Democrats make lousy narrators.
If you're a movement conservative -- the only kind of Republican in the media, which means the only kind of Republican who exists -- then everything that happens can be explained by the same simple story:
Once upon a time, there was a free market. Businesses were left alone to create jobs and wealth; traditional values endured; America ruled the world. But when Democrats had their chance, they killed business with big government; they destroyed the American way of life with immorality and coddling; they blamed America and romanticized our enemies.
No truths are too inconvenient to fit that frame. The Reagan and George W. Bush deficits had nothing to do with big government, nor does Medicare; hanky-panky from Enron to AIG proves nothing, nor does 9/11 on Bush's watch, nor the lack of WMDs in Iraq; discrimination went away by itself; and there was no cause for the trade union movement to exist; the Pentagon needs every weapon system it asks for, no matter how obsolete or bloated; we love our veterans, no matter how much they're shafted by the system when they come home from war.
But Democrats are tongue-tied. Whatever the issue -- health care, energy, the economy, trade -- it's complicated. Everything is always about everything else. Policies have seven sub-points. Issues have six sides. Progress is about compromise. Democracy is messy. Let me explain to you one more time why the banks are too big to fail.
Democrats may have the facts on their side, and things may well be too complex to explain with slogans, but that doesn't mean that locating events on a simple story line is beneath the dignity of educated people. Columnists like Frank Rich and Paul Krugman and Tom Friedman mange to fit the news of the world into a comprehensible, coherent, ongoing accounts of how we got to where we are. Why can't Democratic politicians?
You can't just blame the right-wing echo chamber. Yes, they're amplifiers of the Republican mythology; "journalism" is the wrong word to describe what Fox does with facts, and "entertainment" is too benign a term for Rush's demagoguery. But even if Glenn Beck and company didn't exist, the Democrats' account of how the world works would still be frustratingly unsatisfying.
Money explains a lot of this. The campaign finance system in this country is a cesspool, and it's led Democrats to become supplicants to predators on Wall Street and K Street. It's hard to tell the truth about paymasters you depend on for your media budget.
But I think there's a deeper reason that Democrats aren't good storytellers. It's their fundamental suspicion of story. The smarter you think you are, the more you're supposed to believe that stories are merely "narratives." They're necessary fabrications, secular parables. Fictions are the opiate of the masses. Irony, knowingness, the postmodern wink: that's honesty. Reagan's advantage as a storyteller was his sincerity; there was no gap between what he said and how he saw the world. But Democrats can't tell stories without giving the impression that they realize they're just scripts.
Our species is hardwired to pay attention to stories. We may no longer live in caves, but if Democrats want to hold their audience, maybe they need to remember that the professor at the blackboard is no match for the storyteller who holds us rapt around the fire.
Follow Marty Kaplan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/martykaplan
The great story tellers can convey messages of value with content on an elevator ride that last one floor not 36 floors.
Complicated messages with several levels of reason and emotion--create confusion not clarity.
This is a time in our country where we need great clarity.
Bill Couzens, Founder Less Cancer
Thanks for raising a great question.
The basic problem is that the Democratic story line asks people to oppose powerful forces which they feel overwhelmed by. If the President is too overwhelmed to get health care reform, why should ordinary citizens feel empowered to change anything? The only TV show that tells the Robin Hood story is Leverage. Otherwise it's good guys-bad guys cops and robbers, Republican stories.
So instead people seek to be entertained, titillated or spiritually uplifted.
Today I have a story up on HuffPo-- it's only about major energy companies dumping carcinogens into New York's water. Yuck -- how unpleasant! Gee, I'd rather read about peoples' sex dreams, wouldn't you?
Is there a way to make this story line appealing? Would welcome feedback either here or at my blog when you read it. I mean it, give me feedback. I will thank you!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alison-rose-levy/dont-frack-with-new-york_b_437184.html
Alison
www.healthjournalist.com
The facts are there for all to see, bu someone in the Democratic hierarchy needs to lay them out along a timeline and start pointing fingers. Reagan may have been a great storyteller, but the facts will show that his systematic assault on laws that kept the economy relatively sane for decades are responsible for the overwhelming majority of problems our country faces.
Of course the Democrats are also complicit in the crime, so perhaps that explains their timidity in laying blame.
For the moment, the "politically divided country" model that has been manufactured suits both parties well in that it provides them ample excuses to do nothing an let the corporations continue their steady annihilation of the American middle class.
Truly revolutionary, cost-competitive, energy breakthroughs are on their way.
