communication
The S/N Gap: Psychological Types and Political Communication
Here in the midst of another Presidential election season – or more precisely, on the upslope of another phase in the seemingly permanent wave-cycle of electoral politics – we are hearing a lot about the techniques of effective, or ineffective, political communication. The fate of candidates, parties, nations, seems to hinge on who best manages the alchemy of words and images; finds the right blend of theme, gesture, and utterance; marries the power of language with the aspirations of an audience; and, in today’s fashionable parlance, “frames” the issues in the most advantageous way.
Consolidate, Consolidate, Consolidate: Advice to Progressives
The day after the 2006 midterm elections, the basic conservative interpretive frame emerged. A veritable chorus of commentators on the right rose up to declare that the results represented not a defeat for conservatism but rather for a Republican party that had abandoned its conservative principles. The election was less an ideological victory for Democrats, progressives, or liberals, we were told, than it was a sharp correction administered to the incompetents and big spenders who had disappointed their conservative constituents.
Conservative Sentimentalism
On September 2, as he spoke to reporters about the devastation along the Gulf Coast wreaked by Hurricane Katrina, President Bush deflected criticism of the administration's response to the crisis, and then said: "Now we're going [to the region] to offer comfort to the people." This may or may not have been an offhand comment, or a sincere one, but it hinted at a characteristic impulse of American conservatism: the impulse to sentimentalize in response to pressing civic problems, to practice a politics of the heart rather than of the head. That's not only or always true of conservatives, of course, but there's an interesting history to right-wing sentimentalism that deserves special consideration.
Truth and the Right
The last several years have not been good ones for the progressive movement, and one senses a level of frustration akin to that of trying to disentangle 25 coat-hangers. Much of the frustration has to do with the fact that the truth about the conservative Right is not really getting through to people – at least, to those people who might be willing to change their views accordingly. The problem is partly a matter of the Left’s communication style and strategy, which need serious renovation, but also one of highly successful conservative efforts at neutralizing inconvenient truths, and at undermining the truth-tellers.
It’s a striking reality of our current political culture that criticisms of conservative policies or strategies are routinely denied having any truth value whatsoever. There are three main tactics by which the Right tries to delegitimize its detractors:
Reframing Terrorism
In the wake of 9/11, ultraconservatives have used the concept of a War on Terrorism (WOT) – a “war” with no foreseeable end and hidden enemies lurking everywhere – to tighten control over the American public, undermine civil liberties, advance their own foreign policy agenda, distract attention from their own controversial domestic agenda, and intimidate the opposition.
We can expect terrorism to remain a dominant media story throughout 2004, and terrorism-related media-worthy events to be used in service of the political goals of the far right.
In the face of the media-dramatized WOT, it has been hard for dissenting voices to be heard. Opposition to conservative policies and actions, and to Republican candidates, is met by accusations that the opponents are unpatriotic or seek to put Americans at risk.
