• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

This Is How We Got Where We Are

What if...?

DP Veteran
Joined
Sep 10, 2010
Messages
38,119
Reaction score
15,771
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Other
Our current divide is not an accident. It is the result of a strategy spearheaded by Newt Gingrich to seize power after the Republican Party lost a bunch of seats after the Nixon impeachment and couldn't seem to get them back.

It involved the use of cognitive linguistic techniques cynically adopted to destroy bipartisan cooperation in favor of gridlock and "winner take all" politics.

My favorite of his memos from GOPAC, distributed to Republican candidates, was called: "Language: A Key Mechanism Of Control". I **** you not. It is linked to in one of the articles below.

A couple of these are pretty long, but they are interesting in that they are from the same paper six years apart. The first critical of his impact on our politics and the other an interview where he takes full credit for where we are and the cynical manipulation and deep divide our country is in as a result.

This is how we got here. This is how we got to where we sit behind razor wire and sandbags and hurl hateful insults at each other. Why "my" side is freaked out by the lockstep synchronization of conservative opinion and the "other" side is hovering on the edge of violence to protect America from socialism and the end of America as we know it.

Please read the articles if you wish to respond. I will not respond to posters that clearly did not. Feel free to bring your own examples. Especially those from the left, as they have started doing it too, albeit a little late.

So the first two are about Gingrich, from 2012 and 2018:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...ARAB&usg=AOvVaw2psEIJD-EIhScRp7-lE7iV&ampcf=1

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...ARAB&usg=AOvVaw2psEIJD-EIhScRp7-lE7iV&ampcf=1

The third is an article about the techniques themselves and the science upon which they were based:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...ARAB&usg=AOvVaw2psEIJD-EIhScRp7-lE7iV&ampcf=1

This topic will elicit strong emotional reactions as it will contain words and phrases chosen for that reason. Please try to keep this in mind.

And as you read the articles, notice how all of the techniques discussed pepper all of our political messaging. It is all cynical manipulation. And we as a society need to address this phenomenon as it relates to our politics. It divides, by design. It makes us enemies instead of fellow citizens, by design.

We cannot continue to function as a nation in this environment. We will never be able to return to civil discourse and compromise and bipartisan efforts to address our problems until we address the toxic fruits of a hundred years of behavioral research conducted for the sole purpose of getting us to accept what we would reject and reject what we would embrace if we were simply told the truth.

We used to be better. We can be again.

And please remember, I reject the use of these techniques themselves. You cannot get me to defend liberal use of them. Instead, please cite them and enjoy a liberal agreeing with you!
 
Gingrich gerrymandered Georgia (and other places). Didn't take some linguistics trick.
 
The links (which all appear to be to the same web page) do not work (load anything at all) for me.
 
Our current divide is not an accident. It is the result of a strategy spearheaded by Newt Gingrich to seize power after the Republican Party lost a bunch of seats after the Nixon impeachment and couldn't seem to get them back.

It involved the use of cognitive linguistic techniques cynically adopted to destroy bipartisan cooperation in favor of gridlock and "winner take all" politics.

My favorite of his memos from GOPAC, distributed to Republican candidates, was called: "Language: A Key Mechanism Of Control". I **** you not. It is linked to in one of the articles below.

A couple of these are pretty long, but they are interesting in that they are from the same paper six years apart. The first critical of his impact on our politics and the other an interview where he takes full credit for where we are and the cynical manipulation and deep divide our country is in as a result.

This is how we got here. This is how we got to where we sit behind razor wire and sandbags and hurl hateful insults at each other. Why "my" side is freaked out by the lockstep synchronization of conservative opinion and the "other" side is hovering on the edge of violence to protect America from socialism and the end of America as we know it.

Please read the articles if you wish to respond. I will not respond to posters that clearly did not. Feel free to bring your own examples. Especially those from the left, as they have started doing it too, albeit a little late.

So the first two are about Gingrich, from 2012 and 2018:

This topic will elicit strong emotional reactions as it will contain words and phrases chosen for that reason. Please try to keep this in mind.

