SEND THE VACATIONING DEMS TO SCHOOL

Death panels, the death tax, mainstream media, the war on religion.

Much has been written about the right wing’s strategy of framing issues with emotion-stoking memes. And the Left’s insistence on framing with narratives suitable for college lectures. It’s so obviously true with so much observable evidence that it’s baffling how Dems don’t seem to get it. Except for Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

In the Congressional struggle to get even a watered-down version of a humane – as opposed to corporate profit-centered – health care system in place in 2009, the Republican bumper sticker said death panels and the Dems’ sticker: public option.

Let’s leave aside the fact that death panels – end of life consultations – were previously supported by the GOP. That simple bit of framing stoked massive voter outrage toward a bill that would have provided most of those voters with access to a life-lifting resource. Somehow public option didn’t win the debate in the chambers of the lizard brain. So again the GOP played its base into voting against their own interests.

The recent public push-back against the Republican attempt to repeal Obamacare was instrumental in the repeal’s defeat. All the Dems had to do was vote No. Nobody to persuade outside the chamber. Reality wrote the winning bumper sticker – take your pick: death panels or death by losing your health insurance.

If the courts finally do something to unlock the gerrymandered vice the GOP has on the electoral system, the Dems might get another shot at being useful. Hopefully they’ll devote their down time to some schooling on creative wordplay. Guess what Dems – you can be truthful and humane and use language that moves people emotionally. The GOP has a trademark on death but there are a few other words out there. I mean back in the ol’ days they came up with medi care. Not quite as zippy as good to the last drop, but beats the hell out of public option.

— Polar Levine, News Goo Dissection, December 29, 2016

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