The usual pundits, for all their verbiage, have missed a lot, especially since they have nobody from the cognitive and brain sciences discussing the election. Here's part of what's been missing from the discussion.
First, conservatives have an extensive, but not obvious communications system, with many think tanks, framing experts, training institutes, a system of spokespeople linked by talking points, and bookers booking their people not just on radio and TV, but in lots of civic venues. This system is active not only in elections, but 24/7/365. Democrats have no comparable system.
Second, demographers report that the big swing in this election was among "independents." What are called "independents" are actually bi-conceptuals -- people who have both conservative and progressive conceptual systems in their brains, each inhibiting the other and usually applying to different issues. When such voters hear messages from one side but not the other, that side's moral system becomes active and is made stronger. That happened all over the country in this election.
Third, voters vote on the basis of their morality and their sense of self, which is a reflection of their moral values. In this election, conservatives reached the bi-conceptuals over the past year and a half preaching their morality (e.g. freedom -- government takeover; life -- death panels). The Obama administration only countered with policy, which goes in one ear and out the other. No moral leadership via messaging.
What is being missed is the enormous effect of this massive communications failure by the Democrats.
We appear to be tongue tied by our own cognitive dissonance and what we need are language boiler plates and lots and lots of examples. Lets start with the top 100 issues and create detailed and highly accessible moral language and a language framework to help bring balance in the messaging system to show that Americans Do Care for One Another and that we are intent on speaking the language of the heart and soul and to learn to speak from our deep sense of morality and overcome our over dependence on rationality at least from a messaging standpoint.
George, Help redefine Progressive Moral Language. Build it and We will Speak it.
Duffminster
In this election, Democrats were trying to persuade the electorate that the government needed to spend nearly $1 trillion that it didn't have to stimulate the economy; that the government needed to bail out the failing companies that most people blame for the crash; and that the government wants to make everyone buy health insurance, whether you want it or not. The Republicans only had to persuade the people that the government is spending too much money and taking in too much in taxes. No matter how you explain it, Democrats clearly had the more difficult message to sell.
http://www.hopeandchange.net
Why didn't he add what the real moral outrage Obama should decry is...the tyranny of Wall St for example. You see, the right words for this tyranny are scarce [and the space to elaborate scarce, though we deserve some]. We heard'em on Moyers. We hear'em from Nader. But even the bad morality of W St tyranny laid bare...isn't enough. The words must also explain WHAT WALL ST DOES. And the words that explain that to THE DUDE ON THE STREET are even scarcer. There are too many niche pts of view IMO that are considered worth SELLING. That enable hundreds of "symbolic analysts" to make a living. This goes on and on, but the result is the picture many folks get is fragmented.
I started realizing the real problem with liberals as models when I read Christopher Lasch's breakdown of Michael Young's critique of "meritocracy." It isn't some dark inchoate anarchistic dialectic or anything. It's something without all that mystery, and thus the hawkers have had no means of selling it as a commodity. And yet it...and also what Chris Hedges writes for instance...to me is/are a kind of middle way where things are explained as opposed to...glib formulaic rhetoric offered for we lowerlings to mimic.
I endorsed Common Dreams and Bold Progressives above, so you should have realized I was talking about a given demographic (a big one IMO).
There needs to be a strong enough rhetoric that doesn't let the bullies win with name calling and villifying rather than sticking to facts and opinion based upon facts, not emotion.
You and I get drowned out. We lose.
Train all of your rational friends to do the same, then train them like you've been trained.
I'm not trying to be elitist, I am just trying to point out a boring fact about the world and people around us.
That's true. Dems believe manifest destiny will carry the torch of their truth to the front of the field. No need to sweat it! Try to download a Democracy Now show recently (not stream, download)? Listen to Leslie Marshall or Alan Colmes on AM radio dance around issues up til a month before elections? [Colmes is still dancing away from the economy; Marshall got much better as the time drew nigh] Hey, how bout the hoops in posting on the Huff-Po message board??? Well, if you can't set the timer to record Jon Stewart...you're the riff raff and there is nothing else available. The "symbolic analysts" in liberal media cannot have their presuppositions challenged. In a medium that lives and breathes graphics one site (MoJo) alone gave us graphics of the stimuli.
As much as "strict father" vs "nurturant parent" might be hugely significant, I believe a significant dichotomy in this country exists between those who conceive they have the education (the meritocrats) and those who can't stand the airs of the crats. The MIMESIS is rabid [and, until just before elections, barely a hair beyond "merchants of cool" nihilism]...don't dare challenge Colmes' "Sudden Death" gong crew! BTW, I'm for Single Payer and a bigger stimulus geared to...the unemployed.
Nevertheless, CD was right on pt to share the Karen Dolan "Buck Up.." article. Bold Progressives also on pt IMO.
Nader pointed out that 3% of eligible voters brought on this whole thing. And so I must ask, what were we Dems doing? Now...to say what it was and why it was is a large ball of wax. And I am just a little cog. But with my little pea brain I do venture to blame it on sort of a mesmorization. We are mesmorized by the stuff coming down from the established dudes that we thought believed in progressivism. Lakoff for instance seems very general to me. He said the O admin countered the moral message only with policy message.
cont later or whenever this site will allow
And we all must remember that pundits, frankly, exist for one thing - ratings. No ratings, no job. THAT is why they say the things they say - to make you mad enough that you'll tune in again tomorrow night.
Ratings. Ad dollars. Salaries.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/11/4/917010/-GOP-captures-30-of-voters-who-want-more-spending-to-create-jobs
While there is some coordination between the money pushing this troubling propaganda, hopefully we are not yet to the point of a vast right-wing conspiracy. It is more of a vast conservative chorus, singing the same tune day and night and drowning out any voice of reason to prevent opposing views from being heard or considered.
We Americans will never progress if we cannot appreciate how this completely immersive propaganda experience has created irrational candidates like Sharon Angle, Rand Paul and Christine O'Donnell and irrational people who will vote for them. They cannot understand consequences of what they advocate because virtually everything they believe about public policy is predicated upon lies that they accept as conventional wisdom.
Attack facts, attack lines of reasoning, but in general please do refrain from attacking other people's rational capacities. As long as you keep up this habit, the very effects on politics you seek will always allude you and all the rest of us.
And, to many people do that. How many FWs did you get in your email box that said preposterous things that were not checked for truth, if any? I know my neighbors bought into them and passed them on.
If the vote was won on that, then who is the fool here?
What is shocking is how many people have become "30-second soundbite citizens", having apparently disabled their brain's intellectual discernment functionality.
Meanwhile, Democratic strategists seem to be standing around looking lost, waiting for the public to wake up and see the hollowness and hypocrisy of the relentless Right-wing spin barrage. It will be a long, long, disappointing wait.
Will Rogers said, "I'm not a member of any organized political party. I'm a Democrat." Well, they better get organized when it comes to selling their message, or get used to eating Right-wing dust.
I think independents are actually either weak Democrats or weak Republicans.