George Lakoff is not saying anything new

A considerable amount of virtual ink has been spilled on both sides of the border praising George Lakoff’s recent Huffington Post piece on why progressives lose and conservatives win. It’s a scholarly essay that makes several good points but it states the obvious that the left, while good at policy, are perpetual losers and the right excels at marketing and therefore are winners.

It’s not difficult to see that the right wins because they massage the message to death. What does the left stand for? You got me and most Canadians and Americans. What does the right stand for? That’s easy. It promises a nanny state of authoritarianism. Canadians and Americans are bombarded with the message that conservatives will take care of them from nasty liberal criminals. They have god and country on their side while we have destitute amorality. They speak endlessly about freedom (while they work their asses off to take away actual freedoms) using haughty put downs and self-loving braggadocio.

Harper promises to build new prisons to accommodate all those invisible, unreported criminals hiding in the shadows ready to take away our bread. What does Ignatieff promise? Hell if I know. More wars? Sounds like it to me. Iraq, extending the Afghanistan mission, support for Israel’s right wing – that’s what I know that about Iggy but little else.

What about Layton? He blows whichever way the wind blows. What does he stand for? I haven’t a fucking clue. Canadians don’t have a neutral media to tell us what the left or centre is doing, so how are we supposed to know? Am I alone? Not a chance. Ask Canadians on the street. They probably know less than I do.

Obama? What does he stand for? Compromise and pushing through good and positive change. But do Americans know this? Hell no! Too many think he’s a scary Muslim socialist pushing an anti-American agenda to take away their freedoms.

Why do they think this? Like the Liberals and NDP in Canada, American Democrats have no marketing skills. They have no clear and iconic messaging. Few Americans know how health care reform will be good for them and their country. They don’t even know Obama has given the middle class a tax break – they are certain he has raised their taxes, all because the simplistic messaging of Republicans, echoed by a lazy and supplicant media.

For an example of the success of simple, concise messaging, look at Fantino and Ford. Don Cherry’s divisive, insulting and clear words that the left is a bunch of pinko commies struck a huge chord with Torontonians and I imagine with too many Canadians. Rob Ford’s Karl Rove employed obvious tactics like focus groups to funnel the campaign’s message into slogans that resonated with supposedly Canada’s most sophisticated city, propelling him to victory.

We are losing and have been some time, largely because we haven’t a clue how to get what we stand for into simple, clear, crisp talking points. Progressive bloggers have been pointing this out for a long time now. It’s no mystery. I’m a progressive blogger but I know far more about what the Conservatives and the GOP stand for than I do what the Liberals, NDP or Democrats represent. I’m not alone.

So, when Lakoff comes out and states the obvious, that is not news. And he’s wrong on one point. “Empathy” is no message to send. Empathy is how you send out your message, not the message itself. Nobody cares about terms like “empathy”.

Instead, we need to resonate with talking points that involve how progressive leaders can make our countries “excel”, “free us”, “prosper”, “lead”, and so on. There is no need for our leaders and their representatives to use the disparaging insults that the right uses to make their points heard and understood. Words are as important as the message itself. Tone is essential. That’s where we have a distinct advantage – if we knew how to use that leverage. But we don’t.

So, I applaud George Lakoff for reiterating the need for refining the message. He spoke directly to the eggheads – and bloggers – among us, but I doubt he made much headway with the average Joe. That’s the weird part of Lakoff’s own message; it was buried for most us under verbiage and detail. What does that say about our leaders’ own chances to simplify our progressive message into effective, memorable points when people like expert critics like Lakoff can’t do it themselves?