Politicians love to ignite emotions.  Both Republicans and Democrats.  Why?  Because they know we buy from our emotional selves.  We buy products, concepts, images, you name it; we buy it from how we feel about it.  

Emotions sell!!!  They sell cars.  They sell houses.  They sell groceries.  They sell votes.

We evaluate and make judgments 100s of times a day.  It’s second nature.  These evaluations and judgments become part of what we believe, the lenses through which we see things, and what we think about others.  

Emotions can be ignited.  They can be heightened.  They can become passion.  When this happens, we often forget WHY we felt that way, why we were ignited, and why we became excited.  We just act emotionally out of our newly found passion.

Both political parties try to get us to be emotional so we will buy THEIR rhetoric; their point of view, and forget about specifics or facts.  They want us to remember just the emotions, the passion, what they have created in our minds through THEIR interpretation.   And unfortunately, they are very good at creating these passions within us. 

These techniques are splitting our country into two camps; Democrats and Republicans.  When you turn on the TV, which channel do you watch?  When you read material over the internet, which sites do you go to in order to get your “information?”   THEY are selling emotion so you will return to THEM.  They use the same concepts as do our political parties.  It’s about the power.  It’s about the money.  It’s about manipulating us and having us buy from them.  Think about friends having “friendly” political discussions.  It doesn’t happen any more.  People give up life-long friendships, ridicule others, create deep emotional schisms; all because they are emotionally ignited to believe in opposing ideas and views.  We have been sold a bill of goods; lock, stock, and barrel.  Never the twain may meet again.  

Our enemies in other countries love this.  They thrive on us being divided.  A house divided, falls! 

It’s time to fight back!  It’s time to stop getting manipulated!  It’s time to be more civil with each other.

What do we need to do?  It’s really rather easy.  We need to go back to the basics of using effective communication.  Instead of buying into their rhetoric?  We need to gather and understand the initial message.  We need to understand the FACTS.  From the facts WE can personally make decisions and form our own opinions.  We can determine our own emotions.  But, we need to do this from objective information and facts.  For those who remember Walter Cronkite on the CBS News, this is what he did.  He gave us the facts, the information, the data, and let US determine our opinions and how we felt.  

My need to write this and share my thoughts with others struck me the other night.  I was watching a speech by one of the Presidential candidates.  Immediately afterwards, the media pundits interpreted the speech for me.  I was listening to their comments and wondering, did they listen to the same speech I did?  If so, why was my view totally different from what I was hearing the media pundits saying?

Why?  Because they were selling emotions by putting highly emotional comments to the spoken words.  Some emotions (I judged) were totally inappropriate as they related to the spoken words by the Presidential candidate. The pundits’ comments were all very emotional and different from how I was feeling.  

I felt manipulated, deceived, and angry by what they said; even though the Presidential candidate’s speech itself did NOT leave me with those same emotions.

How can we fight back!

Be like Walter Cronkite and share facts, information, and data, and let EACH PERSON form their own interpretation, understanding, and evaluation from the unmanipulated truth.

There are many different communication models.  I’ll keep my suggestions simple.

Follow any or all of these 7 rules of effective communication.  The more rules you follow, the more effective will be your communication.

•  Look for the facts, NOT others evaluation of the facts. Look at behaviors and the actual words spoken by the other person/people.  If others express only their emotions or emotional evaluation, ask them for the facts they used to arrive at those emotions or evaluation.

• Be descriptive in your comments, not evaluative.  When we evaluate, we add our personal judgments to something.  What are the specifics of the behavior or the words (descriptive)?  How do I feel about the behaviors or the words and do I agree with them or not (evaluative)?

• Be clear with your comments, reflecting the facts NOT your opinion of the facts.  What actually happened?  Be clear by sharing the actual thing, not your interpretation of the merits of the thing, whether that thing is/are behaviors or words.

• Clarify others comments, ideas, beliefs.  Here are two techniques to clarify.  One technique is the summarize what you believe was said or done, and ask if this is accurate.  Another technique is just to ask a question that helps you better understand the behavior(s) or word(s).  

• Be truthful with your rhetoric.  There was only one Hitler.  Only one Attila the Hun. What specific behavior(s) did the other person do that reminded you of something either of these tyrants did?  Focus on that one thing your modern-day person is doing or saying.  Don’t over generalize or buy into others over generalizations.  For example, Hitler’s burning of books was only one of hundreds of negative things he did.  Because your modern-day person restricts the use of some books doesn’t mean they are Hitler. 

• Be open to others comments as they clarify THEIR perception of the “facts.”  Listen to their words.  Watch their behaviors.  Be open and clarify by asking questions or observing more closely.  

• Understand the true context.  Go back to the original comment or behavior.  Understand what was said or happened before and after the quote or the “fact.”  People frequently take words out of context to create a new and much more negative context surrounding a comment or action. When you can, go back to the original.  Go to YouTube or where ever you can to see the original source or read the actual words in the FULL context of the situation.  That is a more accurate way to understand the TRUE situation.

There are many other ways to enhance our communications and guard against manipulation and others bending of the truth.  By following any or all of the above seven “rules” each of us can do our part to enhance true communications and diminish the likelihood we will feed into the polarization of ideas and the intense negative feelings that seem to be so present in our current day society.