20:80 Guide — Companion Resource

The Do/Don't Associate Lists

Antonia Scatton · ReframingAmerica.Substack.com · Updated March 2025

Based on George Lakoff's framing science (Don't Think of an Elephant, expanded ed. 2014)

Fact-checking and debunking myths almost always spreads the disinformation we are trying to defeat. They trick us into delivering the other side's messages beyond their media bubble. Here is how that works, how to stop doing it, and what to do instead.

The Association Game

Words operate independently of the sentences you use them in. They light up parts of people's brains — the frame that houses that concept. Using a word activates and strengthens that frame, and activating it repeatedly makes the idea seem inevitable, or good, or at least less bad. We know this as normalization.

Mere exposure to disinformation, even as you try to debunk it, plants seeds of doubt and eventually creates false equivalence — turning established facts into just one side's opinion.

Using two terms in the same sentence or conversation associates those terms whether you want them associated or not. It builds a physical bridge between them in people's brains. Right-wing propagandists are masters of this: they combine familiar and judgment-laden words in new ways — "teachers" and "grooming," for instance — to normalize and create false equivalence.

See It in Action

These examples — shared by well-meaning people on Bluesky — show how simply mentioning a false claim activates the frame you are trying to debunk:

Headline: Musk blames Ukrainians for cyberattack on X. Experts aren't convinced.
↓ What the brain activates
Brain frame: Ukrainians + cyberattack on X
Headline: JD Vance spars with heckler as he blames immigrants for high housing prices
↓ What the brain activates
Brain frame: immigrants + high housing prices

And here are posts shared on Bluesky by people on our side — with the damaging frame associations circled in red:

Bluesky posts with problematic frame associations circled in red
⚠ FOR YOUR EDUCATION ONLY.
DO NOT CLIP AND SHARE WHERE IT MIGHT BE SEEN BY PERSUADABLE VOTERS.

Do NOT Associate

DO Associate — The Good

DO Associate — The Bad

Source: ReframingAmerica.Substack.com by Antonia Scatton. Based on the framing and neuroscience research of George Lakoff (Don't Think of an Elephant, expanded ed. 2014). © 2025 Antonia Scatton.