director, Cognitive Policy Works
This entire article is based on a false assumption — that Obama and the rest of the Democratic leadership actually *want* to enact progressive policies. Take health care: When you consider that the insurance industry is the biggest donor to both parties, it’s obvious that the Dems’ hand-wringing about even watered-down reform being doomed now that the party controls “only” 59 seats in the Senate (more than the Republicans ever did during Bush’s reign) is a complete charade: The party leadership has completely sold out to corporate interests. The difference between the Republicans and the Democrats is that the Republicans shamelessly push the Big Business, screw-the-little-guy agenda, falsely claiming it will benefit all Americans, whereas the Democrats in Congress ultimately vote the same agenda while falsely claiming to support a progressive platform. Sure, the Dems throw their progressive constituents a few scraps to keep them on board, but things like lip service to gay marriage don’t mean diddly squat if this country continues down the path to a full-on plutocratic police state.