Saturday, February 16, 2013

I knew he'd be happy

George Lakoff, that is. Happy that Obama, at long last, is using a progressive frame -- and that it seems to be taking.

The only thing Lakoff misses is the full import of Obama's "They deserve a vote" litany. It's not only moral shaming on the issue at hand -- though surely it is that. It's also a direct attack on anti-governmentism in general. It frames legislating, per se, as a moral responsibility -- and by extension, governing as a moral responsibility. The GOP has become the NOP(E), the Party of No, of nullification, of Grover Norquist's bathtub. And the delicious irony is that the attempted drowners have become the drownees. Just as the Dems rendered themselves basically unelectable in the 70s and 80s by rejecting the exercise of power, so now the Republicans have rendered themselves unelectable by rejecting the functioning of government.

We wuz framed, and now they iz framed.