Winning the propaganda wars

Last night the American people re-elected President Bush.

His job approval ratings hovered somewhere under 50% for much of the campaign. He launched an unpopular war for, to be kind, questionable reasons. There is a strong case supporting the idea that the way the President has conducted the war on terrorism has, in fact, produced more and better armed terrorists. The President and his direct reports set in motion the chain of decisions that resulted in the single most devastating public relations disaster for the United States since the invasion of Iraq itself - Abu Ghraib. While the President pilloried Kerry for failing to support the troops, he simultaneously sluiced the torture-buck down the chain of command until it landed on the lowest links.

The "culture of life" the President is supposedly fostering has resulted in the deaths of between 15,000 and 100,000 in Iraq at the hands of the US military - most of whom are women and children. Abortions have risen under the President's direction. Information about women's reproductive health has been slowly removed from view. There are more poor people than ever before. Again women and children seem to bear the burden of the President's "compassionate" policies. The President played the economy game for short term gain. His tax cuts were popular even though most never felt the effects in their wallets. In Bush's America, you don't actually have to be relieved to feel "relief." But the deficit grew larger. Warning bells sounded from around the world. They tolled for the impending decline of the dollar. Our debt will catch up with us, they said. It will, too, but the President soldiers on cutting revenues and increasing spending while flagrantly calling Kerry a "Tax and Spend Liberal."

The President has played us all against each other. Christians against non-believer, pro-choice against pro-life, anti-war against pro-war, heck, Christian against Christian. Even though he ran as a uniter, he divided. It has become almost passé to look across this ideological divide and blame the people on the other side for not changing their minds. For his part, the President gave no quarter. He never admitted a single mistake. Legislation was written in secret by Republicans and presented to the floor for voting with no review. Tom Delay consolidated power in the House by squeezing off the PAC contributions to Democrats. He traded power for money; he denied power for money. He played one against the other as the spearhead of the GOP's relentless, ruthless quest for power. Relations among our legislators dissolved into a domestic disturbance. All it would have taken is a phone call from the President telling Delay to cool things down. But none came. All it would have taken was one single concession, one single lifted finger, one single raised eyebrow, one single expression that would say to all of us: "Enough is enough."

But that is not the President’s way. The President's way is to let his followers flay the flesh from the body politic while he looks on smirking. Once we are down to the bone, he steps in with kind words and a question: "Are you ready to say uncle?"

The President and his direct reports have dropped a veil of secrecy over our government. They classified more documents than any administration in history. He spoke directly with the press fewer times than any president in recent history. John Ashcroft initiated measures to purge from public view information on how the public may retrieve information about the government from the government. The environmental impact of 9.11 was hidden from New Yorkers. The cost of the Iraq War was hidden from lawmakers. The cost of the Medicare bill was hidden until after it was approved. The status of 540 detainees at Guantanamo Bay is not only kept from the country, but from the detainees themselves. This has resulted in the first forced detentions since Japanese-Americans were interned during WW II. The Vice President's energy policy was made in utter secrecy and we still don't know what is in it or who contributed to it.

At every turn, the President has resisted the scrutiny of the country. Similar radical changes have been wrought to the environment and education. The President has promised truly radical "reform" to one of America's sacred cows - social security - at a cost of three trillion dollars and the prospect of bankrupting current and future generations. The American people knew full well that President Bush would get to select up to four Supreme Court Justices who would, in all probability, seek to restrict abortions and narrow the separation of church and state.

Time and time again, the President and his direct reports and their direct reports and their direct reports appeared on the media telling us one thing even as the events the described unfolded before our eyes in direct contradiction to their words. Sometimes, they even produced the media themselves, advertisements that looked like news telling us one thing as the reality of their story depicted an entirely different thing. Some people within President Bush's administration had the temerity to call these things lies. Those people are gone.

On the campaign trail George W. Bush required rally attendees to sign a loyalty oath and sometimes recite the George Bush Pledge.

