Moral Operating Systems: How Swing Voter’s Brains Work
by Antonia Scatton
An article on SubStack from Reframing America
This article takes George Lakoff’s book Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know your values and frame the debate and others, and puts it to practical use. Antonia Scatton employs the analogy of different phone operating systems: Democrats run on BlueOS. Republicans run on RedOS. Swing voters have two phones. Forget those on the other OS; they’re effectively unreachable for you, as apps running on your OS won’t run on their phones running the other OS. You already have those running the same OS as you on your side, so there’s no need to bother them except perhaps to motivate them to get out and vote and interact with their government representatives.
RedOS apps are for people raised under the “Strong Father” model. These apps are designed to make their users fearful of imaginary or exaggerated threats. Their modus operandi is to constantly bring up scary imaginary threats such as socialism, immigrants, and people with varied lifestyles being a threat to morality. Scatton admonishes not to be like the RedOS apps by mentioning the other side, not even how bad they are or their repulsive positions—this only brings their views into your readers or hearers consciousness. Remember, when you say Don’t Think of an Elephant, all you’re doing is making people think exactly of an elephant. You need to avoid phraseology such as “unborn child,” “partial-birth abortion,” “grooming,” “woke,” or “CRT.” These are expressions with programmed triggers for hateful RedOS algorithms.
The key is to get those who have two phones to leave the one with the other OS in the drawer, and use only the one running your OS. Scatton advises the way to do that is to constantly frame your references around the good things you are promoting, and emphasizing the “Nurturing Parents” model. Examples are: “state-mandated pregnancy,” “involuntary medical servitude,” “using people’s bodies against their will,” or “Bodily Autonomy.” Scatton recommends also using terms such as “book banning,” “censorship,” or “teacher surveillance,” which point out Creeping Fascism and frame the debate in terms of abuse of power and threats to freedom.
All advocates for socially beneficial policies and norms would do well to heed Scatton’s advice.
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