And as you read the articles, notice how all of the techniques discussed pepper all of our political messaging. It is all cynical manipulation. And we as a society need to address this phenomenon as it relates to our politics. It divides, by design. It makes us enemies instead of fellow citizens, by design.

We cannot continue to function as a nation in this environment. We will never be able to return to civil discourse and compromise and bipartisan efforts to address our problems until we address the toxic fruits of a hundred years of behavioral research conducted for the sole purpose of getting us to accept what we would reject and reject what we would embrace if we were simply told the truth.

We used to be better. We can be again.

And please remember, I reject the use of these techniques themselves. You cannot get me to defend liberal use of them. Instead, please cite them and enjoy a liberal agreeing with you!

First of all, all three citations are the exact same article "trump impeachment Updated on Sept. 30, 2019 The Impeachment Process Explained: What Happens to Trump Now? By Ed Kilgore." The article has nothing to do with your OP.

Second of all, not being able to review your "evidence" the assertion that we are where we are today thanks to "Newt Gingrich" is hard to credit.

Thirdly, power politics has been an ongoing process long before Mr. Gingrich took any office. IMO You give him too much credit, whatever your evidence.

The methods of propaganda and the perversions of public information have their roots long before any recent politician, starting with the yellow journalism of early printed reporting, through Goebbels' Ministry, through today's manipulation of the internet and other media by those who control it.

Moreover, opinion has it that radical changes in direction effected by socialist involvement in our educational system in the 60's, 70's, and 80's molding the minds of our youth and therefore society as a whole were/are also in play.

We used to be "better" because despite all it's faults we had a strong belief in our basic socio-political systems and the ideals uniting our nation. Now we have radical divisions separating us in ways more insidious and less obvious than the old racial divides.

We have grievance "pseudo-science," identity politics, political correctness, globalism, a hierarchy of oppression, gender dysphoria, etc., etc., ad nauseum being fed to our youth. Youth indoctrinated who then become adults pushing this divide amongst us. A divide clearly reflected in current politics.

So no, without having a chance to review your basis, I see nothing that shows the current "divide" can be lain at the feet of "Newt Gingrich."
 
Last edited:
First of all, all three citations are the exact same article "trump impeachment Updated on Sept. 30, 2019 The Impeachment Process Explained: What Happens to Trump Now? By Ed Kilgore." The article has nothing to do with your OP.

Second of all, not being able to review your "evidence" the assertion that we are where we are today thanks to "Newt Gingrich" is hard to credit.

Thirdly, power politics has been an ongoing process long before Mr. Gingrich took any office. IMO You give him too much credit, whatever your evidence.

The methods of propaganda and the perversions of public information have their roots long before any recent politician, starting with the yellow journalism of early printed reporting, through Goebbels' Ministry, through today's manipulation of the internet and other media by those who control it.

Moreover, opinion has it that radical changes in direction effected by socialist involvement in our educational system in the 60's, 70's, and 80's molding the minds of our youth and therefore society as a whole were/are also in play.

We used to be "better" because despite all it's faults we had a strong belief in our basic socio-political systems and the ideals uniting our nation. Now we have radical divisions separating us in ways more insidious and less obvious than the old racial divides.

We have grievance "pseudo-science," identity politics, political correctness, globalism, a hierarchy of oppression, gender dysphoria, etc., etc., ad nauseum being fed to our youth. Youth indoctrinated who then become adults pushing this divide amongst us. A divide clearly reflected in current politics.

So no, without having a chance to review your basis, I see nothing that shows the current "divide" can be lain at the feet of "Newt Gingrich."

Well hell. They worked in preview mode.

I had three save and that was none of them.

I will figure out how to get the right ones up.
 
The links (which all appear to be to the same web page) do not work (load anything at all) for me.

Dammit. They worked in preview.

I will get the right ones up. This is why I don't start theses!
 
First of all, all three citations are the exact same article "trump impeachment Updated on Sept. 30, 2019 The Impeachment Process Explained: What Happens to Trump Now? By Ed Kilgore." The article has nothing to do with your OP.

Second of all, not being able to review your "evidence" the assertion that we are where we are today thanks to "Newt Gingrich" is hard to credit.

