George Lakoff: Take Apart McCain's Phony 'Country Above All' Theme

Posted by Egregious, Firedoglake at 4:00 AM on August 27, 2008.

George Lakoff walked by me, alone, so I bolted out of my chair and asked to talk with him about framing: the next generation.


Main Lakoff point: McCain is sucking up all the oxygen with his false framing that he is "Country Above All" -- that everything he does can be characterized as putting country over other considerations.


Be a maverick? That’s loving the country more than his party. Do what Bush says? That’s obeying his commander in chief. It’s fake, of course, but right now they are winning with this narrative.


They are taking what has traditionally been the Democratic narrative (think of JFK's famous "Ask not what your country can do for you" epigram) and using it for themselves.


Democrats have to take it back by showing McCain is NOT about "Country Above All," that the things he does benefit his friends. 

Second Lakoff point: whenever McCain utters the phrase, "My Friends," who does he mean? He means the corporate types, rich people etc.


Democrats can seize the point by showing who his friends really are. 


Third Lakoff point: It isn’t that McCain is rich per se; rather, I told him we are trying to tie his policies to his being rich. Lakoff says that’s not automatically an issue -- the problem is that McCain favors people who are rich and powerful while advancing a phony narrative that says he’s doing what’s right for the country.


Fourth Lakoff point: He thinks the folks around Obama are doing the right things with respect to framing but that there's more work to be done. Others of us, including media, have to get to work dismantling the false "County Above All" narrative. 


"Country Above All." Who could argue with that? It’s so patriotic! And yet we need to start pushing back against this. Today. 


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Tagged as: obama, mccain, george lakoff