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Notes -
Shame and blame are unavoidable because progressives, like all of us, always have to reckon with the fact that some people just point blank don't agree with them sometimes. Progressives did create a powerful media machine. Maybe not the sort of grassroots one here but there was control of a significant amount of the media space directly. They did basically try to spend the credibility of all sorts of industries and institutions to push their messages.
What happens when that doesn't seem to convince conservatives? Well, once you have a media machine the temptation to shame and censor is nearly irresistible, because of the very mindset in this post: problems are a result of conservatives imposing the wrong linguistic frame so why not just...stop them imposing any frame whatsoever?
Lakoff seems to avoid the manichean view of modern progressives but he shares the same impulses: political differences are based on messaging or the wrong sort of education as opposed to deep disagreement on values or even a pragmatic judgment that progressive policies are not in one's interests.
Another theory is that conservatives have given up on fighting healthcare for the same reason that fiscal conservatives across the West are unable to cut the budget or stop many deeply unwise policies (e.g. the triple lock in the UK): once the government starts giving people things it's very, very hard to stop it.
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