Thirdly, power politics has been an ongoing process long before Mr. Gingrich took any office. IMO You give him too much credit, whatever your evidence.

The methods of propaganda and the perversions of public information have their roots long before any recent politician, starting with the yellow journalism of early printed reporting, through Goebbels' Ministry, through today's manipulation of the internet and other media by those who control it.

Moreover, opinion has it that radical changes in direction effected by socialist involvement in our educational system in the 60's, 70's, and 80's molding the minds of our youth and therefore society as a whole were/are also in play.

We used to be "better" because despite all it's faults we had a strong belief in our basic socio-political systems and the ideals uniting our nation. Now we have radical divisions separating us in ways more insidious and less obvious than the old racial divides.

We have grievance "pseudo-science," identity politics, political correctness, globalism, a hierarchy of oppression, gender dysphoria, etc., etc., ad nauseum being fed to our youth. Youth indoctrinated who then become adults pushing this divide amongst us. A divide clearly reflected in current politics.

So no, without having a chance to review your basis, I see nothing that shows the current "divide" can be lain at the feet of "Newt Gingrich."

I think you ate not going to be amused by the articles, as a couple of your "counters" to a premise you haven't read are in the articles as cynical manipulation.

Not somebody's opinion. The words of folks who were involved, often self congratulatory.
 
Our current divide is not an accident. It is the result of a strategy spearheaded by Newt Gingrich to seize power after the Republican Party lost a bunch of seats after the Nixon impeachment and couldn't seem to get them back.

It involved the use of cognitive linguistic techniques cynically adopted to destroy bipartisan cooperation in favor of gridlock and "winner take all" politics.

My favorite of his memos from GOPAC, distributed to Republican candidates, was called: "Language: A Key Mechanism Of Control". I **** you not. It is linked to in one of the articles below.

A couple of these are pretty long, but they are interesting in that they are from the same paper six years apart. The first critical of his impact on our politics and the other an interview where he takes full credit for where we are and the cynical manipulation and deep divide our country is in as a result.

This is how we got here. This is how we got to where we sit behind razor wire and sandbags and hurl hateful insults at each other. Why "my" side is freaked out by the lockstep synchronization of conservative opinion and the "other" side is hovering on the edge of violence to protect America from socialism and the end of America as we know it.

Please read the articles if you wish to respond. I will not respond to posters that clearly did not. Feel free to bring your own examples. Especially those from the left, as they have started doing it too, albeit a little late.

So the first two are about Gingrich, from 2012 and 2018:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...gQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw2psEIJD-EIhScRp7-lE7iV&cf=1

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...gQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw2psEIJD-EIhScRp7-lE7iV&cf=1

The third is an article about the techniques themselves and the science upon which they were based:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...gQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw2psEIJD-EIhScRp7-lE7iV&cf=1

This topic will elicit strong emotional reactions as it will contain words and phrases chosen for that reason. Please try to keep this in mind.

And as you read the articles, notice how all of the techniques discussed pepper all of our political messaging. It is all cynical manipulation. And we as a society need to address this phenomenon as it relates to our politics. It divides, by design. It makes us enemies instead of fellow citizens, by design.

We cannot continue to function as a nation in this environment. We will never be able to return to civil discourse and compromise and bipartisan efforts to address our problems until we address the toxic fruits of a hundred years of behavioral research conducted for the sole purpose of getting us to accept what we would reject and reject what we would embrace if we were simply told the truth.

We used to be better. We can be again.

And please remember, I reject the use of these techniques themselves. You cannot get me to defend liberal use of them. Instead, please cite them and enjoy a liberal agreeing with you!
Oh, waa, waa. Those mean ol' Republicans just ruined the wonderful tea party the Dems lived by. Boo, friggin' hoo.

By the way, there never was a Nixon impeachment.

PS: maybe it's me but all three links appear to link to the same article, and it doesn't appear to be about New Gingrich.
 
Last edited:
Our current divide is not an accident. It is the result of a strategy spearheaded by Newt Gingrich to seize power after the Republican Party lost a bunch of seats after the Nixon impeachment and couldn't seem to get them back.

