Taking back words from conservatives….
Liberty; patriotism; rule of law; national security; family values; and protecting life.
One of the most fascinating aspects of the Harris-Walz presidential campaign is how they have seem to have grasped something that the distinguished linguist George Lakoff has been trying to knock into liberal heads for decades - that liberals have to campaign on their values, not try to argue with conservatives about their values.
For decades, conservatives have worked hard to redefine words to fit their worldview, he said. “In so doing, they have changed the meaning of some of our most important concepts and have stolen our language. Most notably, they have redefined the word ‘liberal’. They have turned it upside down. What once was--and still should be--a badge of pride is now a label to run from.”
Now, as the New Yorker and other publications have noted, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have reclaimed ‘freedom’ as a word and concept. “Two weeks ago, as Harris emerged from Air Force Two to enter a hangar at the Detroit airport, where thousands of supporters waited and cheered, speakers blasted “Freedom,” Beyoncé’s anthem of defiance and redemption, with its chorus of “Freedom! Freedom! Where are you? ’Cause I need freedom, too.” The song has fast become the soundtrack of Harris’s campaign, and “freedom” her talisman as she pitches a Presidency that redefines the word.”
Lakoff long ago distinguished two different frames or world views. One sees government as a strict father; one as a nurturant parent.
In the strict-father worldview: "The father is the ultimate authority, he knows right from wrong, his job is to protect the family and so he's the strongest person, and because he knows right from wrong, his authority is deserved. His children are born bad, because they just do what feels good, they don't do what's right. They have to be trained out of feelgood liberalism into doing what's right. You have to punish the kids painfully enough that they'll start doing what's right and they'll get discipline. If they're disciplined, they go out into the world, and they earn a living. If they're not earning a living, they're not disciplined, therefore they can't be moral and they deserve their poverty."
The conservative moral hierarchy at the heart of Republican ideology explains why they believe what they believe:
God above Man
Man above Nature
The Disciplined (Strong) above the Undisciplined (Weak)
The Rich above the Poor
Employers above Employees
Adults above Children
Western culture above other cultures
America above other countries
Men above Women
Whites above Nonwhites
Christians above non-Christians
Straights above Gays
In the egalitarian nurturant-family model, the ideals are empathy, interdependence, co-operation, communication, authority that is legitimate and proves its legitimacy with its openness to interrogation.
“If you're talking to somebody who is not a progressive, not a Democrat, who might be a moderate Republican--somebody who is a moderate, who is mostly conservative, but partly progressive, in certain ways--what you want to do is strengthen those progressive views. The reason is this: When you strengthen one progressive view—or one conservative view, either way—what you do is strengthen the moral system,” Lakoff explained in a 2014 article in Salon.
“The reason for that is that in the brain, there's a hierarchy of frames, which is there in neural circuitry. When you strengthen something lower in the hierarchy that implies strengthening things up higher in the hierarchy, which is the way that neural system works.”
But progressives who think they have to speak in conservative language strengthen the conservative moral system and weaken their own, he says.
In The Cry for Democratic Moral Leadership and Effective Communication in the Huffington Post in September 2010, he explained this further.
“Morality is behind everything in politics -- and progressives and conservatives have different moral systems. In the conservative moral system, the highest value is preserving and extending the moral system itself.” They see their attacks on government as moral, with government seen as taking money out of working people's pockets and giving it to people who don't deserve it. Jobless benefits are seen as giving money to people who are not working and don't deserve it. Even social security is seen as undeserving people "sucking on the tits of the government."
Many Americans are conservative in some respects and progressive in other respects, he says. “And it is language -- moral language, not policy language, heard over and over -- that strengthens one political moral system over the other and determines how people vote. The Democrats need to reach the swing thinkers -- the people who are moral conservatives on some issues and moral progressives on others -- and strengthen their progressive moral views. The kitchen table arguments must become moral arguments as well -- arguments about freedom, life, fairness, and the most central of American values.”
Lakoff says the key, for those arguing the liberal case, is: “Offense not defense. Argue for your values. Frame all issues in terms of your values. Avoid their language, even in arguing against them. ….Don't list their arguments and argue against them using their language. It just activates their arguments in the brains of listeners.”
In Thinking Points: Communicating Our American Values and Vision, A Progressive's Handbook, Lakoff identifies several key concepts that the right wing has worked to redefine and suggests ways that progressives can begin to reclaim them - including liberty; patriotism; rule of law; national security; family values; and protection of life.
One clear example of such redefinition, I think, is how, in the Kansas referendum on abortion and in the Harris-Walz rallies, freedom means government should not be telling women, or families, what they can or cannot do. Or, as Walz often says: ‘Mind your own damn business.”
““When Republicans use the word ‘freedom,’ they mean that the government should be free to invade your doctor’s office, corporations free to pollute your air and water, and banks free to take advantage of customers,” Walz said at the Democratic Party convention. “But when we Democrats talk about freedom, we mean the freedom to make a better life for yourself and the people that you love, freedom to make your own healthcare decisions, and yeah, your kids’ freedom to go to school without worrying about being shot.”
Harris speaks of freedom in a way “that recalls the New Deal and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s freedom from want, one of the Four Freedoms he enumerated in defense of America’s involvement in the Second World War.”
“Taking back these and other words is a long-term enterprise,” Lakoff said. “The right didn't snatch them overnight, and we can't take them back quickly, either. But they can be reclaimed. They must be spoken often. And they must be spoken in the contexts in which progressives understand them.”"
And it seems to me that this is what Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are doing.
If you’re interested in reading more of Lakoff’s writings, you can find them listed here.