Thank you for this concise and informative article. I immediately went to the ASO Communications website to see for myself if someone could be so smug and misguided as to announce that "where they are is unacceptable" — and apparently it changed at some point in the seven days since you published this. It now reads
"Conventional wisdom says we should meet people where they are, but research shows there is no one place that people “are.” When we meet them at a place of widely held values, we can move them toward more progressive solutions."
I didn’t vote for Harris or Trump and have no regrets about that decision. Even as the Republican train goes off the rails driven by an increasingly insane engineer my former party the Democratic Party sinks even deeper. The Democrats lost in 2024 and will continue to lose in the future because of one reason. They have lost the support of the American working class.The historic Democratic icons FDR, and JFK would laugh at what passes for policy in their beloved party. Although they were upper class they understood that victory for their party depended on appealing to working class voters. Current party leaders distain the “deplorable” and “racist” members of the working class. Working class Americans hate many of the policies foisted on them by Democrats.
Here’s a laundry list of things for Democrats to keep and to dump if they ever want to win again nationwide.
Keep a woman’s right to choose for the first trimester. Dump abortion until birth unless the mother’s health is at risk or the fetus is not viable.
Keep a concern for climate change and grow energy efficiency and nuclear power. Dump intermittent, unreliable renewable energy that relies on using expensive batteries or natural gas generators. Germany has destroyed its industry with this approach.
Keep and develop new effective vaccines. Dump vaccine mandates and allow individuals to decide.
Keep equality of opportunity for all. Dump equity of results based on discriminating on the basis of race and sex because in the past we discriminated on the basis of race and sex.
Keep the protection of gay, lesbian, and trans rights. Dump men in women’s sports, private spaces and prisons and the mutilation of children in pursuit of the impossible.
Keep an opportunity for selective high value immigration. Dump sanctuary cities and open borders.
Keep helping the homeless find jobs, mental health assistance and a place to live. Dump camping in cities, shitting in our streets and allowing open drug use.
Keep a concern for due process in criminal justice. Dump letting shoplifters and other petty thieves off the hook and allowing violent criminals loose prior to trial.
Do all of the above and you might find your way back to power.
I don’t 100% agree with all your keeps and dumps, but this is a very good list that I think is easy to understand and supported by most average Americans, and I would happily vote for a politician who had this as their platform.
>Conventional wisdom says to meet people where they are. But, on most issues, where they are is unacceptable. Applying tools from cognition and linguistics, we uncover where people are capable of going and how to use our words, images and stories to move them.
It freaking Chomskyte manufactured consent with these people and utter contempt with even attempting to understand why people hold certain beliefs. It’s about manipulation and dismissing the legitimacy of others not already in the club.
How is ‘rule of law’ an “American” value [edit this should have read “American idea”? Firstly it clearly does not exist in many parts of the Americas in reality or notional ambition. Second it exists and predate the US of A elswhere is the world. Even somewhere like Australia, invaded post creation of the US, draws our sense of rule of law from UK traditions. As does the US, as far as I understand it. But perhaps it was created again in parallel.
Because two different cultures (or people, or groups) can share the same values. I can say that staying open to new ideas is one of my values; that does not mean that no one else has that value.
The full quote (my fault for not checking) is “an American idea” rather than value. I feel that claims a greater sense of ownership. As to the use of American to mean US American, it seems no one cares about that presumption.
I was referring to your first sentence and the subsequent argument that you built off of it.
As to your musings on "US American," or that mouthful of a six-syllable name you'd prefer people born in the USA apply to themselves (is there another comparably long nationality?): that is obviously irrelevant, though I think it fits with your overall tone. I would just encourage you to start calling Canadians "Americans" and see what kind of reaction you get. Different cultures and languages divide the world differently, and throughout much of the Anglo world, there is no continent called "America." There are North Americans, and there are South Americans, because there are places called North America and South America. By convention, "American" is used to refer to the USA, not "United Stateser." I'm sorry if this convention upsets you.
Look I think you’re reading too much into this. What I was trying to say is that “rule of law” is not a left/right value but rather an American value. That doesn’t imply that that no other country shares this value.
I understood you responded to my point on idea-value only.
I am Australian which is 4. Azerbaijani is 5. Fault of the countries how long a name is chosen.
I use European a lot. It covers people who live in Europe. Othertimes I will be more specific : Slovenian Parisian.
Canadians dont like being called American because it usually means as an ignorant Australian I have mixed up their accent for a DisUnited Stater, which is understandably very insulting.
Not sure how to refer to someone from the Central African Republic but African seems confusing.
Even President Trump can see the point. Why he wants to rename the body of water linking US Mexico Cuba as the encompassing Gulf of America.