Ima stop you right there

The republicans only had control over a single congress (80th 1947-1949) from 1932 until 1994 when Newt took over and their highest numbers post 1960 were in the 97th congress (1981-1983) long after Nixon was gone

So you will need to go back to the drawing board with your conspiracy theories
 
this is the kind of stuff that the Democratic party has been unable to counter.

REDMAP - Wikipedia
 
Our current divide is not an accident. It is the result of a strategy spearheaded by Newt Gingrich to seize power after the Republican Party lost a bunch of seats after the Nixon impeachment and couldn't seem to get them back.

It involved the use of cognitive linguistic techniques cynically adopted to destroy bipartisan cooperation in favor of gridlock and "winner take all" politics.

My favorite of his memos from GOPAC, distributed to Republican candidates, was called: "Language: A Key Mechanism Of Control". I **** you not. It is linked to in one of the articles below.

A couple of these are pretty long, but they are interesting in that they are from the same paper six years apart. The first critical of his impact on our politics and the other an interview where he takes full credit for where we are and the cynical manipulation and deep divide our country is in as a result.

This is how we got here. This is how we got to where we sit behind razor wire and sandbags and hurl hateful insults at each other. Why "my" side is freaked out by the lockstep synchronization of conservative opinion and the "other" side is hovering on the edge of violence to protect America from socialism and the end of America as we know it.

Please read the articles if you wish to respond. I will not respond to posters that clearly did not. Feel free to bring your own examples. Especially those from the left, as they have started doing it too, albeit a little late.

So the first two are about Gingrich, from 2012 and 2018:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...gQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw2psEIJD-EIhScRp7-lE7iV&cf=1

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...gQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw2psEIJD-EIhScRp7-lE7iV&cf=1

The third is an article about the techniques themselves and the science upon which they were based:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...gQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw2psEIJD-EIhScRp7-lE7iV&cf=1

This topic will elicit strong emotional reactions as it will contain words and phrases chosen for that reason. Please try to keep this in mind.

And as you read the articles, notice how all of the techniques discussed pepper all of our political messaging. It is all cynical manipulation. And we as a society need to address this phenomenon as it relates to our politics. It divides, by design. It makes us enemies instead of fellow citizens, by design.

We cannot continue to function as a nation in this environment. We will never be able to return to civil discourse and compromise and bipartisan efforts to address our problems until we address the toxic fruits of a hundred years of behavioral research conducted for the sole purpose of getting us to accept what we would reject and reject what we would embrace if we were simply told the truth.

We used to be better. We can be again.

And please remember, I reject the use of these techniques themselves. You cannot get me to defend liberal use of them. Instead, please cite them and enjoy a liberal agreeing with you!

The links don’t work for me, either.

But I watched all this happen in real time, and I have never ceased wondering why media didn’t pick up on the way Gingrich used it, and used hyperpartisanship to advance his own political goals.

Gingrich was a nobody, back bencher when he came to Congress.

But about that time, C-Span came also. The controversy about putting cameras on the House and Senate floor had gone on for years. Members, anxious to avoid people seeing that speakers were often speaking to an empty room, mandated that the cameras be at fixed angles, on the speaker’s lecture.

Gingrich exploited that, by repeatedly staging firery partisan speeches, that has little impact on policy or debate, but which fed red meat to a television audience. Gingrich’ s empty rants often made it onto the evening news, because vitriol is “good television”.

This went on for a couple of years, until Tip O’Neil had had enough of the junior congressman’s antics and ordered the cameras to pan the empty room.

But Gingrich was established as a political celebrity by then. He has also mastered the art of parliamentary back stabbing. Ironically, this would be part of his downfall, that and his abject personal hypocracy.
 
Ima stop you right there

The republicans only had control over a single congress (80th 1947-1949) from 1932 until 1994 when Newt took over and their highest numbers post 1960 were in the 97th congress (1981-1983) long after Nixon was gone

So you will need to go back to the drawing board with your conspiracy theories


And?

Congress was a very different place, before Gingrich institutionalized hyper partisanship.

There was no Hastert rule in the Congress’ that Sam Rayburn ran. There was no insistence that no legislation can be passed without the majority of the majority party, effectively eliminating the votes of the minority. That was a Hastert era rule.

