{"id":5597,"date":"2010-05-20T05:00:07","date_gmt":"2010-05-20T09:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.geneveith.com\/?p=5597"},"modified":"2010-05-20T05:00:07","modified_gmt":"2010-05-20T09:00:07","slug":"democrats-seek-new-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2010\/05\/democrats-seek-new-language\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats seek new language"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

An exceedingly odd tidbit from The Washington Post\u2019s political columnist Perry Bacon:<\/p>\n

Democrats should not talk about \u201cthe environment,\u201d \u201cthe unemployed\u201d or \u201cthe uninsured.\u201d Instead, they should replace those phrases with ones that have more appeal to voters, such as \u201cthe air we breathe and the water we drink,\u201d \u201cpeople who\u2019ve lost their jobs\u201d and \u201cpeople who used to have insurance.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the advice of one of the party\u2019s newest and more unusual gurus, Drew Westen. Westen is a psychologist and neuroscientist at Emory University in Atlanta who, unlike most political advisers, has never worked full time on Capitol Hill or for a political campaign.<\/p>\n

But party leaders in the House and the Senate brought in Westen recently to discuss his expertise: \u201cThe Political Brain,\u201d as he called it in his 2007 book. Westen argues that Democrats constantly try to sell policies to voters through reason and facts, ignoring research showing that people respond more to emotional appeals.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

via Language lessons for Democrats, from the political brain of Drew Westen<\/a>.\n

Democrats using reason and facts?\u00a0 When was the last time that happen?\u00a0 All I recall in their appeals is moralistic exhortation and guilt-tripping.\u00a0 That was all we heard in the health care debate, but hardly any reasonable explanation of how the new system could possibly work and nary a fact about how we can pay for it.\u00a0 The same goes for all of the bailouts, the environmental policies, and immigration policies they keep recommending.\u00a0 Now I happen to think that moral exhortation is a legitimate appeal, one not necessarily counter to reason and facts.\u00a0 But if Democrats think that they are the ones who trade in rationality and facts, they are delusional!\u00a0 And if they think they can make their policies more palatable by manipulating the language, they are either cynical or naive.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An exceedingly odd tidbit from The Washington Post\u2019s political columnist Perry Bacon: Democrats should not talk about \u201cthe environment,\u201d \u201cthe unemployed\u201d or \u201cthe uninsured.\u201d Instead, they should replace those phrases with ones that have more appeal to voters, such as \u201cthe air we breathe and the water we drink,\u201d \u201cpeople who\u2019ve lost their jobs\u201d and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,36],"tags":[656,1747],"class_list":["post-5597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language","category-politics","tag-democratic-party","tag-political-rhetoric"],"yoast_head":"\nDemocrats seek new language<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"An exceedingly odd tidbit from The Washington Post's political columnist Perry Bacon: Democrats 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