Yes, I was able to pick up on your contempt for the United States, which in my travels throughout Europe usually results from a mixture of 1) ignorance of their own history and politics, which leads them to a delusional belief in their moral superiority; and 2) extreme nationalism that has been sublimated and passed off as a type of social criticism.
As for your text above, I couldn't make heads or tails of it. It is unintelligible gibberish.
I am not from Europe and have no time for nationalism. Call me an open world lefty if you wish, that would be accurate.
You wrote that to say US American is 6 syllables and thus hard for a US American to do. I point out that there are many 4 and 5 syllable common descriptors for people from various countries. Not my fault the US has such a long name. I then point out the difference between a name for continent and a name for a country - unless they are identical, such as Australia. Elsewhere the distinction seems easy enough to work with. Again that US Americans find that a challenge or that you are challenged to read some simple sentences is your problem.
No, I did not say that it was "hard for a US American to do," I said that it was a mouthful and also did not make any sense in cultural context because it does not comport with the way that most people in Anglo North America divide the continents.
I can follow sentences just fine. I am only having trouble with your broken English. I never claimed that you were European. Go back and reread my comment. Use Google Translate if you need to. You appear not to be able to follow simple arguments.
You claim to "have no use for nationalism," but you seem to derive a lot of satisfaction out of your delusional belief in your superiority over "US Americans." Call it whatever you want -- it's clear enough from where I stand.
I will no longer be continuing this conversation. Engagement is a sign of respect, and you have lost all of mine.
In considering people from the US, and the US as a country, as the same as others you see a claim of superiority. I see a disavowel of US superiority implied in using a continental name for one part of that continent. Sure it is a claim that people in much of the world have gone along with.
In stating I am not European I point out that whatever you might have seen in your travels there is not relevant to my posts.
Whatever you say, buddy. You refer to a "superiority implied in using a continentenal name for one part of that continent," overlooking my repeated point that DIFFERENT CULTURES AND LANGUAGES HAVE DIFFERENT CONTINENTS, and in many English-speaking countries, including all of Anglo North America, **THERE IS NO CONTINENT CALLED AMERICA.**
Respectfully, aren’t these folks coming from the wing of our party that in fact is trying to change “where people are”? For example, if you want to build support for government services, it seems entirely reasonable to encourage like minds to talk more about the value of those services than about taxes (even on “the rich”). Their vision may not be yours, and they may be overselling the science behind their tactics. Who doesn’t?
“But we can’t reach the voters they turn off.” With apologies to Charley Sheen, that sounds like a you problem. Instead of expecting others to clear the lane, the great ones create their own space. There couldn’t have been a Sister Soulja moment without Sister Soulja.
Well you correctly point out this wing’s goals are different. I guess Milan could reply than “but don’t sell yourself as something you are not, a partisan persuasion success organization and admit you’re a progressive reform advocacy organization”.
Now if Milan is making the statement/whine that “because they do what they do, my messages/faction can’t win”, well tough, the center-left party will never purge out or silence its left faction or center faction. And if they did, the victor would be a smaller party always losing to the right-wing party.
Milan, I think the approach you highlight in the text shows the craziness of the group as supposed messaging/ political organization seeking success, but actually the items you selected from the table were not facially poor alternative language choice. This group selected for more specific, vivid examples rather than for more abstract terms which no longer have as much consensus and don’t have as much definite meaning to voters who might swing.
The advice is to focus on concrete emotive anecdotes rather than ideas. That can be effective but seems suicidal for the country. NPR does this, pretending that they are giving you a real understanding of trade news by interviewing a bicycle repairman in Bangkok. Intelligent people are looking for intellectual shortcuts all the time and anecdotes provide that.
“Why you fool, it's the educated reader who CAN be gulled. All our difficulty comes with the others. When did you meet a workman who believes the papers? He takes it for granted that they're all propaganda and skips the leading articles. He buys his paper for the football results and the little paragraphs about girls falling out of windows and corpses found in Mayfair flats. He is our problem. We have to recondition him. But the educated public, the people who read the high-brow weeklies, don't need reconditioning. They're all right already. They'll believe anything.” CS Lewis That Hideous Strength 1945
I think the "tools from cognition and linguistics" line has more exploratory power then you give it credit for. If you think you've got magic words that can persuade your recalcitrant audience to your POV, why wouldn't you want to use that instead of compromising.
It's just that those magic words aren't actually magic.. but they don't know that.
Nice piece, Milan. I like the length because it just makes one simple but interesting point, and it’s short enough for my brainrot.
Thank you for this concise and informative article. I immediately went to the ASO Communications website to see for myself if someone could be so smug and misguided as to announce that "where they are is unacceptable" — and apparently it changed at some point in the seven days since you published this. It now reads
"Conventional wisdom says we should meet people where they are, but research shows there is no one place that people “are.” When we meet them at a place of widely held values, we can move them toward more progressive solutions."
