Consumers already are wary of many products despite glowing advertising hype. Why would anyone think that the way to get people to readily consent to new government programs and regulations is to “sell” them using similar hype?
Honesty (a revolutionary concept) might actually work better than blowing smoke up the electorate’s ass.
Because an overwhelming majority of Americans are in favor of the Affordable Care Act, but far fewer are in favor of Obamacare. Yeah.
I don’t necessarily agree with the angles proposed in the OP, but the OP’s point is completely right. How you phrase things makes a massive difference in how people react to them or think about them, even when you are describing the exact same thing.
Humans are almost never logical. For neurotypicals, emotions determine how people respond to things, logic is just a post-hoc justification that gets twisted up and tacked on later. So, by triggering the right emotional responses, you can dramatically change the perception of exactly equivalent proposals.
I have been a fan of the Straight Dope for years and for some reason have never though to actually join it. I’ve always come to it through google searches and never actually tried browsing the forum. This topic caught my eye and I think I’m someone who can in particular offer insight.
I grew up in a very conservative religious household in rural East Texas, to two former missionaries. My views evolved over time, gradually, as I used the internet and expanded my knowledge.
I consider myself a Christian Socialist now, and a Bernie fan, and while I disagree very strongly with my parent’s voting choices, I still hold very strongly to the core values I grew up with.
My parents are probably not representative of many GOP voters, they have theology degrees (though from a conservative southern baptist seminary) and they’re… well a little weird. They named me after the Lion jesus allegory from Narnia so you can kinda get their vibe from that.
And I’m probably not your average “blue voter” either. I’m generally more radical in my opinions.
That sad I think I can provide some context.
I think your abortion argument is extremely extremely mislead, and completely misunderstands the mindset of many in the pro-life movement.
If you want to understand the way that a lot of pro-lifers think then you should read Francis Schaeffer. The opposition to abortion as a civil rights issue (the right to life of the fetus) is not a bad faith cover to oppress women. It’s a genuine concern of these people and telling them that if they allow abortion it will lead to more dead liberals WILL NOT get them to support this.
Now some GOP voters might like joking about dead liberals etc. Trump has certainly brought those sorts in force into the party. But they are also not the types who are concerned about Abortion. To them, it’s simply a wedge issue that they can use to get evangelicals to support their wall building and authoritarian nonsense.
A better argument in my opinion is that prohibiting abortion does little to reduce it, and that instead things like sex ed, contraceptives, and an economic system that makes it possible for people to raise children without fear are much more effective at saving lives. What good is saving babies from Abortion if to do that you have to vote for a man who worsens climate change, something which is predicted to result in 1.5 million additional deaths a year by 2100 in the best case scenrio.
That said, I have not actually had much success getting this argument to change their minds so take it with a grain of salt.
I have other opinions about how one could change peoples minds (or at least how my mind was changed on some of these subjects) but I’m honestly not really sure how useful any of those arguments would be. I’m increasingly pessimistic of the power of rhetoric to change peoples’ minds. I’m inclined to believe Planck’s Principle.