Head Democrat Howard Dean has just, unintentionally I’m sure, given us a peek at the evolving new Democratic vocabulary. (HatTip to Drudge)
Old vocabulary: tell the truth.
New Dean Democratic vocabulary:
What the propagandists on the right have done is make people afraid to say they are Democrats,” Dean told a gathering of Vermont Democrats. “We have to be out there. We have to be vocal. We have to be pushing our version of the facts because their version of the facts is very unfactual.” (Emphasis added0
Old notion: the best argument wins debates.
New Democratic notion: the best job of “framing” wins:
“We need a message. It has to be clear,” he said. “The framing of the debate determines who wins the debate.
Well, yes. I suppose a clear message would help, but really, it’s all in the frame….
Old message: advocate change.
New Democratic message: position yourself as a “change agent.”
“We need to position ourselves as the party of change,” he said.
Now let us imagine an alternate history, with Howard Dean as …
Patrick Henry: “Give me a position that can be framed as a defense of liberty, or give me a post-facto abortion or doctor-assisted suicide….”
Thomas Jefferson: “We hold our version of the facts to be self-evident, that all men — no, no, make that all men and women of whatever racial or ethnic or national persuasion (for remember: ‘The face of the Democratic Party is such that it looks like all of America will look in 2050,’ as that future great American Howard Dean will say in 2005) are created equal (though some deserve to receive special preferences based on their color or ethnicity), that they are endowed by their Creator (or evolution) with certain unalienable (even by undocumented aliens) claims on their government….”
Franklin Roosevelt: “We have nothing to fear but the very unfactual perception that we have framed our message so that our position appears to be fearful….”
John, with respect, I think this is tendentious and unfair. Different “versions of the facts” are out there (and distortion/stretching/&c. is by no means limited to one party). How a debate is “framed” is immensely important when it comes to convincing people to vote one way or another. And the party out of power at the moment is always the “party of change,” because in any existing society there are things that people want changed and differing ideas about what to change first and the best way to go about it.
In other words, Dean is saying here what any opposition politician would say. I grant you that in England it would read better.
Now, that Dean is spinning Kelo as a product of “Bush’s right-wing Supreme Court” . . . that really is a gaffe, and a major one.
“Old notion: the best argument wins debates.”
Do people on the right really think this?
Michelle – Alas, what you think is tendentious I think is funny, and I certainly will not attempt to argue with your sense of humor. But nothing I said suggests that I believe facts don’t have versions, or that I believe one side has a monopoly on distortion, etc. Re “framing,” I think the Democrats have all taken a collective jump in the Lakoff, having swallowed Berkeley linguist George Lakoff’s advice (some in his writings, some as a consultant to them) about the importance of “framing” the debate. I think they would do better to spend more time on developing an argument and less on worrying about how to frame it.
actus – Yes.
Ah, well. I didn’t think it was funny, but senses of humor differ. On Lakoff, though, I bet we agree. I once sat down to read his taxonomy of stern-Daddy Republicans and nurturing-[genderless]-parents and wondered rather maliciously where he’d file a hawkish generally-free-trade registered Democrat who thought Roe was wrongly decided and gay marriage should be allowed. What, is that not one of the labeled bins? But we’re social scientists; we’ve labeled everything!
“actus – Yes.”
Because I’d say, defining the debate wins debates. And elections. “best arguments” is, at best, a relativistic and standardless term.
Framing the debate is the only thing that the Dems can do, because they are unwilling to revisit their core beliefs and admit that what they hold so dear has turned out to be a catastrophe. Dems think that they lose out on values voters (but, as John said, isn’t everyone a values voter) because they don’t couch their language in religious terms, rather than Dems not supporting any issues that are important to that voting cohort. They are trying to beat the same dead horse with entitlements, changing the rhetoric to be in religious terms (blessed are the meek, etc.) rather than realize that voters in this country will reject blatant wealth transfer initiatives (as opposed to wealth creation strategies) no matter what type of flowery rhetoric it is draped in.
Or, to keep it relevant to this site’s main point of interest, quotas become “guidelines”, “goals”, “targets” and “suggestions”. Quotas and remedy for past discrimination become “diversity”, and “enrichment of the intellectual environment”.
To steal a line from John Edwards, no amount of lipstick will make that pig look good.
This is why Dems think the only way out is to “frame the debate” better. Anything else, and they’d have some serious soul searching to do.
actus,
“[B]est arguments” is, at best, a relativistic and standardless term.
Really? You’d say that, say, there are no “best arguments” in a debate about modern French vs. Chernobyl-era Soviet nuclear reactor design? Or, if that’s too technical, in a debate about the relative health of the economies of North and South Korea? Surely you’ll allow at minimum that there are better and worse arguments.
“Or, if that’s too technical, in a debate about the relative health of the economies of North and South Korea? ”
I don’t think that’s the level of discussion we have in our political system.
actus,
I don’t think that’s the level of discussion we have in our political system.
Really? You don’t think people grasp that North Koreans are starving (and killed when they try to leave the country), while South Koreans are free to go wherever they want and seem not to be lacking for food or anything else? Or is “starving people imprisoned on one side of the DMZ, prosperous people free to leave on the other side of the DMZ” just too danged complicated for the simple American brain?
“Really? You don’t think people grasp that North Koreans are starving (and killed when they try to leave the country), while South Koreans are free to go wherever they want and seem not to be lacking for food or anything else?”
I don’t think that the political choices we are arguing over are as stark as the north south divide. But nice framing!
actus, what you said was
“[B]est arguments” is, at best, a relativistic and standardless term.
and what I tried to say was that there are obvious cases in which there is a, well, “best argument.” If you think there aren’t any, say so. If you think there are, but they are “stark” and therefore irrevelant to the subtle American situation, say so also. But don’t dismiss taking your own position seriously as stated as “framing.”
I do think it’s funny that Dean talks about “our version of the facts”, instead of just saying “the facts”.
I mean, if even he doesn’t believe “his version” is the accurate version, why should anyone else?
I can only suspect that, deep down, he doesn’t.