What is up with this?
Thank you again for the valuable article.
Well I assume they realized that where they were was unacceptable ;)
LITERALLY.
SMH!
I didn’t vote for Harris or Trump and have no regrets about that decision. Even as the Republican train goes off the rails driven by an increasingly insane engineer my former party the Democratic Party sinks even deeper. The Democrats lost in 2024 and will continue to lose in the future because of one reason. They have lost the support of the American working class.The historic Democratic icons FDR, and JFK would laugh at what passes for policy in their beloved party. Although they were upper class they understood that victory for their party depended on appealing to working class voters. Current party leaders distain the “deplorable” and “racist” members of the working class. Working class Americans hate many of the policies foisted on them by Democrats.
Here’s a laundry list of things for Democrats to keep and to dump if they ever want to win again nationwide.
Keep a woman’s right to choose for the first trimester. Dump abortion until birth unless the mother’s health is at risk or the fetus is not viable.
Keep a concern for climate change and grow energy efficiency and nuclear power. Dump intermittent, unreliable renewable energy that relies on using expensive batteries or natural gas generators. Germany has destroyed its industry with this approach.
Keep and develop new effective vaccines. Dump vaccine mandates and allow individuals to decide.
Keep equality of opportunity for all. Dump equity of results based on discriminating on the basis of race and sex because in the past we discriminated on the basis of race and sex.
Keep the protection of gay, lesbian, and trans rights. Dump men in women’s sports, private spaces and prisons and the mutilation of children in pursuit of the impossible.
Keep an opportunity for selective high value immigration. Dump sanctuary cities and open borders.
Keep helping the homeless find jobs, mental health assistance and a place to live. Dump camping in cities, shitting in our streets and allowing open drug use.
Keep a concern for due process in criminal justice. Dump letting shoplifters and other petty thieves off the hook and allowing violent criminals loose prior to trial.
Do all of the above and you might find your way back to power.
I don’t 100% agree with all your keeps and dumps, but this is a very good list that I think is easy to understand and supported by most average Americans, and I would happily vote for a politician who had this as their platform.
I think each of your "dump" items is a "must have" for this type of activist across the English speaking world
>Conventional wisdom says to meet people where they are. But, on most issues, where they are is unacceptable. Applying tools from cognition and linguistics, we uncover where people are capable of going and how to use our words, images and stories to move them.
It freaking Chomskyte manufactured consent with these people and utter contempt with even attempting to understand why people hold certain beliefs. It’s about manipulation and dismissing the legitimacy of others not already in the club.
Sheesh.
How is ‘rule of law’ an “American” value [edit this should have read “American idea”? Firstly it clearly does not exist in many parts of the Americas in reality or notional ambition. Second it exists and predate the US of A elswhere is the world. Even somewhere like Australia, invaded post creation of the US, draws our sense of rule of law from UK traditions. As does the US, as far as I understand it. But perhaps it was created again in parallel.
Because two different cultures (or people, or groups) can share the same values. I can say that staying open to new ideas is one of my values; that does not mean that no one else has that value.
The full quote (my fault for not checking) is “an American idea” rather than value. I feel that claims a greater sense of ownership. As to the use of American to mean US American, it seems no one cares about that presumption.
I was referring to your first sentence and the subsequent argument that you built off of it.
As to your musings on "US American," or that mouthful of a six-syllable name you'd prefer people born in the USA apply to themselves (is there another comparably long nationality?): that is obviously irrelevant, though I think it fits with your overall tone. I would just encourage you to start calling Canadians "Americans" and see what kind of reaction you get. Different cultures and languages divide the world differently, and throughout much of the Anglo world, there is no continent called "America." There are North Americans, and there are South Americans, because there are places called North America and South America. By convention, "American" is used to refer to the USA, not "United Stateser." I'm sorry if this convention upsets you.
He didn’t say it was a unique American value.
Actual words were ‘american idea’ , which does suggest some ownership. My error in not using ‘idea’ in first post
Look I think you’re reading too much into this. What I was trying to say is that “rule of law” is not a left/right value but rather an American value. That doesn’t imply that that no other country shares this value.
I understood you responded to my point on idea-value only.
I am Australian which is 4. Azerbaijani is 5. Fault of the countries how long a name is chosen.
I use European a lot. It covers people who live in Europe. Othertimes I will be more specific : Slovenian Parisian.
Canadians dont like being called American because it usually means as an ignorant Australian I have mixed up their accent for a DisUnited Stater, which is understandably very insulting.
Not sure how to refer to someone from the Central African Republic but African seems confusing.