Party line votes were very rare before the 1990’s, and were generally seen as a sign of a weak victory.

Oddly, Trump’s apologists use this same argument to attack the possibility that an impeachment may be on a party line vote.

They got where they are on party line votes. But now, that it doesn’t suit them, it’s no good anymore!
 

The original post with a flat out lie why should I read the rest of anything posted?

Congress was a very different place, before Gingrich institutionalized hyper partisanship.

There was no Hastert rule in the Congress’ that Sam Rayburn ran. There was no insistence that no legislation can be passed without the majority of the majority party, effectively eliminating the votes of the minority. That was a Hastert era rule.

Party line votes were very rare before the 1990’s, and were generally seen as a sign of a weak victory.

Oddly, Trump’s apologists use this same argument to attack the possibility that an impeachment may be on a party line vote.

They got where they are on party line votes. But now, that it doesn’t suit them, it’s no good anymore!

Gingrich didnt start hyper partisanship. It started in the 70s and finalized near the turn of the millennium.

The polarized Congress of today has its roots in the 1970s | Pew Research Center

parties switched from being regionally aligned to being ideologically aligned, when you get democrats and republicans that vote with each other 90% of the time its hard for anything to pass without a "majority of the majority"
 
Last edited:
Our current divide is not an accident. It is the result of a strategy spearheaded by Newt Gingrich to seize power after the Republican Party lost a bunch of seats after the Nixon impeachment and couldn't seem to get them back.

It involved the use of cognitive linguistic techniques cynically adopted to destroy bipartisan cooperation in favor of gridlock and "winner take all" politics.

My favorite of his memos from GOPAC, distributed to Republican candidates, was called: "Language: A Key Mechanism Of Control". I **** you not. It is linked to in one of the articles below.

A couple of these are pretty long, but they are interesting in that they are from the same paper six years apart. The first critical of his impact on our politics and the other an interview where he takes full credit for where we are and the cynical manipulation and deep divide our country is in as a result.

This is how we got here. This is how we got to where we sit behind razor wire and sandbags and hurl hateful insults at each other. Why "my" side is freaked out by the lockstep synchronization of conservative opinion and the "other" side is hovering on the edge of violence to protect America from socialism and the end of America as we know it.

Please read the articles if you wish to respond. I will not respond to posters that clearly did not. Feel free to bring your own examples. Especially those from the left, as they have started doing it too, albeit a little late.

So the first two are about Gingrich, from 2012 and 2018:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...gQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw2psEIJD-EIhScRp7-lE7iV&cf=1

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...gQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw2psEIJD-EIhScRp7-lE7iV&cf=1

The third is an article about the techniques themselves and the science upon which they were based:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...gQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw2psEIJD-EIhScRp7-lE7iV&cf=1

This topic will elicit strong emotional reactions as it will contain words and phrases chosen for that reason. Please try to keep this in mind.

And as you read the articles, notice how all of the techniques discussed pepper all of our political messaging. It is all cynical manipulation. And we as a society need to address this phenomenon as it relates to our politics. It divides, by design. It makes us enemies instead of fellow citizens, by design.

We cannot continue to function as a nation in this environment. We will never be able to return to civil discourse and compromise and bipartisan efforts to address our problems until we address the toxic fruits of a hundred years of behavioral research conducted for the sole purpose of getting us to accept what we would reject and reject what we would embrace if we were simply told the truth.

We used to be better. We can be again.

And please remember, I reject the use of these techniques themselves. You cannot get me to defend liberal use of them. Instead, please cite them and enjoy a liberal agreeing with you!

People are, unfortunately, shockingly easy to manipulate
 
Gingrich and the contract with America was our answer to Alinsky and Cloward-Pivin. Republicans had been in the minority for 50 years and started rebuilding in 1992. You could say now that the parties have parity though the Democrats are headed toward a winless season. Impeachment is a hail Mary from their own endzone.

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk
 
Our current divide is not an accident. It is the result of a strategy spearheaded by Newt Gingrich to seize power after the Republican Party lost a bunch of seats after the Nixon impeachment and couldn't seem to get them back.

