Don't say “Defund the Police.” Double Down on “Medicare for All.” Here’s Why.

What makes a term toxic? How do we know when to double down or bail out?

What makes a term toxic? When should we double down on using a slogan? When should we jettison it and replace it with something better? I break down phrases like “Defund the Police,” “Green New Deal,” “Medicare for All” and “Democratic Socialism” to see what works, what doesn’t, and what we can do about it.

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

Double Down or Reframe?

Last week at a training in rural Minnesota, one of the participants brought up a problem that I hear a lot about. They said that they couldn’t use the phrase, “The Green New Deal” where they lived because some people didn’t like it.

I pointed out that if we stop using our phrases just because the Republicans or Fox News say bad things about it, we essentially forfeit 100% of the control over what those phrases mean to Republicans and Fox News. Their goal is to attach negative meaning to everything we say, not just to make us look bad, but to drive us away from using language that works on swing voters. Instead of bailing out on our slogans, we need to use them twice as much as Republicans do.

Here’s where it gets complicated. In a webinar this Monday night, a participant from a different conservative area asked a similar question about the term “Defund the Police.” We recommend never using the term, not even to refute your opposition’s claims.

Why should we fight for “Green New Deal” but avoid and reframe “Defund the Police”? How do we know when a phrase is worth fighting for and when it is an effective tool for the opposition? The key difference has to do with how words work on the subconscious brain.

The “Movie Pitch” Effect

When Director Ridley Scott pitched the film “Alien” to movie producers, he said, "It's like 'Jaws' in space.” This is a quick way of getting across an idea or feeling without having to explain it. The movie “Jaws” is famous for building suspense with the threat of a terrifying creature that remains mostly unseen until the final confrontation. “Jaws in space” is a remarkably effective way to convey those qualities about the movie “Alien” in only 3 words.

I recently heard that the movie character John Wick is like “MacGyver, but for killing.” I have yet to see the movies, but I have a pretty good idea that John Wick kills people by making miraculously clever use of randomly available objects.

This “movie pitch” effect illustrates how we can transfer complex ideas and feelings just by sticking together words that evoke those ideas and feelings.

Slogans and phrases in the public debate work in a similar way. They take words that have a clearly understood meaning, strong feelings, or moral judgment, and attach them to some other word, phrase, or situation. This has the effect of transferring that meaning from the first word or phrase to the second. This is what we mean when we talk about “framing.”

Here’s where the subconscious bit comes in. When you see or hear a word, it can only activate the part of your brain that is associated with its primary meaning: the most commonly used definition. You can’t subconsciously trigger the secondary or any new meaning for a word.

How might we use this to judge potential slogans or phrases?

Good Slogan: each word means exactly what people expect it to mean and evokes the feelings that you want people to have.

Bad Slogan: the words evoke meaning or feelings that are not the meaning or feelings we intend to convey in this situation.

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The “Green New Deal” and “Medicare for All”

“The Green New Deal” and “Medicare for All” are my top recommendations for slogans we should fight for. Double down. Even triple down. These are great examples of cases where Republicans are desperate to scare us away from using language that is effective for us and threatening to them.

The “Green New Deal”

There are few phrases in politics that evoke positive associations like the “New Deal.” We associate it with recovery from the Great Depression, an unprecedented effort by government to place people in good jobs by creating programs and projects that met people’s needs and benefitted society in ways we still feel today.

So, what does the “Green New Deal” communicate? Here’s the movie pitch: “It’s like the New Deal, but for clean energy.” Unprecedented government effort? Check. Mass job creation? Check. Meet critical needs and benefit society? Check and check.

The phrase “Green New Deal” works. Positive feelings toward the “New Deal” are deeply rooted in the American psyche. Plus, it says exactly what we want to say about the program and does so instantly and subconsciously.

That phrase is one reason why voters support the Green New Deal 60 percent to 29 percent, a 31 point margin, (DEM: 83%, IND: 57%, GOP: 36%) Republicans attack the “Green New Deal” to stop us from exposing voters to a phrase that elicits strong positive responses, even among nearly 2 in 5 Republican voters.

You may support Green New Deal legislation or you may not, but make no mistake: there is no reason whatsoever to avoid using the terminology. As a name or slogan, “Green New Deal” is a flat-out winner.

