Democratic Donkey
Dr. George Lakoff, retired professor of cognitive science and linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley and a communications guru for Democrats, asks this week’s key question: “Why are you a Democrat?” Lakoff’s question can be found at his blog, and on his Twitter feed:
Why are you a Democrat? https://t.co/bp8g3G1wRs #Democrats
— George Lakoff (@GeorgeLakoff) October 31, 2017
Lakoff’s question comes at a crucial time for Democrats.
As Lakoff notes in his blog post, right now, the Democratic Party is involved in an internal struggle, which can be characterized as the Establishment versus the Progressives. Coincidentally, Politico has a story out today from former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile, which accuses Hillary Clinton of exerting control over the Democratic Party and its finances before she became the Party’s nominee in 2016, at the expense of her rival, Bernie Sanders. At the same time, however, Americans face a more existential threat from Donald Trump and the Republicans in charge of Congress, who are more than happy to exploit any rifts in the Democratic Party, in order to cruise to victory in the next elections, and have more votes (and hopefully a Republican president) to implement their policies. As one person on Twitter noted today:
Enough w/ the Donna Brazile—DNC nonsense…Can we focus on saving democracy from an unhinged moron, then return to internal squabbling? Thanks
— Ahmed Baba (@AhmedBaba_) November 2, 2017
That type of concern appears to be what prompted Lakoff to ask his question in the first place. And Lakoff’s inquiry has prompted a number of interesting answers. Many of them contain value statements that clearly distinguish Democrats from Republicans. For example:
https://twitter.com/ThePatrioticLib/status/926087784976322560
Because of what Franklin Roosevelt did for country
— Helen Wolfe (@HelenWo60231682) October 31, 2017
Some answers to Lakoff’s question, however, seem to focus on the “internal squabbling” in the Democratic Party:
While 98% of people who think of themselves as democrats agree with 99% of progressives, the PARTY is now a corrupt neolib corp puppet
— Jeremy (@DrJeremyTeuton) November 1, 2017
However, it is unclear how many of these critical responses are from people who are not Democrats, including some supporters of Independent Bernie Sanders; Republicans seeking to make mischief; Russian bots; or otherwise. For our part, the answer to George Lakoff’s question is the following:
https://twitter.com/MessagingMatt/status/926093014040236033
Photo by DonkeyHotey, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/9ol1Uj
