About this site
Meet care-wing freedom voters like you.
Join the Freedom for People First community of other subscribers who share the same interest in making empathy - the duty to care and the soul of democratic institutions - central to constant public discourse. Now is the time to be visiting your Democratic Party neighbors - using Indivisible's Neighbor2Neighbor app at www.majorityovermaga.org and encouraging them.
Every paid subscriber will receive a complimentary copy of George Lakoff and Elisabeth Wehling's THE LITTLE BLUE BOOK and a 50-count pad of post-it notes with Kamala's White House Photo for use in guerilla GOTV!
Care-wing content delivered
Stay up to date on how to make empathy central to constant public discourse delivered straight to your inbox! No more worrying about whether you missed something because of a pesky algorithm or news feed. Consider becoming a PAID subscriber.
Freedom for people first is why I support CARE Education and Democrats in 2024.
My name is Chuck Watts. I live in Ohio. I have five grandchildren whose freedom from fear and want is shrinking every day because of Putin’s GOP. I care because that’s what progressive, care-wing Democrats do.
I am most proud of helping launch the 1st licensed daycare center for black children in Mississippi. However, a close second is my work with my friend and mentor, George Lakoff, on his Rockridge Nation advisory board and launching Empathy Surplus(1) in 2009, one year after Rockridge closed. Read Empathy Surplus Network USA about its mission to recruit partner members of state legislators, their aides, and constituents to apply George’s brain insights to make empathy central to constant public discourse(2). Read George’s Substack at FrameLab, which focuses on freedom in 2024.
CARE Education
I care about you and want to expand your freedom just because you’re a human being. That's why I proposed CARE Education model legislation, and I hope you will as well.
Care-wing Democrats care about freedom for people first!
Protect and expand freedom from fear and want and support Kamala Harris (Donate Button Coming Soon) and Ohio's Sherrod Brown for the US Senate and Allison Russo for Ohio's State House Minority Leader.
Care-wing Democrats frame facts with the Duty to Care
In the Thinking Points Revised(3), we’re reminded, “There is a false, commonplace theory that reason is completely conscious, literal (applies directly to the objective world), logical, universal, and unemotional. These assumptions lead progressives into other traps: assuming that hard facts unframed with empathy will persuade voters, that rational voters do not vote their identity, values, authenticity, or trust, and that negating a frame is an effective way to argue against it, e.g., conservatives don’t argue for less empathy, they argue for less public government, which must be empathic to be effective. Progressives must constantly point out that limited government means limited empathy.”
Effective progressive, care-wing Democrats make “pro-empathy freedom” central to constant public discourse as cultural diplomats.
I met George Lakoff in 2004 through his book Don't Think of an Elephant. In the Preface, Dr. Lakoff wrote, “If the Democrats are to win in the future, the party must present a clear moral vision to the county—a moral vision common to all progressives versus a laundry list of programs.” That moral vision begins with empathy for and responsibility to humanity. Twenty years later, the word “empathy” is on the lips of more and more public figures. I’d like to believe my readers and I had something to do with that since my main takeaway from Lakoff has been to make empathy central to constant public discourse(4) to get ordinary citizens to govern with empathy at city council and school boards as Democrats.
Start your own thing.
Enjoying the experience? Get started for free and set up your very own subscription business using Ghost, the same platform that powers this website.
Footnotes
(1) The Empathy Surplus name came from Lakoff’s declarative to say what you want since empathy is the soul of democracy. It was inspired by Presidential candidate Barack Obama's challenge to Northwestern students in 2006 to “cultivate empathy” and reverse our “empathy deficit.” Consider becoming a proposer of CARE Education model state legislation.
(2) Lakoff, George, Don’t Think of an Elephant, Ch. 6, “The Private Depends on the Public,” The Brain and Constant Public Discourse, p 54-57, 2nd edition, 2014, Chelsea Green, Vermont. Excerpt at https://proempathy.us/constant
(3) Lakoff, George, Edited by Chuck Watts, Thinking Points, p. 13, 2024, https://proempathy.us/thinkrev
(4) Empathy Surplus Network USA, Pro-Empathy Freedom Framing Toolkit PDF, https://proempathy.us/freedomkit.