“Medicare for All”

The same is true for “Medicare for All.” How do people feel about Medicare? Medicare has a 67 percent positive to 23 percent negative rating among Republicans (74 to 19 overall). What’s not to love? It is a shining example of reliable, high quality government services operating with an efficiency that the private sector can’t touch.

What’s the movie pitch? “It’s like Medicare, but for everybody.” How much clearer could you be? Maybe that’s why it’s so popular. “Medicare for All” is supported by 69 percent of registered voters (DEM: 88%, IND: 68%, GOP: 46%)

Like the “Green New Deal,” it works because positive feelings toward Medicare are also deeply rooted in the American psyche and because it means exactly what we want it to say.

“Medicare for All” is rock solid messaging, and has been effective even without our full-throated support. We should embrace it without hesitation.

These messages have inherently good qualities, qualities that no amount of Republican character assassination can take away. That’s why Republicans are so keen to scare us away from them.

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“Defund the Police” and “Democratic Socialism”

People using “Defund the Police” and “Democratic Socialism” are trying to change how people understand or feel about words. This does not work. As I said above, you can’t subconsciously activate any meaning of a word other than the meaning people already most strongly associate with it.

“Defund the Police”

What does “defund” mean? To most people, it means, “to stop something by withdrawing the funding that makes it possible.” That makes the movie pitch, “It’s like divesting from apartheid or fossil fuels, but for the police.”

That meaning is subconsciously triggered in people’s brains every time they see or hear the phrase “Defund the Police.” Every time someone says it, even to explain that they mean something different by it or that they oppose it, they trigger that neural association, physically strengthening the connection between two things they don’t want connected.

In cases like these, we should never use the phrasing. It’s better to state what we do believe, using words that convey unambiguous meaning and clear moral judgment. There’s no way to misinterpret phrases like, “invest in crime prevention,” “build safe communities,” “end police brutality” and “stop abuse of power.”

“Democratic Socialism”

In the United States, the word “socialism” has carried negative associations, strong and visceral negative associations for some, for a century. Older generations associate socialism with WWII. Boomers and Gen-Xers might associate it with the USSR and classroom drills for nuclear bombs. Some associate socialism with Fidel Castro seizing private businesses or with other dictators they fled when they came to America.

That makes the movie pitch for Democratic Socialism, “It’s like communist dictatorship, but with voting!” Like it or not, that’s how it plays at the subconscious level.

“Socialism” might be one of those paradigms that doesn’t actually shift: you have to wait for previous generations to expire. Until that time, the term “Democratic Socialism” is one we should not use, not even to defend ourselves against Republican attacks. We do not want to our economic views associated with dictatorship.

What’s the positive alternative? Our community is severely lacking the vocabulary to express much needed critiques of neo-liberalism and market fundamentalism, but that is a whole ‘nother conversation!

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The Bottom Line

Political slogans and names of bills work like movie pitches. They get people to apply the qualities of something they already know and may have strong feelings about, to an issue or situation in the public debate. We have to be mindful of how that works at the subconscious level as we develop our language.

Republicans will attack every slogan or phrase we use.

If our phrases are effective, they want to scare us away from using them. Nothing infuriates your opponent like using messaging that appeals to swing voters. In that case, we have to double down: to retain control over the meaning of our terms by using them even more than Republicans use them.

“Medicare for All” and the “Green New Deal” are policies that enjoy widespread support and highly effective slogans that poll just as well as the policies. In communities where they don’t already enjoy majority support, keep using the terms and making the case, because that is how you get their numbers to improve: by building up the connection between the policies we promote and the strong positive associations that people already have.

If our phrases unintentionally misrepresent what we really intended to say, Republicans will seize the opportunity and use them to misinform people about our true intentions. We don’t use that messaging. Not even to refute their claims.

In that case, we have to reframe the debate using more effective positive terms. We need to develop messaging that evokes the meaning we intend to evoke, by using words that already carry that meaning in our culture.

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Thanks, as always, for reading and subscribing! I hope you are able to use this in your work and your activism!

In solidarity,

Antonia

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NOTES:

Data for Progress: Voters Overwhelmingly Support the Green New Deal

Kaiser Family Foundation: Public Opinion on Single-Payer, National Health Plans, and Expanding Access to Medicare Coverage