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.
Join them by subscribing to FrameLab (paywall-free). Click here for more information.
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!):
PRESS RELEASE: The Elephant! Returns: “The Father of Framing” Offers Bold New Strategies Ten years after writing the definitive and bestselling book on political debate and messaging, George Lakoff returns with new strategies about how to frame the key political issues being debated today: climate change, inequality, immigration, education, personhood, abortion, marriage, healthcare, and more.
The ALL NEW Don’t Think of an Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate picks up where the original book left off, but delving deeper into:
This book is the essential progressive guide for the issues that define our future: climate, inequality, immigration, health care, and more. (preorder your copy today, books ship in early-mid September) Continue reading
Last week, on April 13, 2011, President Obama gave all Democrats and all progressives a remarkable gift. Most of them barely noticed. They looked at the President’s speech as if it were only about budgetary details. But the speech went well beyond the budget. It went to the heart of progressive thought and the nature of American democracy, and it gave all progressives a model of how to think and talk about every issue.
It was a landmark speech. It should be watched and read carefully and repeatedly by every progressive who cares about our country — whether Democratic office-holder, staffer, writer, or campaign worker — and every progressive blogger, activist and concerned citizen. The speech is a work of art.
The policy topic happened to be the budget, but he called it “The Country We Believe In” for a reason. The real topic was how the progressive moral system defines the democratic ideals America was founded on, and how those ideals apply to specific issues. Obama’s moral vision, which he applied to the budget, is more general: it applies to every issue. And it can be applied everywhere by everyone who shares that moral vision of American democracy.
For the first two years of his administration, President Obama had no overriding narrative, no frame to define his policy making, no way to make sense of what he was trying to do. As of his 2011 State of the Union Address, he has one: Competitiveness.
The competitiveness narrative is intended to serve a number of purposes at once:
1. Split the Republican business community off from the hard right, especially the Tea Party. Most business leaders want real economics, not ideological economics. And it is hard to pin the “socialist” label on a business-oriented president. He may succeed.
2. Attract biconceptuals – those who are conservative on some issues and progressive on other issues. They are sometimes mistakenly called “moderates” or “independents,” though there is no one ideology of the moderate or the independent. They make up 15 to 20 percent of the electorate, and many are conservative on economic issues and progressive on social issues. He attracted them in 2008, but not in 2010. He needs less than half to win in 2012. He may well succeed.
George Lakoff 