Framing is how you do it!

"You twist and you are not fair". It is the polder version of "framing" with which Balkende cornered Wouter Bos during an election debate in 2006. A trick that the CDA team had probably copied from team Bush; two years earlier they put up an image of John Kerry who would literally blow with all the winds.

Other Dutch examples: "the head rag tax," "the hard-working Dutchman," "grabbers" and the mortgage interest deduction as a "villa subsidy."

With the U.S. Congressional elections and Sinterklaas poems just around the corner, time to take a closer look at this rhetorical phenomenon. What is framing? And more importantly, how can you employ it yourself?

What is framing all about?

Framing is about image formation. You try to give an emotional charge to a subject, and thus evoke a positive or negative feeling in people.

- A frame "sticks. The association is not simply undone.

- A frame works between the lines. People are often unaware of frames.

- A frame creates coherence and meaning. It provides a narrative (is narrative), so to speak.

The framing do-it-yourself kit

How to apply this? Keep these three things in mind.

1. Framing uses classic role reversals.

Just about every story contains the "dramatic triangle": a hero, a villain and a victim. The villain frame is most often chosen. But if you are sympathetic to a subject or person, position them as the victim or the hero. That's where the sympathy lies.

Here Wilders pulls out all the stops and portrays the cabinet as the villain, the hardworking Dutchman as the victim and the PVV as the saving angel.

. Fulfill the role of director.

If you set the frame, you are in control. You keep that control more easily if you know how to wrap your frame in the ideological terms of your opponent. For example, Asscher successfully took over the reigns when he turned Rutte's "outstretched hand" into "the hand in pockets of ordinary Dutch people, and to be found under the champagne tray on the Zuidas."

Trump did the same thing: he appropriated the frame "fake news" by accusing the media of what they associated him with.

. Don't think of an elephant.

When asked not to think of an elephant, you immediately think of an... Exactly. So if someone else has already taken the director's role and painted a negative picture of you, never be tempted to step into that frame. For example, as Richard Nixon did during his Watergate defense when he said, "I am not a crook." As a result, the words crook and Nixon were forever linked.

Brett Kavanaugh also went a little too enthusiastic on the organ about his love of beer, confirming his frame as a boozer.

If you've been intrigued and would like to learn more about framing and other speechwriting techniques, check out our Speechwriting training .