It Is All About Framing

The Republican Party claims to be many things, but redistributionist is not one of them. If you listen to their spokespeople, redistributing wealth is anathema; it's un-American! Worst still, it reeks of class warfare!

Regularly they decry even the most modest measures proposed by Democrats and their allies that would shift the wealth even a tad from the rich to working and poor people.

But in fact, the Republicans' policies are redistributionist to the extreme.

Successive Republican administrations over the past three decades have turned the government into a mechanism to ruthlessly redistribute wealth to the upper crust at the expense of nearly every other section of the population.
~ from Republicans Redistribute the Wealth - to the Wealthy by Sam Webb ~

George Lakoff has written a lot about the concept of "framing," though I think he utilizes a different word. The general gist is that those who frame the debate are the ones who control it!

As of late, conservatives in this country have set the basic parameters of political discourse. For example, last night I was watching the supposedly left-leaning cable news station, MSNBC. On Lawrence O'Donnell's program, he was interviewing someone who supposedly represented the liberal side of a discussion about the federal debt ceiling and budget.

I don't remember her name, but the "expert" was a former member of President Clinton's team. In discussing what needs to be done about the federal budget, she claimed that we need to tackle Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as these programs are bankrupting the country. Yes, this supposedly is the left side of the discussion these days!

She said next to nothing about the bloated military budget. She said little about the egregious tax cuts for the wealthy. She made no mention of corporate welfare and our numerous bailouts of Wall Street. In essence, she has accepted the manner in which the Right has framed this issue without offering any argument to the contrary!

The snippet featured at the beginning of this post goes to the heart of the concept of framing. Governmental budgets -- by their very nature -- are about redistributing the pot of collected revenues toward societal expenditures. To suggest otherwise is a smokescreen, to put it mildly.

So, the genuine question that faces the voting public is where should that money go. Should it continue to flow up OR should it flow down? Should it be spent to benefit the many or should it be spent to benefit the few?