Rowan University published experiments demonstrating excess heat that can only be explained by a new source of energy: fractional Hydrogen.
GEN3 Partners advise Fortune 100 firms and has successfully reproduced the experiments.
A barrel of ordinary water will become the energy equivalent of 200 barrels of oil!
BlackLight Power states that 50-75 kilowatt prototype power plants will be demonstrated this year. Six utilities, including PacifiCorp and Conectiv have agreed to purchase more than 8,000 megawatts of electricity.
Our own, very different, fractional Hydrogen technology is aimed at cost-competitive automotive applications.
One gallon of water might fuel a hybrid car for 1,000 miles!
See: Love Affair with Autos Allows a Seductive Alternative - on the website -
http://www.aesopinstitute.org
That article includes even more difficult to believe magnetic generators. These will replace many types of batteries, including those needed for electric vehicles. No recharge required.
Both technologies will allow cars and trucks to become power plants when parked:
No wires necessary.
Vehicles will be able to pay for themselves!
Once convincingly validated by independent laboratories, these almost impossible to believe technologies will change all of our conventional assumptions about energy and cars..
With a 24/7 development program that could happen faster than might be imagined!
A true story with a great ending - an abundant economy and a safer planet.
Robert Heinlein
Arthur Clarke's First Law: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
But by far the greatest obstacle to the progress of science and to the undertaking of new tasks and provinces therein is found in this–that men despair and think things impossible. Sir Francis Bacon
Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible. Simon Newcomb
Some say that science dictates, or at least its old rules said, that it is impossible for bumblebees to fly. This may be a myth, but wouldn't you like to think that every time you look at the bees, you are seeing that there is no such thing as the impossible?
Joe Rukin
A man with a new idea is a crank until he succeeds.
Mark Twain
"Big corporations have been steadily accumulating political and economic power and are undermining our individual liberties and turning the working American people back into slaves."
It is simple, understandable, and it will play in middle America. I think that part of the fury in Massachusetts was over the fact that people thought they had voted to change that trend and have instead seen it continue almost unabated.
We HAVE the story people, we just have to tell it ourselves rather than expecting any of the entrenched and throughly bought political parties to do it.
However, the Mass election is just continuing that noxious trend.
Yes, and unfortunately, too many Democrats have shown themselves to be as loyal to their corporate overlords as their Republican counterparts. And with SCOTUS overturning the long-standing ban of corporate participation in the political process, this will only get progressively worse in the years to come.
THAT is why the simple stories work the best. Do you think that the average tea bagger can name more than one founding father, much less tell you what he'd written back then? Do you think the average conservative can tell you the difference between democracy and facism? Or whether the founding fathers thought that capitalism was
You did not give us the "typical progressive' thumbnail, but if you did, I think it would very obvious who sees the world as black and white.
The Democrats don't support progressive programs. Instead, they try to talk as if they are populists while acting like right-wingers. They embrace corruption, soliciting bribes from every Inc. in the world. They negotiate with lobbyists to let the corporations write the laws, then vote to pass them. They make sure to line up big-paying jobs for their spouses while in office and for themselves when they leave elected positions.
The contradictions between what the Democrats are and what they say they are is too great for them to explain away.
They got majority control and did nothing. There is nothing more to discuss.
2.) My compensation is over 250K. What gives you the right to say that it should be taxed and redistributed?
As for your 2nd paragraph, I agree, the Dems are loosers. So are the R's.
Oh and rights are given by society, and there is no inherent "right" of property. Society can take it by vote, or pitchfork if you like. You choose.
Oh and watch out, if you think the dems are too conservative, then the dems will blame you for their loss.
Same time period, the dems were in the 'wilderness' trying to regroup from the murder of JFK, MLK, RFK, our national leaders of the 1960s cut down in their prime.
Yes, the dems have a true story to tell but they need for somebody to write the script for them, put it in a story for them to tell. We need Hollywood to write the script.
People are raised with bias. Religious types are bias against abortion and gays. Business students have pro bias for corporations. Southern whites have bias against blacks. Everyone has bias against free loaders, corruption and things that are unfair. Mostly people are biased against change and the unknown.
What the republicans have done is built their platform on bias. This bias allows them to ignore facts for a story, for a compelling angle to appeal to people's known biases. Overcoming bias is one of the most difficult things an individual can do. It means admitting fault, admitting your wrong- most people are too stuborn and vain to do either. It's easier to cling to preconcieved notions- even if they are wrong.
So who's more biased than the religious, the biggots, the greedy, the uneducated?? Who will these types vote for??