Jeff Goldstein over at Protein Wisdom has talked about the narrative and not allowing the other side to steal words for about a decade.
Yaron Brook does the same. (though he’s a little easier to understand and not as crabby)

They are both right.
This election was lost and people are in dismay because the tide has turned and majorities are different and the question is how will the GOP have to change to get votes in the future. BUT – conservativism is still correct in thought, yet conservatives and especially the GOP refuse to embrace the language that embraces the ideals.

Listen to Boehner yesterday.
Here:

With a sluggish economy facing major threats, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) opened the door to increased tax revenue as part of a bipartisan deal to tame the soaring national debt. Republicans are “willing to accept new revenues,” Boehner said, suggesting he is willing to break with the orthodoxy of many influential Republicans out of a desire to “do what’s best for our country.”

and here:

“Mr. President, this is your moment. We’re ready to be led, not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans,” he said. “We want you to lead, not as a liberal or a conservative but as the president of the United States of America. We want you to succeed.”

I believe that the Obama and Senate win for the Democrats does signal that “the people” do agree that increased taxes for those making greater than $250,000 is a “fair” thing to do to cover all those free things they like. Because of that, Congress should go along.

BUT the narrative is NOT that Republicans now desire to “do what’s best for our country” because they should KNOW that this isn’t what’s best for the country. The narrative should be – “we see that this is what the people want and we are willing to step aside, I’ll place my vote with this little astericks by it explaining why I will give the people what they want AND why I think it will work out badly for the people”

And when Mr. Boehner suggests that he wants the President to “succeed”, that isn’t enough. IF President Obama succeeds with his agenda, then this country is gone. Fix the narrative. “Mr. President – we want you to have a great legacy but we don’t think your ideas will lead this country down a better road. I hope that this country is successful during your second term, but that won’t happen if you succeed with your agenda. However – we won’t stand in your way on some of these items”

The MSM narrative is going to be this and we can’t change it….”we’ve hit a depression because of the future GOP obstructionism”:

The conciliatory remarks came as U.S. stock markets tumbled amid investor concerns that Washington would remain gridlocked in the face of economic threats, including the year-end “fiscal cliff” of automatic government spending cuts and sharp tax hikes.

Which means we need a better narrative all the time in all the places. The truth if you will. We “need to convince, not surrender” sayeth David Harsanyi.

John Galt quotes from Atlas Shrugged here about teaching the children and it is true. I quote it in full with respect to ThreeSources:

Part III, Chapter 6 – ‘The Concerto of Deliverance:’

[Read slowly, with reverence. "He" is Hank Reardon.]

He walked, as if this were his form of last tribute and funeral procession for the young life that had ended in his arms. He felt an anger too intense to identify except as a pressure within him: it was a desire to kill.
The desire was not directed at the unknown thug who had sent a bullet through the boy’s body, or at the looting bureaucrats who had hired the thug to do it, but at the boy’s teachers who had delivered him, disarmed, to the thug’s gun — at the soft, safe assassins of college classrooms who, incompetent to answer the queries of a quest for reason, took pleasure in crippling the young minds entrusted to their care.

Somewhere, he thought, there was this boy’s mother, who had trembled with protective concern over his groping steps, while teaching him to walk, who had measured his baby formulas with a jeweler’s caution, who had obeyed with a zealot’s fervor the latest words of science on his diet and hygiene, protecting his unhardened body from germs — then had sent him to be turned into a tortured neurotic by the men who taught him that he had no mind and must never attempt to think. Had she fed him tainted refuse, he thought, had she mixed poison into his food, it would have been more kind and less fatal.

He thought of all the living species that train their young in the art of survival, the cats who teach their kittens to hunt, the birds who spend such strident effort on teaching their fledglings to fly — yet man, whose tool of survival is the mind, does not merely fail to teach a child to think, but devotes the child’s education to the purpose of destroying his brain, of convincing him that thought is futile and evil, before he has started to think.

From the first catch-phrases flung at a child to the last, it is like a series of shocks to freeze his motor, to undercut the power of his consciousness. “Don’t ask so many questions, children should be seen and not heard!” — “Who are you to think? It’s so, because I say so!” — “Don’t argue, obey!” — “Don’t try to understand, believe!” — “Don’t rebel, adjust!” — “Don’t stand out, belong!” — “Don’t struggle, compromise!” — “Your heart is more important than your mind!.” — “Who are you to know? Your parents know best!” — “Who are you to know? Society knows best!” — “Who are you to know? The bureaucrats know best!” — “Who are you to object? All values are relative!” — “Who are you to want to escape a thug’s bullet? That’s only a personal prejudice!”
Men would shudder, he thought, if they saw a mother bird plucking the feathers from the wings of her young, then pushing him out of the nest to struggle for survival — yet that was what they did to their children.

Armed with nothing but meaningless phrases, this boy had been thrown to fight for existence, he had hobbled and groped through a brief, doomed effort, he had screamed his indignant, bewildered protest — and had perished in his first attempt to soar on his mangled wings.
But a different breed of teachers had once existed, he thought, and had reared the men who created this country; he thought that mothers should set out on their knees to look for men like Hugh Akston, to find them and beg them to return.

We can’t teach if we are giving up the words. Mr. Boehner, we conservatives have blocked legislation and stood in the way of higher taxes because we KNOW it’s better for America, not because we dislike the President. By all means, step aside now as the people have spoken. But step aside and tell the people why and what you expect from it.

The stock market tanked yesterday not on future gridlock but because of this reality: “Crap, we now have continued uncertainty in our futures because Obama has bills and taxes coming up left and right, and because Obamacare still hasn’t hit and do we yet know what all is in it, and will we get a coveted waiver or will he have figured out we donated to the GOP so no waiver for us?”

Uncertainty is what stocks can’t handle. Say it.

ps Herman Cain may be right about starting a new party, but I doubt it would work amongst so many entrenched party loyalists.
A new Freedom Party should be at hand [and frankly, is that really just the Tea Party?] One where everything is judged on “how does this restrict?” Gay marriage – should be fine. Dope smoking – should be fine [ps - side note on that....CO passed recreational use of Marijuana but will not be allowing marijuana dispensaries to sell to recreational users. doh. Here's to more small businesses and multiple smoke shops on every corner!] Keeping what you earn, should be fine. Starting a new business that will compete with a government preferred account, fine. Not buying health insurance, fine. Finding yourself in a pickle because you didn’t buy health insurance, fine. [as in, keep your pickle and ask your friends/churches for help]
Herman Cain! Woot!