The FrameLab Book Club is launching in 2025! First on the list: “The Political Mind: A Cognitive Scientist’s Guide to Your Brain and Its Politics” by Dr. George Lakoff.
Nearly 400 readers have signed up to participate! This online book club will feature personal insights from Dr. Lakoff, as well as an ongoing Q&A with readers.
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It happened.
Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris. A twice-impeached convicted felon who has promised to act as a dictator will return to the White House in 2025.
There’s no way to sugarcoat this nightmare scenario. The consequences of this election will unfold for decades to come. They will likely prove destructive to the very fabric of American democracy – and to the survival of life on Earth itself.
Trump is the greatest threat we have ever faced. Yet he will return to power by a vote of the people. Whatever the fate of our nation is, it involves getting through this. We must be up to the task.
Understandably, there’s plenty of blame and finger-pointing to go around. The Harris campaign painted a rosy picture to the very end. Many trusted pollsters and pundits predicted a Democratic victory. They said the fundamentals were favorable to Harris. They said turnout would work in her favor. They said anti-Trump Republicans and women would make all the difference.
They turned out to be very wrong.
Republicans scored a shocking win. The “Blue Wall” crumbled as Trump won battleground states. Republicans took the Senate and the House. Many pollsters and pundits who expressed exceeding confidence about Harris’s chances are now in panic mode. And the Democratic Party is gravely damaged as the nation heads into an uncertain future.
At FrameLab, we didn’t make predictions. We tried to be optimistic but acknowledged the grim possibility of a Trump victory. The fact that he remained strong in the polls was a warning sign. Trumpism has grown stronger, not weaker. Defeating this new iteration of Trump – overtly fascist – will be the moral and political challenge of our times.
Read the full post at the FrameLab newsletter (and please subscribe for free!):
From the FrameLab Newsletter:
While Putin has stalled in Ukraine, he appears to be making significant gains here in the United States of America.
On February 20, federal authorities revealed that the man at the heart of scurrilous allegations against the President Biden — Alexander Smirnov — admitted to having lied about Biden at the behest of Russian intelligence. Smirnov’s lies, designed by Russian intelligence agents, became the basis for Republican investigations targeting the president and his son, Hunter Biden.
While Putin has not been successful in conquering Ukraine, he’s clearly had more luck conquering the Republican Party. The alignment between Trump’s GOP and Putin’s Russia becomes clearer with every passing day. Thanks to the Smirnov affair, we now see how quickly and easily Putin’s lies become Republican talking points.
From the FrameLab Newsletter:
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis broke a major rule of authoritarian politics at the very moment he launched his 2024 presidential campaign. Now his campaign is going broke, stalling in the polls and laying off staff. His most enthusiastic supporters, like the Fox channel’s Rupert Murdoch, are abandoning him. The political press, having served to build DeSantis up over the past few months, is now deconstructing his failures.
DeSantis certainly did his best to emulate — and, in some cases, exceed — Trump’s use of deliberately cruel strongman politics to attract media attention. But DeSantis was only an imitation Trump — a cheap facsimile of the man who now exerts cultish control over the Republican Party.
By trying to run against Trump, he broke a cardinal rule: He betrayed Trump. This violated a central tenet of the moral system underlying Republican politics.
Read more at FrameLab: https://framelab.substack.com/p/desantis-disaster-why-the-wannabe-dictator
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George Lakoff 