In an interview with CalMatters this week, George Lakoff, linguistics expert from Berkeley, explained why progressives should stop using the term “Mueller Report”.  Lakoff, who wrote Don’t Think of an Elephant, about political messaging, is a long time consultant to Democratic candidates and media pundits teaching them how to effectively frame messages to voters.  In this interview, he told readers that Trump and his talking heads are touting that the Mueller report exonerated him when it most certainly did not.  However, when progressives argue that the Mueller report didn’t exonerate him, they’re actually reinforcing the conservative message.  Instead, Lakoff suggests that rather than use the term “Mueller”, to change that to “Barr”.  So the response to conservatives’ claim of exoneration is “The Barr report cannot be trusted and we haven’t seen the Mueller report.”  Progressives need to keep “the Barr report” out there to reinforce that message rather than conservatives’ message.