On each of these subjects, there has been a distinct move away from any past we have known in America - traditionally liberal or traditionally conservative - and towards something radically different. And 51% of the voter's didn't blink. 51% of the voter's pulled the lever, made their mark, touched the screen, punched the card for George W. Bush. And so he was elected. Again.

Oh, America. I guess I hardly knew ye.

I can trace my lineage back to the Declaration of Independence. Samuel Huntington, whose signature is tightly scrawled in the sixth column between those of Roger Sherman and William Williams, is my distant ancestor. I was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, then moved to Seattle, and finally to Boulder, Colorado. My father used to say, "I might not agree with what you think, but I'll fight and die for your right to think it. That's America."

I read Johnny Tremain. I remember watching the pictures of soldiers firing guns in Vietnam on our black and white television. My little league games were postponed because the police used tear gas to break up student protests and it was still wafting over our field. In the ninth grade, I visited many of the battle fields of the Civil War. I toured Colonial Williamsburg, and wound up at the Nation's Capital, where I traipsed through the monuments, the Smithsonians, read the words of Lincoln and stood for an hour in the rain to tour the Whitehouse. I have hiked through Yellowstone and picked raspberries in Washington. I sat and stared at the enormous crater at Ground Zero for an hour with lump in my throat. One of my clients in New York lost 72 people on 9.11. Another client was the triage site a block from the Javits Center that day.

I've lived in other countries. I have visited the community of people that make their living mining gigantic mountains of trash for valuables on the outskirts of Mexico City. I have consulted with businesses in Moscow, Amsterdam, London, Hamburg and Paris. I walked through the temples of Angkor Watt. I spent a summer in Medellin, Colombia living with a Colombian family. I studied American Foreign Policy in Central America in Nicaragua during the Contra War. I talked to some of the Sandinistas and some of the Contras and to the US Ambassador. I studied America from abroad. At times there was much to dislike - and much to love - about her actions, but there was
never anything but love for America the idea- ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. I loved that America then and do to this day.

Oh yes, America is an idea. It's a radical, unruly, revolutionary, bracing, evolving idea. It's the idea that all people are created equal. That since they are created equal the law should treat them equally. It's the idea that leaders rule with the consent of the governed. It is the idea that the governed have a right to know exactly what the actions of their leaders are. It's the idea the separation of church and state results in stronger churches and a more just state. It's the idea that a corrupt government cannot live under the scrutiny of an independent press. It's the idea that people should be free to speak their minds without fear. It is the idea that people can gather together in support of common causes without government intervention. It is the idea that people have a right to privacy in their personal affairs. It is the idea that the government cannot lock up its people without cause and that a person has a right to confront his accusers and defend himself before a jury of his peers. It is the idea that there is recourse for the common man in the law. It is the idea that each and every citizen has the right to determine his or her own moral code and live in accordance thereby as long as in so doing he or she does not materially impact the physical person, property, livleyhood or reputation of another. It's the idea of checks and balances within Government so that the power of each branch is limited by the other branches.

America means freedom, by God. But that's just my idea of America. The day after the election of George W. Bush to his second term, that idea seems quaint. America the idea might mean freedom to me, but it is perfectly obvious to me that 51% of America has a substantially different view of America. Why is that? When the vision for America is laid out so clearly in our founding documents, has been developed over 224 years of history prior to the Bush Presidency, has been codified in 224 years of judicial decisions, why have an electoral majority of people in this country suddenly veered to the right and up the authoritarian scale? Two words:

Propaganda Machine.

In order to re-define America as a tax-free, liberal hating, Christian-Capitalist theme park in which it is perfectly acceptable to use biblical arguments in support of public policy, arrest suspects and hold them indefinitely without charging them, limit speech, control the media through the FCC, wage indefinite war (badly) against undetermined enemies, attempt to constitutionally limit the rights of millions of citizens, disenfranchise a growing class of have-nots, re-write legislative processes to favor the controlling party with the idea that the controlling party will not relinquish power, alienate nearly all of the world and generally shield the activities of the government from the scrutiny of the press and the people - in order for this agenda to be approved by the people these ideas had to be sold.