Even President Trump can see the point. Why he wants to rename the body of water linking US Mexico Cuba as the encompassing Gulf of America.
Yes, I was able to pick up on your contempt for the United States, which in my travels throughout Europe usually results from a mixture of 1) ignorance of their own history and politics, which leads them to a delusional belief in their moral superiority; and 2) extreme nationalism that has been sublimated and passed off as a type of social criticism.
As for your text above, I couldn't make heads or tails of it. It is unintelligible gibberish.
I am not from Europe and have no time for nationalism. Call me an open world lefty if you wish, that would be accurate.
You wrote that to say US American is 6 syllables and thus hard for a US American to do. I point out that there are many 4 and 5 syllable common descriptors for people from various countries. Not my fault the US has such a long name. I then point out the difference between a name for continent and a name for a country - unless they are identical, such as Australia. Elsewhere the distinction seems easy enough to work with. Again that US Americans find that a challenge or that you are challenged to read some simple sentences is your problem.
No, I did not say that it was "hard for a US American to do," I said that it was a mouthful and also did not make any sense in cultural context because it does not comport with the way that most people in Anglo North America divide the continents.
I can follow sentences just fine. I am only having trouble with your broken English. I never claimed that you were European. Go back and reread my comment. Use Google Translate if you need to. You appear not to be able to follow simple arguments.
You claim to "have no use for nationalism," but you seem to derive a lot of satisfaction out of your delusional belief in your superiority over "US Americans." Call it whatever you want -- it's clear enough from where I stand.
I will no longer be continuing this conversation. Engagement is a sign of respect, and you have lost all of mine.
In considering people from the US, and the US as a country, as the same as others you see a claim of superiority. I see a disavowel of US superiority implied in using a continental name for one part of that continent. Sure it is a claim that people in much of the world have gone along with.
In stating I am not European I point out that whatever you might have seen in your travels there is not relevant to my posts.
Whatever you say, buddy. You refer to a "superiority implied in using a continentenal name for one part of that continent," overlooking my repeated point that DIFFERENT CULTURES AND LANGUAGES HAVE DIFFERENT CONTINENTS, and in many English-speaking countries, including all of Anglo North America, **THERE IS NO CONTINENT CALLED AMERICA.**
Please stop wasting my time.
Respectfully, aren’t these folks coming from the wing of our party that in fact is trying to change “where people are”? For example, if you want to build support for government services, it seems entirely reasonable to encourage like minds to talk more about the value of those services than about taxes (even on “the rich”). Their vision may not be yours, and they may be overselling the science behind their tactics. Who doesn’t?
“But we can’t reach the voters they turn off.” With apologies to Charley Sheen, that sounds like a you problem. Instead of expecting others to clear the lane, the great ones create their own space. There couldn’t have been a Sister Soulja moment without Sister Soulja.
Agree. Now if only WE were in charge of things. /s
Well you correctly point out this wing’s goals are different. I guess Milan could reply than “but don’t sell yourself as something you are not, a partisan persuasion success organization and admit you’re a progressive reform advocacy organization”.
Now if Milan is making the statement/whine that “because they do what they do, my messages/faction can’t win”, well tough, the center-left party will never purge out or silence its left faction or center faction. And if they did, the victor would be a smaller party always losing to the right-wing party.
Milan, I think the approach you highlight in the text shows the craziness of the group as supposed messaging/ political organization seeking success, but actually the items you selected from the table were not facially poor alternative language choice. This group selected for more specific, vivid examples rather than for more abstract terms which no longer have as much consensus and don’t have as much definite meaning to voters who might swing.
Don't Trump and his people think that rule of law is a left-wing framing? They sure act like it.
The last thing we need is a left-wing version of Trumpism.
The advice is to focus on concrete emotive anecdotes rather than ideas. That can be effective but seems suicidal for the country. NPR does this, pretending that they are giving you a real understanding of trade news by interviewing a bicycle repairman in Bangkok. Intelligent people are looking for intellectual shortcuts all the time and anecdotes provide that.
“Why you fool, it's the educated reader who CAN be gulled. All our difficulty comes with the others. When did you meet a workman who believes the papers? He takes it for granted that they're all propaganda and skips the leading articles. He buys his paper for the football results and the little paragraphs about girls falling out of windows and corpses found in Mayfair flats. He is our problem. We have to recondition him. But the educated public, the people who read the high-brow weeklies, don't need reconditioning. They're all right already. They'll believe anything.” CS Lewis That Hideous Strength 1945
I think the "tools from cognition and linguistics" line has more exploratory power then you give it credit for. If you think you've got magic words that can persuade your recalcitrant audience to your POV, why wouldn't you want to use that instead of compromising.
It's just that those magic words aren't actually magic.. but they don't know that.