Following the 2004 election, a grudging acceptance swept the ranks of the Democratic Party: "Our politicians just don't know how to communicate." While campaigning, Sen. John Kerry was never able to clearly relate his vision for the United States. His platform was a hodge-podge of weak policy proposals cobbled together with the hope of appealing to at least 51 percent of U.S. citizens. Kerry never communicated a unifying vision for his campaign.
But that's in the past. Now the burden falls on Democrats to rediscover how to win.
In "Don't Think of an Elephant!" a slim volume published in 2004 that credits itself as an "indispensable guide to progressives," George Lakoff, a cognitive scientist from UC-Berkeley, introduces the idea of "framing." In his definition, a political party uses specific language and narrative to "frame" the issue in a light favorable to its agenda. For example, when Republicans use the phrase "tax relief," they successfully frame taxes as an undue financial burden. Democrats, on the other hand, have been unable to use language that frames taxes as a civic responsibility - a "membership fee" in a free society, if you will.
The book picked up steam. The New York Times Magazine featured a lengthy article on Lakoff. Grassroots progressives passed out copies of the book by the dozen. Many liberals accepted Lakoff's hypothesis and hailed it as the path out of their political quagmire. Howard Dean, for instance, referred to the now-popular Lakoff as "one of the most influential thinkers of the progressive movement." As such, liberal media pundits called for Democrats to finally unify and reframe their party's disjointed agenda. Only then, they argued, could the minority Democrats truly appeal to voters as a visionary political party and not simply a GOP alternative.
At first, this approach seemed to work. The Democrats successfully thwarted GOP attempts to repeal the filibuster, claiming the Republicans were acting like tyrants drunk on power, threatening the system of checks and balances that keeps our political system free from tyranny. Never mind that the filibuster has nothing to do with checks and balances; it is a parliamentary tactic, one largely unrelated to the system that divides authority among the three branches of government. The Democrats successfully framed the debate; they said Republicans just weren't playing fair, and U.S. citizens certainly could get behind that simple postulate.
Yet this initial success has given way in the past month to more muddled results. Democrats certainly didn't know what message to send about the nomination of John Roberts. Some senators appealed to the radical left and opposed him; others acceded to a more moderate base and voted to confirm. And the Democrats have failed to take advantage of President Bush's damaged poll numbers following Hurricane Katrina. Instead of offering an alternative vision for the United States in the wake of catastrophe, the Dems presented a cacophony of disjointed, caustic lectures. There's no vision in that.
Forget Kansas - what's the matter with Democrats?
The Democrats are realizing that it's pretty simple to frame the opposing party in a critical light. How should we view the Republicans today? As abusers of power? As inept cronies, as economic elites in an ivory tower? Negative framing is a piece of cake. It's far more difficult for Dems to frame themselves positively. To do so, Democrats need to dig deep into their convictions and rediscover exactly what makes them tick.
For years, the Democrats have suffered an identity crisis, and no amount of framing can change that. Even if some catchphrases might test well with focus groups, no phrase can actually tell a voter who a politician really is. It's time for substance, not frames.
For the most part, a critical analysis of liberal beliefs has been swept aside by the popularity of books such as "Elephant!" and "What's the Matter with Kansas?" Instead of critically engaging core Democratic beliefs, these works have simply framed the GOP as a political pied piper that lured voters astray from the Democratic ideals liberal pundits presume to be superior.
Framing the failures of the opposing party cannot rectify the Democrats' collapse. Only a return to substance can do that. Republicans might find it easier to communicate not because they have funded an insidious cabal of linguistic researchers, but because they understand and feel comfortable in their convictions. Do Democrats? Liberals need to discover reasonable - and honest - answers to these questions soon, or they might end up holding a frame with no picture to put in it.
Nicholas Swisher '08 was framed.
