We Need Supermajorities. Here’s How to Get Them.

Express the universal values behind our issues.

Our government gives the advantage to the minority. We have to become a supermajority. We do this by universalizing our issues. We don’t have to move to the center. We just have to talk about the universal values behind our issues.

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We need to expand our universe of potential voters.

The structures in our government intended to encourage broad cooperation have instead allowed a out-of-control minority to rule against the wishes of the majority of Americans.

We need to engage in an across-the-board reform movement that returns all of the structures of our government, at all levels, to functional democracy, to self-government by majority rule. I recommend the term “functional democracy” until something better comes along, because what we have now is totally dysfunctional (and everybody knows it.)

We already have majority support for most of our issues in the country as a whole, but that is not enough. Until we have a federal system that carries out the will of the majority, we have no choice but to put all of our labor into building supermajorities on a national level. Plus, we need to reach majority support in purple and red states too, in order to take back state legislatures, administrations and courts. In some of those states, we will still need supermajorities to overcome in-state gerrymandering.

This may feel impossible, but there are strategies we can use to appeal to a larger pool of potential swing voters.

We don’t have to convince voters that we share THEIR values. We have to get voters to realize that they share OUR values, and that they have all along.

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Universalization: The Game-Changing Strategy

Reframing “civil unions” to “the right to marry”

What is the most successful example of reframing in recent history? Public opinion shifted more than ten points in a remarkably short amount of time after we switched from using the Civil Unions frame to the Right to Marry/Love is Love frame. People often ask me what we can do to repeat that game-changing level of success. What we can do is universalize our issues.

Universalization is a powerful tool for generating empathy.

We have to refocus the debate on things that everyone can relate to: universal experiences, values and rights. We get people to move from feeling sorry FOR people, to empathizing WITH people.

We used to say, “You should stand up for same-gender couples. Their/our legal rights are being violated because they/we are different.” Sympathy-based approaches can risk “othering” the very people we are trying to help. They also risk triggering compassion fatigue or even victim-status competition (a.k.a. straight white male persecution complex.)

Instead, we asked people, “How would you feel if you couldn’t marry the person you love?” This compelled people to empathize with same-gender couples as “people just like us.” We all just want to marry the person we love. We repeatedly reminded people of the commonality of this experience by elaborating on the theme, “Love is Love.”

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Universalizing the Abortion Debate

It’s about the right to control your own body in accordance with your own beliefs.

In my previous newsletter, How to Reframe the Abortion Debate, Part One: The Good Frames, we talk about the two best frames for universalizing reproductive rights: bodily autonomy and religious freedom.

We still have to talk about the horrific effects of new total abortion bans in so many states. But if we want to really expand the pool of people who will feel comfortable supporting reproductive rights across the board, not just for cases of rape or incest or medical necessity, we have to reframe the debate and make it about the right to control your own body in accordance with your own beliefs.

This is important because, in order to get supporters we didn’t have before, we need to increase our levels of support from men who might find it hard to sympathize with being pregnant or needing an abortion, and from religious people who don’t believe in abortions themselves.

Bodily Autonomy

What can everybody with a body relate to?
What is the core question we can ask people to get them to empathize?

“How would you feel if someone forced you to do things with your body that you didn’t want to do?”

What other questions can we ask to trigger that framing and provoke debate?

“Is it ever okay for government force people to do things with their bodies against their will?”

“Could the government force you to give blood or commandeer your kidney to save the life of a currently living person?”

“What does freedom really mean? Can you be free if you don’t have sole authority over your own body?”

What phrasing could we use to trigger this framing?

How about, “Who owns your body?” The concept of property ownership rights is strong in our society, especially among men. I would like that on a t-shirt or bumper sticker (like the one I photoshopped above).

Freedom of Religion

What can people with strong, even conservative Christian beliefs relate to?
What is the core question we can ask people to get them to empathize?

“How would you feel if people passed laws that forced you to live by other people’s religious beliefs?

What phrasing could we use to trigger this framing?

How about, “My Religion, My Decision.” I would also like that on a t-shirt or bumper sticker. How about “My Religion, My Decision” on the front and “Support reproductive religious freedom” on the back?

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How to Universalize

We always talk about the what. We need to talk about the why.

First, we have to figure out which universal values apply. Sometimes, to do this, we have to take values and rights that are as assumed and unconscious and make ourselves consciously aware of them.

Then we have to figure out how to express the rights that most Americans agree everybody should have. We usually assume that people already understand these rights. Most of the time, we just describe the situation or provide a list of facts and assume people will automatically see what makes it morally wrong. We have to go ahead and say out loud why it is morally wrong to deprive anybody of these rights.

Framing these situations in terms of everybody’s rights is a key step in getting more people to understand that we just want the same rights that other people already have. In other cases, we are all being deprived of our rights.

Here’s how that mental exercise could go:

What is it about same-gender marriage that everybody could relate to?
We believe that everybody should have the right to marry the person they love.
It is wrong to deprive anybody of these rights.
That is why it is wrong to deprive same-gender couples of these rights.

What is it about reproductive rights that everybody could relate to?
We believe that everybody should have the right to control their own bodies.
We believe that everybody should be free to practice their own religion.
It is wrong to deprive anybody of these rights.
That is why it is wrong to deprive women of these rights.

What is it about voting rights that everybody could relate to?
Because the decisions we make together as a society should reflect the will of the people, we believe that everybody should be able to vote without having to overcome needless barriers, and that everybody should have their vote counted.
That is why it is wrong to deprive anybody of these rights.

What is it about gun violence prevention that everybody could relate to?
We believe that everybody should have the right to go to church or school or the grocery store without having to fear they they or their loved ones will be a victim of gun violence.
That is why it is wrong to deprive anybody of these rights.

Everybody includes everybody.

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Going for Broke

We have to change our thinking and retool our strategy. We have to take on every seat and every district that comes within ten or fifteen points of being competitive and then set our sights on creating a ten point or more shift in support for our party and our candidates.

Wave elections do happen, in both directions. There are examples all over the country of candidates running in long shot seats and doing dramatically better than previous candidates, even if they lose. In the 2018 special election in Arizona’s 8th congressional district, we lost by 5 points in a district we should have lost by 25 points. We would have won in a district that was only 10 or 15 points down.

Big shifts are possible. We have to invest in long shots and create the conditions under which miracles can happen.

That is why we have to focus our energies and resources toward persuasion. There are plenty of organizations working on turnout. Any organization not legally barred from engaging in persuasion activities must throw all their energies into it.

When it comes to messaging, there is no downside to persuasion, because the best way to mobilize your base is to motivate your base. The cognitive science behind framing tells us that the messaging that helps you win converts is the same messaging that motivates your base.

That messaging strategy is:

Making strong positive statements about what we believe to be morally right and getting people to see every situation from the perspective of our value system. That works, because it gets swing voters to make voting decisions based on our values, and it motivates and strengthens the resolve of people who already share our values.

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The Bottom Line:

Universalizing is the key to generating empathy and expanding our voter universe.

We win, not by convincing voters that we share their values, but by convincing voters that they share our values, and that they have all along. We do this by developing ways to talk about what we believe that helps people see how our values are relevant to everyone.

By “universalizing” our values, we expand the universe of our potential voters by getting them to not just sympathize with people they perceive as “others” but to empathize with people they perceive to be “just like them”

This is how we will achieve game-changing shifts in public support that will help us win in November, especially in places we never dreamed we could win before.

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