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One of the main reasons I took up “blogging” here so many many years ago: was to contribute to the perpetual rhetorical battle, occurring around the water-coolers of America. A place where votes are often lost or won, by means of a common debating device, often called “framing.” (AKA Talking points.)
What is that? What are talking points or frames? Frames are points of view, simply put.
Here are my 3 rules for framing an argument, developed over the years, and adapted from much more formalexpositions on the topic:
1) A good frame should be memorable and easy to explain.
2) A good frame should take a complex argument and boil it down to a bumper-sticker.
3) A good frame must make common sense to a wide variety of audiences.
See the title of this post for a working example of these 3 concepts, in action.
I cannot take full credit for this conceptual frame however, as I heard a progressive guest on a political discussion show use it with precision, a few days ago. I will credit them if I can recall their name, or even the show — which I think was either Deadline White House or The ReidOut. (Like I said … about those “many many years”— they are starting to add up, not unlike my “diary count.”That’s Life… forget the speaker, but remember their framing device.)
Well, that progressive guest on that talk show was much more intellectually nimble than I. He used that simple frame to quickly dispose of all thehorse-race “hand-wringing” that he had just witnessed on the weekend news programs. Poll after poll, show after show — each focusing on President Biden’s age “issue.”
Thing is there ARE bigger problems than THAT, in US Politics — in Biden’s likely competitor — MUCH bigger actual problems. Polls and reporters should put equal focus and worry, on the “character and competence problems” of the front-running GOP candidate. That is, if they want to keep pretending to be “fair and balanced” news production-rooms, they claim to be.
That progressive guest put it more succinctly and bluntly than I have. Roughly put, their argument went like this:
“The hell with Biden’s Age problem—what about Donald Trump’s Violence problem?”
The speaker then quickly went on to cite Trump’s off-the-rails comments about “executing General Milley,” and launching investigations of NBC and MSNBC for national treason !?! You know, Trump’s SOP.
All of which makes Joe Biden’s wisdom of his years“problem,”simply pale in comparison.
All it took was that simple context (aka “frame” or talking point) — to put all the recent Media’s Biden hand-wringing into its proper real-world perspective.
Clik here to view.
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Which brings me to a fourth rule for coming up with a memorable logical frame:
4) A good frame should be adaptable to multiple versions of the same gut-level theme.
Like a fine wine, a good frame must be able to “breathe”… to stretch its rhetorical legs, so to speak. To that end, I give you this wide-ranging — and arguably more relevant —Poll about Candidate Problems [see below].
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Clik here to view.
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The times Trump has advocated for violence
— Axios, May 2, 2022
Dear Corporate Media newsrooms: Just imagine for 1 editorial minute, what your reactions would be, if Joe Biden has said or done any one of those “violent” things? Then adjust your “both sides” candidate treatment accordingly … You know, what if Joe did that?
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