« Wal-Mart Panty Scandal Just More Dehumanization | Main | AuCoin echoes GOP frame, undermines Novick's message »

December 12, 2007

Dissecting a GOP frame

Those wily Republicans love to set traps for Democrats. Anyone familiar with George Lakoff knows that he has put a lot of effort into educating Progressives on how effective frames work and why they've so often fallen victim to Conservative's frames. Although many have learned, many others still struggle with grasping how it works. Taking our cue from the infamous military strategist par excellence, Sun Tzu, let's break down a classic example to illustrate how it's designed to operate.

Set up a vote combining something about the military that Republicans want approved with language expressing support for the troops. This is a classic GOP frame. We saw this here in the Oregon legislature with the 2003 HR 2 which combined expressions of support for Bush's rational for attacking Iraq with language expressing support for the troops. We also saw it in 2004 with the Congressional HR 627 which combined condeming abuses of Iraqi detainees in Coalition custody in Iraq with praise for the troops.

How it works:

Vote for the GOP frame and you get painted with supporting everything in it. Vote against the GOP frame and you get painted with rejecting everything in it. But don't just take my word for it, Republicans are more than willing to demonstrate it themselves.

The next time you see a progressive asserting or insinuating that this classic GOP frame doesn't include voting against whatever it is, you can know that that person either doesn't understand how the trap works or is lying to you. Against the backdrop of the last dozen years being littered with example after example of successful GOP frames and unsuccessful Dem frames, there really can't be any other explanations.

Posted by Kevin at December 12, 2007 11:59 PM