Learning from The Cultural Conservatives, Part I: Messing With Their Minds

Brief Description:
Sarah Robinson, a contributor at Orcinus, has started a series, based on the tactics of the early conservative movement, on the way to build a lasting progressive movement.

Her analysis of the way conservatives embedded their worldview in the population borrows from the realm of cognitive science and seems informed by the framing work done here by the Rockridge Nation staff.

She sets the tone of the overview as follows:

"Reading these plans now, as a progressive, it strikes me: We're now living in an America in which every institution is dominated by these guys. Every facet of our looming disaster was dictated by bankrupt conservative ideas; yet our very ability to visualize fresh alternatives has been constricted by the frames they deliberately laid around our language and discourse. Most of the country finds it hard to even contemplate or discuss our predicaments in anything but conservative terms. It's clear they've done more than merely mess up our country; they've also, quite intentionally, messed with our minds."

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