A few thoughts.

One – both frameworks Lakoff cites are not the reality for possibly a majority of people in America. i.e. they are both predicated on a two-parent household model, which is less and less “normal” these days. More people are raised in single family home, in two households (usually due to divorce) or in some other form of household (grandparents, other relatives, foster care, etc)

Two – both frameworks also limit the focus on the nuclear family – consistant perhaps with the traditional model of Americans but neither historically accurate or consistant with the family models of many immigrants – i.e. many immigrants and historical Americans focused on multi-generations of the family.

To generalize still further – the lack of father figures in many communities (I’m thinking specifically of African american inner city communities but single mothers are all over the US) might explain in part the lack of appeal of Republicans in those same communities – different underlying “deep frames”.

I’m the technology advisor for a non-partisan public policy think tank, Hope Street Group (http://www.hopestreetgroup.org) and I’ll be sharing this article with our policy team leaders and outreach folks – the concepts are important ones, especially since we specifically are focused on many issues and positions which are neither Republican nor Democratic in nature and with suggestions that we hope can reach across partisan aisles.

Shannon

your focus on the bigger picture, the global realm, is extremely important as the policy makers in this country are doing the same thing, except from a monetary and power perspective. the challenge, it seems to me, is to engage and involve as many american citizens as possible in a discussion of the policies which affect them and the rest of the world. trim down the complex fat of the conversation into a digestible slice of discourse, making the consequences of the newly understood relevant to the common (wo)man.

maybe then the binary, hierarchical political world that this society operates within (god vs devil, conservative vs liberal, left vs right, black vs white, etc.) can be challenged by a party with a world perspective which is relational, contextual, accountable, open and participatory.

btw, i owe you an email.

1) Selfishness, expressed as “get the government out of my wallet” “no new taxes” and the like. The conservative reaction to Bush’s sudden promises of money to Katrina were instructive. Comments like, “I could just see the government reaching for my wallet.” “To give money to ‘those people’.” Republicans don’t object to government spending that goes to them.

2) Aversion to sex. There’s a whole constellation of symptoms here. Not all people display all of them, but anti-sex is the common thread that runs through them. For instance: –Preference for obscene violence over any form of sexuality in the media. –”Pro-life”, coupled with pro-war, pro-death penalty, pro-gun attitudes. Life is not promoted, but women are “punished” for having sex. –Homophobia. (After all, if straight sex is icky, how much more so any other kind of sex.)

3) A cramped sense of deprivation that leads to scapegoating, with a group du jour to pick on: women, blacks, ay-rabs, Mexicans, etc., and/or everyone all at once.

These are the hot buttons Republicans keep pushing. The Republican base is reacting to Texas medicine and railroad gin–not to ideas in any sense of the word. Conservative ideas, right up (down?) to the Daddy State vs the Mommy State, are just a smokescreen for the raw spirits they’re doling out. Ideas can’t compete with a drunken high. The only useful thing is the bitter, unvarnished truth, but that’s about as popular as telling a drunk s/he’s got a problem. Unsurprisingly, the Democrats wamble around instead of doing it.