It involved the use of cognitive linguistic techniques cynically adopted to destroy bipartisan cooperation in favor of gridlock and "winner take all" politics.

My favorite of his memos from GOPAC, distributed to Republican candidates, was called: "Language: A Key Mechanism Of Control". I **** you not. It is linked to in one of the articles below.

A couple of these are pretty long, but they are interesting in that they are from the same paper six years apart. The first critical of his impact on our politics and the other an interview where he takes full credit for where we are and the cynical manipulation and deep divide our country is in as a result.

This is how we got here. This is how we got to where we sit behind razor wire and sandbags and hurl hateful insults at each other. Why "my" side is freaked out by the lockstep synchronization of conservative opinion and the "other" side is hovering on the edge of violence to protect America from socialism and the end of America as we know it.

Please read the articles if you wish to respond. I will not respond to posters that clearly did not. Feel free to bring your own examples. Especially those from the left, as they have started doing it too, albeit a little late.

So the first two are about Gingrich, from 2012 and 2018:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...gQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw2psEIJD-EIhScRp7-lE7iV&cf=1

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...gQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw2psEIJD-EIhScRp7-lE7iV&cf=1

The third is an article about the techniques themselves and the science upon which they were based:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...gQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw2psEIJD-EIhScRp7-lE7iV&cf=1

This topic will elicit strong emotional reactions as it will contain words and phrases chosen for that reason. Please try to keep this in mind.

And as you read the articles, notice how all of the techniques discussed pepper all of our political messaging. It is all cynical manipulation. And we as a society need to address this phenomenon as it relates to our politics. It divides, by design. It makes us enemies instead of fellow citizens, by design.

We cannot continue to function as a nation in this environment. We will never be able to return to civil discourse and compromise and bipartisan efforts to address our problems until we address the toxic fruits of a hundred years of behavioral research conducted for the sole purpose of getting us to accept what we would reject and reject what we would embrace if we were simply told the truth.

We used to be better. We can be again.

And please remember, I reject the use of these techniques themselves. You cannot get me to defend liberal use of them. Instead, please cite them and enjoy a liberal agreeing with you!

Yes. This is something I have been saying for over a decade.

Gingrich figured out the "insurgent" "minority" party wins when they stonewall progress - and he did so by demonizing and villifying the democrats and RINOs at every turn.

You know, one thing that drives me insane about Democrats is none of them -ever- push back or challenge conservatives on the hideous books they publish, proclaiming the left enemies of the united states out to destroy our republic. I am so sick and disgusted by the rhetoric on television and in print on the right wing.

Gingrich has stewed up a devil's drink and democrats are acting blind to it.

I have ZERO faith in the right wing anymore and have armed myself accordingly. I will defend the borders of my property with lethal force.
 
Yes. This is something I have been saying for over a decade.

Gingrich figured out the "insurgent" "minority" party wins when they stonewall progress - and he did so by demonizing and villifying the democrats and RINOs at every turn.

You know, one thing that drives me insane about Democrats is none of them -ever- push back or challenge conservatives on the hideous books they publish, proclaiming the left enemies of the united states out to destroy our republic. I am so sick and disgusted by the rhetoric on television and in print on the right wing.

Gingrich has stewed up a devil's drink and democrats are acting blind to it.

I have ZERO faith in the right wing anymore and have armed myself accordingly. I will defend the borders of my property with lethal force.

Culturally for a long time, liberals were not able to put forward their ideas because of bad branding. That culture seems to be changing among the youth and has reached enough of a critical mass (combined with other factors) in that social acceptance for various words (like socialism) has become more acceptable or simply changed definition due to changes in usage over time. In other words, the difference today is that if someone tells the typical 35 year old that something is socialist, the typical 35 year old will reply "so? that doesn't make it a bad idea" which means the biggest weapon (ostracism) used against liberals no longer functions.

Just look at the differences in rhetoric between someone like Biden and AOC, often times they espouse similar ideas, but in radically different ways, because people like AOC have become immune to that kind of cultural baggage that people like Biden still carry.