Now, that represents a real challenge. In their raw form, these ideas are generally unattractive to most Americans. So they have to be gussied up. The dress of thought, so to speak, comes in the form of packaging. Radical Legislation is gilded with emotional titles, such as "Patriot Act" for example, or "Clear Skies." The justification for war is simplified and reduced to words a child would understand and repeat. Why do they hate us? "They hate us for our freedom."

A common, tested vocabulary is established and relentlessly used by everyone on the team. Positive, sunny words related to the lives of voters are used to communicate vision when speaking about initiatives. All negative consequences are stripped from all conversation when referring to yourself, your initiatives and your party. Can you say, "Tax Relief?" Just feel the stress ease out of your body. Go ahead, say it again, "Tax Relief." There you go. Now say, "Culture of Life." Ahhhh. "Culture of Life." On the other hand, all positive references to your opponent, his initiatives, his party are removed. How about "flip-flopper" or "Liberals in Congress" or "Tax and spend Liberal" Or Big Government Program" or "Pro-Abortion" or "Activist Judges." Newt Gingrich first codified this concept (at least in US politics) in his 1994 Magnum Opus: "Language: A Key Mechanism of Control"

The reality of the initiative or action does not have to match the language used to sell the initiative or action. The most important aspect of the effort is to create a sense of emotional bonding with the voter. This bond must be strong enough so that his desire to support your position is stronger than his desire to examine the details of your actions. His desire to support you must remain strong even if the public evidence of the effects of the initiative or action are entirely negative or directly contradict how they were publicly framed. This is done through strong emotional appeals to faith, country and family. The ugly truth that the US air force has killed up to 100,000 Iraqi civilians, mostly women and children, is neatly concealed by the fact that we are "Liberating" them. The fact that Saddam was no threat, had no WMD and no operational ties with Al Qaeda is addressed by the canard that we are "Fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here." Fear trumps facts.

Perhaps, the most important thing is to keep the message simple, clear and consistent across the entire party. Everybody in the GOP, from the grass roots door knockers all the way up to the talking heads recite the same talking points. They call it message discipline. It is the distillation of the party's message down to its purest essence.

This is going to require us to think in ways we do not normally think. We must use Rove Rules.

For beginners, Democrats need to realize that in order to win future elections, they will have to figure out how to hold a conversation with Republicans on social issues, in particular Religion, Abortion and Gay Marriage. Democrats must begin to use the language of faith. Even if our intent is secular, i.e. the separation of church and state, prayer in schools, etc. it must framed as a way to support faith. In other words, strong legislation prohibiting prayer in schools must be called the: Faith Protection Act. The argument would be that limiting prayer in schools protects all faiths from government control. We must proactively identify a progressive legislative agenda (separation of church and state) then sell it by framing it as a way to protect something conservatives cherish (faith) from something conservatives fear (government control).

This model could extend to all sorts of things - Consider the idea for a democratically sponsored Anti-Abortion Act. The entire thing could be written using Republican metaphors. 100 talking heads could be released to frame the action with the words Anti-Abortion, Culture of Life, Pro-life etc. And what would the bill address? The conditions under which abortions increase - poverty and ignorance. In this case by proactively framing the argument for eliminating abortions using the Republican lexicon they will have a very hard time separating and refuting the message in the media. By co-opting their language it may be possible to sell the idea that the "culture of life" means making a reality that supports the already living, makes it possible for the unborn to come to term in a hospitable world, results in a reduction of abortions and fewer unplanned pregnancies instead of simply making abortions illegal.

In the aftermath of this election, Democrats need to realize that the war for hearts and minds will be waged with propaganda. George Bush and Karl Rove and their minions have succeeded in selling a vision of America that conceals an agenda that fundamentally violates what I think America is. Now, Democrats must repackage the kernel of the American ideal and sell it back to its citizens. If we don't do it, nobody will.