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 George Lakoff and Gil Duran at the FrameLab Newsletter:
Moderate and centrist are political weasel words. Their definitions vary widely because there is no such thing as a moderate or centrist ideology. There is no united “middle” or “center” in politics, no single set of ideas on which all moderates or centrists agree. Some support abortion rights, but others oppose them. Some support marriage equality, but others don’t.
For example, Nikki Haley was often described as moderate. Yet the Republican former presidential candidate wouldn’t get many votes in San Francisco. Neither would Elon Musk, who has called himself both a “centrist” and a “moderate” while simultaneously acting a superspreader of right-wing ideas and conspiracy theories.
More to the point: Both Haley and Musk are now backing Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. Clearly, they have simply been trying to mask their extreme authoritarian politics as “moderate.”
Click here to read the full post: ‘Moderate’: The weasel word masking extreme politics by George Lakoff and Gil Duran at FrameLab.
And please subscribe (it’s FREE) to keep up with Dr. Lakoff’s latest work.
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
And please join thousands of other readers by becoming a subscriber.
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
By George Lakoff
Political journalists have a job to do — to examine the SOTU’s long list of proposals. They are doing that job, many are doing it well, and I’ll leave it to them. Instead, I want to discuss what in the long run is a deeper question: How did the SOTU help to change public discourse? What is the change? And technically, how did it work? Continue reading
George Lakoff 