Political Power as Pathology

If political power is the problem and almost never the solution, we need to reframe our thinking through the way we talk about it.

Reframing is a technique for helping others see a phenomenon differently. Cognitive linguist George Lakoff's work on how metaphors structure political discourse helped influence partisan messaging.

Lakoff’s research demonstrates that language is not merely a tool for communication but a means of shaping people’s thoughts, as metaphorical frames to influence how people perceive issues like governance. In books like Moral Politics and Don't Think of an Elephant!, Lakoff argues that effective reframing can realign public values and priorities.

As he succinctly puts it,

Frames are mental structures that shape the way we see the world. As a result, they shape the goals we seek, the plans we make, the way we act, and what counts as a good or bad outcome of our actions” (Don't Think of an Elephant!).

This insight underscores Lakoff’s approach to discussing complex political concepts in a way that resonates emotionally and cognitively with mass audiences. For example, if you’re on the progressive left, always refer to "tax investment" instead of “tax burden.”

Let’s apply a little Lakoffian reframing of our own.

Political Power

In its current, more prosaic framing, political power goes roughly as follows:

Political power is the authority to shape societal decisions and policies, allocated through campaign contributions, representative elections, agency appointments, and lobbying. People exercise power in pursuit of varied conceptions of the public good, but they are constrained by checks such as coequal branches, competing interests, vocal minorities, and electoral shifts.

Such an extended, textbook-style definition isn’t exactly wrong. It just fails to capture the destructive nature of political power. Indeed, it provides no metaphorical lens and very little pathos.

So let’s reframe it.

Political power is the authority to control others and make decisions on their behalf, captured through electoral spectacles, insider appointments, legal corruption, and special interest auctions. Behind the fig leaf of the *public good* lies the threat of violence. Power divides, sets venal agendas, entrenches inequality, and facilitates corruption. Supposed checks like coequal branches, agitating factions, and widespread suffrage mask power’s corrosive nature.

Meh, that’s better.

We sense the pathology. We use some metaphors. But it’s still too long and prosaic. Let’s channel our inner Lakoff—strategically, not ideologically.

Power is a Pathology

Using George Lakoff’s approach to metaphorical reframing, the trope power as pathology or power as disease casts political power as a corrosive, infectious force that corrupts everything it touches, much like a disease ravages a human body.

Lakoff emphasizes that metaphors structure thought by creating coherent mental frameworks, so the pathology metaphor implies a system where power spreads injury, weakens societal health, and distorts relationships among actors.

1. Politicians are carcinogens or cancers.

2. Lobbyists are parasites.

3. Voters are weakened immune cells.

4. Media cause inflammation and nerve sensitivity.

5. Bureaucracy is arterial plaque.

6. Corruption causes socio-economic atrophy.

7. Government power metastasizes.

8. Bad policy ideas are viruses.

9. Washington is an infected lesion.

10. Peaceful freedom is the cure.

Remember that the root of the pathology is always the threat of compulsion or making good on such threats. Perhaps you can do better. I encourage you to share in the comments.

How are diseases similar?

Too many people still worship in the Church of State (a different metaphor), so we want to find ways to help them reframe political authority, which is generally unhealthy for society.

Sign up for the Shadow Workshop series, June 8, 15, and 22 (Sundays at 1:00 ET)