Lessons from the Right

Happy Friday.

We are back. Maui doesn't suck.

Many of us have wondered how "we lost" last November. Some of us have wondered how "they won". There has been some scholarship on these questions and much frustration. Sadly, I have seen few suggestions and fewer solutions.

Attached is a terrific paper entitled "Lessons from the Right" that attempts to offer both, within the environmental context. Generally, the authors' thesis is as follows:

The[ right's] success has largely resulted from their utilization of a set of ingenious institutional techniques - primarily, a strategic framing of their message coupled with the construction of a holistic metastructure for delivering it - rather than their engagement in democratic discourse over the true content of their policies. Our movement can learn something by studying the methods that have allowed the Right to become so powerful, and if we are smart, we will figure out how to apply these lessons to our own national aspirations.

The authors dissect the right's political approach into ten strategic lessons (thereafter rejecting some as inapposite to democracy and ethics.) They then offer a proposal for the utilization of these lessons by the left.

Perhaps, all hope is not lost...yet.