George Lakoff, author of Moral Politics, a senior fellow at the Rockridge Institute, and Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, has written widely on linguisics and politics. In this piece he applies the technique he calls "framing" to the recent California recall election.
Newspaper and TV reporters require a story. Each story requires a frame. How was the election of Arnold Schwartzenegger framed? Here is a selection:Voter Revolt: Gray Davis was such a bad governor that the voters justifiably ousted him and voted in the representative of the other party.
The Great Noncommunicator: Gray Davis governed as well as possible under the circumstances, but was so bad at communicating with the electorate that he could not communicate his real accomplishments, nor could he communicate the role of the Republicans in the state's problems. The public thought Davis was worse than he was and wanted a communicator, so they voted him out and chose an actor.
Those Kooky Californians: People in California are so weird that they voted a politically inexperienced bodybuilder-actor into office to replace a governor they voted for just last year.
The People Beat the Politicians: When the people win, politics as usual must lose (Schwarzenegger's acceptance speech).
Just a Celebrity: People don't understand politics and just voted for a celebrity.
Up By his Bootstraps: Coming here as an immigrant, Arnie worked and worked to become a champion body-builder, then a millionaire actor, and finally achieved his dream -- becoming governor.
Framing was rampant in reporting in this election. Frames come with inferences, so each framing implies something different.
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It is a general finding about frames that if a strongly held frame doesn't fit the facts, the facts will be ignored and the frame will be kept. The frames listed above don't do very well at fitting the facts -- though each has a grain of truth. Let's look at the facts that each frame hides.
Voter Revolt: This frame hides the national Republican effort over several years to make Davis look bad by hurting the California economy. It hides the fact that energy deregulation was brought in by Republican governor Pete Wilson. It ignores the fact that there was no real "energy crisis." It resulted from thievery by Enron and other heavy Bush contributors, thievery that was protected by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission run by Bush appointees. The Bush administration looked the other way while California was being bilked and went to great lengths not to help California financially in any of the many ways the federal government can help. Arnold had had a meeting with Ken Lay and other energy executives in spring 2001 when Lay was promoting deregulation, but denies any complicity in the theft. Arnold is now promoting energy deregulation again.
It also ignores the fact that California's Republican legislature also went out of its way to make Davis look bad, refusing to support reasonable measures for dealing with the budget problems. It ignores the fact that the recall petition was paid for by a wealthy conservative legislator and that signature gatherers were paid handsomely and that some signatures were from out of state, which is illegal. And it ignores the enormous amount of money and organization put into the Schwartzenegger campaign by Republicans. This was no simple popular revolution. Most of all, the "Voter Revolt" frame does not explain why Schwartzenegger should have been the candidate chosen.
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In 'Moral Politics,' I suggested that voters vote their identity -- they vote on the basis of who they are, what values they have, and who and what they admire. A certain number of voters identify themselves with their self-interest and vote accordingly. But that is the exception rather than the rule. There are other forms of personal identification -- with one's ethnicity, with one's values, with cultural stereotypes, and with culture heroes. The most powerful forms of identification so far as elections are concerned are with values and corresponding cultural stereotypes. The Republicans have discovered this and it is a major reason why they have been winning elections -- despite being in a minority. Democrats have not yet figured this out.The 'Moral Politics' discovery is that models of idealized family structure lie at the heart of our politics -- less literally than metaphorically. The very notion of the founding fathers uses a metaphor of the nation as family, not as something we think actively about, but as way of structuring our understanding of the enormous hard-to-conceptualize social group, the nation, in terms of something closer to home, the family. It is something we do automatically, usually without consciously thinking about it.
Our politics is organized around two opposite and idealized models of the family, the strict father and nurturant parent models.
Enough to whet your curiosity? Have a look at the whole thing, including his view on the importance of progressives acquiring the ability to frame their issues so that they are memorable.