The liberals have started fighting back (by mostly not caring about the language that worked for so long coming from the conservatives) and now you see the conservatives reacting to the lack of that tool being useful by upping the urgency of the language (coup, scum, civil war, etc), which still isn't working against the liberals and only serves to trigger themselves further.

So, the liberals are fighting back, kind of, by simply being more classy and confident. Which is absolutely fine!
 
Last edited:
I have been interested in political framing for a long time, since I have a Ph.D. in cognitive linguistics. Yes it is true that a lot of the political rage we see now days results from intentional framing.

For example, "ripping babies from their parents" is often heard from Democrats. No one actually wanted to rip babies from their parents -- it was an unfortunate result of an overly strict policy on illegal immigration.

The word "socialism" is heard from Republicans to describe the kind of policies we've already had for decades.

Yes, cognitive framing is definitely something to watch out for. Listen and read carefully.
 
Yes. This is something I have been saying for over a decade.

Gingrich figured out the "insurgent" "minority" party wins when they stonewall progress - and he did so by demonizing and villifying the democrats and RINOs at every turn.

You know, one thing that drives me insane about Democrats is none of them -ever- push back or challenge conservatives on the hideous books they publish, proclaiming the left enemies of the united states out to destroy our republic. I am so sick and disgusted by the rhetoric on television and in print on the right wing.

Gingrich has stewed up a devil's drink and democrats are acting blind to it.

I have ZERO faith in the right wing anymore and have armed myself accordingly. I will defend the borders of my property with lethal force.

The third link is about luntz and lakoff and cognitive linguistics, the science on which Gingrich based the rhetorical part of his strategy. (Worling links in post #14)

Lakoff tried to teach democrats how to counter "framing". He gave up when all the dems wanted was for him to teach them how to do it themselves.
 
Our current divide is not an accident. It is the result of a strategy spearheaded by Newt Gingrich to seize power after the Republican Party lost a bunch of seats after the Nixon impeachment and couldn't seem to get them back.

It involved the use of cognitive linguistic techniques cynically adopted to destroy bipartisan cooperation in favor of gridlock and "winner take all" politics.

My favorite of his memos from GOPAC, distributed to Republican candidates, was called: "Language: A Key Mechanism Of Control". I **** you not. It is linked to in one of the articles below.

A couple of these are pretty long, but they are interesting in that they are from the same paper six years apart. The first critical of his impact on our politics and the other an interview where he takes full credit for where we are and the cynical manipulation and deep divide our country is in as a result.

This is how we got here. This is how we got to where we sit behind razor wire and sandbags and hurl hateful insults at each other. Why "my" side is freaked out by the lockstep synchronization of conservative opinion and the "other" side is hovering on the edge of violence to protect America from socialism and the end of America as we know it.

Please read the articles if you wish to respond. I will not respond to posters that clearly did not. Feel free to bring your own examples. Especially those from the left, as they have started doing it too, albeit a little late.

So the first two are about Gingrich, from 2012 and 2018:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...gQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw2psEIJD-EIhScRp7-lE7iV&cf=1

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...gQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw2psEIJD-EIhScRp7-lE7iV&cf=1

The third is an article about the techniques themselves and the science upon which they were based:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...gQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw2psEIJD-EIhScRp7-lE7iV&cf=1

This topic will elicit strong emotional reactions as it will contain words and phrases chosen for that reason. Please try to keep this in mind.

And as you read the articles, notice how all of the techniques discussed pepper all of our political messaging. It is all cynical manipulation. And we as a society need to address this phenomenon as it relates to our politics. It divides, by design. It makes us enemies instead of fellow citizens, by design.

We cannot continue to function as a nation in this environment. We will never be able to return to civil discourse and compromise and bipartisan efforts to address our problems until we address the toxic fruits of a hundred years of behavioral research conducted for the sole purpose of getting us to accept what we would reject and reject what we would embrace if we were simply told the truth.

We used to be better. We can be again.

And please remember, I reject the use of these techniques themselves. You cannot get me to defend liberal use of them. Instead, please cite them and enjoy a liberal agreeing with you!

CT forum is further down. I believe there is also a bar section where you can post after drinking your fermented kool aid.
 
