People opposed to Trump need to stop saying it’s like a cult, as if that alone would work, and look at the tactics that actually work against cults.
Techniques
Imagine a "Wall."
What is it for? Before you know anything about any particular wall, what comes to mind? What feelings does it evoke? If a wall is used as a metaphor, what is the point of the metaphor?
Linguistic framing expert George Lakoff writes: Democrats must block Trump’s wall of hate.
Techniques
The border wall is a hot topic right now in the news. Exercise:
(1) What are the policy choices? What are all the different frames you can think of — the different ways to focus on the story — that you hear?
Important: people can usually take either side within a frame:
Take relief => the frame is that taxes are an affliction.
Techniques
A Framing 101 Post written for Radical Conversation enthusiasts.
Framing creates context for an issue.
Framing is unavoidable.
Techniques
When you have political conversations, how do you use facts?
Do you lob them at opponents like artillery? And then your opponent digs a deeper trench to avoid the blast? If you use facts like artillery, your opponent will dig trenches and build bunkers: facts work in the story you use them.
Or do you architect a building of shared values, and build it by placing facts like bricks, building up the story of your values? A story people are welcome to explore if they are curious — not a battle for you to win and them to lose. Facts work there too.
The Yale study that pretends to shift conservatives into liberals, made famous at the Washington Post (behind a firewall), finds that when
What words would you use to share this photo and this story? What are the best communication techniques and frames about the current border crisis?
Story Behind Viral Photo of Diapered, Barefoot Migrant Children Fleeing Tear Gas
Issue
George Lakoff asks and answers: "Why are staunch Republicans fine with tear gassing refugee children? It's the conservative moral hierarchy."
Issue
Take a look at Cannon Thomas, Ph.D's Politics and the Catastrophe of Us and Them: We have to change the way we view the opposing party for our nation to thrive. The article favors what I call "floater" centrism: it lists a whole bunch of acts of violence all by one side, and draws the conclusion that we're all equivalent (floating between the parties) instead of cal
Techniques
An awful lot of us are pissed off at partisanship coming from politicians — and our friends.
The ideals of a democracy where we talk to each other and are all trying to make this country better, with different views of how to make the country better, they are failing. The center is not holding.