I have been interested in political framing for a long time, since I have a Ph.D. in cognitive linguistics. Yes it is true that a lot of the political rage we see now days results from intentional framing.

For example, "ripping babies from their parents" is often heard from Democrats. No one actually wanted to rip babies from their parents -- it was an unfortunate result of an overly strict policy on illegal immigration.

The word "socialism" is heard from Republicans to describe the kind of policies we've already had for decades.

Yes, cognitive framing is definitely something to watch out for. Listen and read carefully.

I had an idea recently born of another poster's suggestion that there be an entity like consumer reports to review content for manipulative content. It comes from multiple disciplines and includes psychological and cognitive "exploits", as I'm sure you know.

The trick is how to address it. Its perfectly protected by the first amendment so can't be regulated. The media won't educate, because their advertisers use these techniques.

But a light bulb went off.

It should be possible to design an app that parses speeches, articles etc and lists their persuasive content and it's weight contrasted with the factual content.

Marketed to parents initially.

So they can see how much their kids are being exposed to.

We need to do something.
 
I had an idea recently born of another poster's suggestion that there be an entity like consumer reports to review content for manipulative content. It comes from multiple disciplines and includes psychological and cognitive "exploits", as I'm sure you know.

The trick is how to address it. Its perfectly protected by the first amendment so can't be regulated. The media won't educate, because their advertisers use these techniques.

But a light bulb went off.

It should be possible to design an app that parses speeches, articles etc and lists their persuasive content and it's weight contrasted with the factual content.

Marketed to parents initially.

So they can see how much their kids are being exposed to.

We need to do something.

No you don't want to regulate speech! However manipulative.

I'll tell you the truth as I see it (and I have studied this intensely during graduate school and ever since) -- ALL language is distorting and deceptive. That is the nature of language, of human society, and of life. You can have the best intentions to speak fairly and honestly, but it will be slanted, at least in subtle ways.

I worked as a software developer for 20 years. You will be sad to hear that no, it will not be possible to design an app to discern framing! I guarantee you, it cannot be done. The complexity and the subtlety is infinitely beyond anything computers are capable of.

I agree that we need to do something. We can write about it here, for example. We can talk to our friends about it. Most people never heard of framing. It isn't easy to explain to people. It does not happen consciously. It is behind our every word, our every thought.
 
Culturally for a long time, liberals were not able to put forward their ideas because of bad branding. That culture seems to be changing among the youth and has reached enough of a critical mass (combined with other factors) in that social acceptance for various words (like socialism) has become more acceptable or simply changed definition due to changes in usage over time. In other words, the difference today is that if someone tells the typical 35 year old that something is socialist, the typical 35 year old will reply "so? that doesn't make it a bad idea" which means the biggest weapon (ostracism) used against liberals no longer functions.

Just look at the differences in rhetoric between someone like Biden and AOC, often times they espouse similar ideas, but in radically different ways, because people like AOC have become immune to that kind of cultural baggage that people like Biden still carry.

The liberals have started fighting back (by mostly not caring about the language that worked for so long coming from the conservatives) and now you see the conservatives reacting to the lack of that tool being useful by upping the urgency of the language (coup, scum, civil war, etc), which still isn't working against the liberals and only serves to trigger themselves further.

So, the liberals are fighting back, kind of, by simply being more classy and confident. Which is absolutely fine!

I disagree. I think Liberals need to face this head on. I tire of seeing the vapid and hate filled right wing using such insane terminology to basically encourage civil war. The dehumanizing rhetoric has essentially made conservatives not see liberals as legitimate citizens of the union.

You need to hit these people on the nose. They don't understand anything else.
 
I disagree. I think Liberals need to face this head on. I tire of seeing the vapid and hate filled right wing using such insane terminology to basically encourage civil war. The dehumanizing rhetoric has essentially made conservatives not see liberals as legitimate citizens of the union.

You need to hit these people on the nose. They don't understand anything else.

The nastier the conservatives get, the less credibility their policies will have in the eyes of the average voter. So long as they don't get violent en masse, this country will be fine and they will be the reason (just not in the way they expected).
 
Back
Top Bottom