Truth And Scorched Earth Messaging

Many people are disheartened by the scorched-earth communication that’s going on coming out of the White House with regards to the impeachment vote. When we get into a scorched-earth messaging mindset that we’re currently in, the problem is that a very important value that Americans and other cultures stand for start to get diminished due to the style of languaging coming out of our leaders. On today’s show, hosts Bill Stierle and Tom tackle the scorched-earth messaging and why it’s diminishing the respect or credibility we get when we say, “I’m from America.”

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Watch the episode here

Bill, it’s great to be back with you. Talking about language or communication is our main thing. I’m disheartened by the scorched-earth communication that’s going on coming out of the White House with regards to the impeachment vote.



They are significant to allow or to be on the environment. Our environment is allowing this scorched earth languaging to take place instead of voices that would stand for values, instead of standing for loyalties. We could do a loyalty or an identity towards a party or a team. Tom, we can talk about the difference between your favorite team and my favorite football team. We can get into some arguments and I can most certainly feel some disappointments about the team that I stand for and teams that you stand for that have won a bunch. There can be some problems because those teams might have had talented people on them and the teams didn’t have those talented people. I’m mad about it.

The problem when we get into a scorched earth messaging mindset that we’re in is a very important value that Americans and other cultures stand from start to get diminished. If I fly to a foreign country and say, “I’m from America,” I’m not getting the brand of respect or credibility in those places because of the style of languaging that is coming out of our leaders. We do elect our own leaders and it doesn’t mean that all of our leaders are perfect. It means that many times, a leader looks the good of the whole, as well as the value of the brand over everything else. The value of our brand is we put another layer of laws in place and we have a layer of ethics that are supposed to protect three things: value of fairness, value of integrity and value of respect as well as safety.

We don’t want people to hurt each other. If we’re not following our values, our laws and our ethics, then things like fairness, integrity and respect go under the bus. Finally, safety will go onto the bus. The phrase “under the bus” means that one person doesn’t value that in another person. That’s what the constitution was trying to frame. We have these values, laws and ethics in a Republic that stood for fairness, integrity, respect and safety. It’s not taking place. Eventually, what happens is there’s going to be an erosion of freedom. That’s the thing that most people can’t see coming next.

That’s the scary part for me. It’s like this scorched earth policy is leading to scary. Is it scary honesty or scary dishonesty?

It’s scary from the place of safety, as well as it’s scary for the place of equality because fairness and equality have a strong relationship with each other. It is like, “If this human being gets this, the other human being gets this.” It’s the same thing. “They don’t. I should get more.” All of a sudden, we’re in a middle school, thirteen-year-old discussion about what the word ‘fairness’ means. Fairness for many young people does not mean equality. The reason why it doesn’t mean equality is because a lot of times, the child’s mind is like, “I get all the marbles. You don’t.” The benefits of having values, laws and ethics are that we get to experience a society that has a greater ability to speak and fight for truth, a greater ability to speak and fight for trust and advocate for trust. More stable, more consistent and the worth of every human being gets to be valued. Regrettably, in some places in the world, you don’t get to have those values.

It appears that the occupant of the White House is throwing all these values under the bus.

We often need for truth. The challenge is that whose truth do I want this? Do I want my thirteen-year-old truth to run the world? No, I don’t want his truth to run the world because he’s got some limitations of truth. If somebody can have the belief and mindset of a younger person and believe that this is the way the world works because they’ve been getting away with it since that age and you could see how they take all the marbles and go home. It’s hard. Let’s talk about the damage and what is happening. This is a show about language. If somebody uses it speaks in a certain language structure, that is the thing that starts the fire. It is the match that a person can throw. As soon as somebody throws a match of criticism, does it make some sense that if a person doesn’t know better that they would criticize back? If somebody is being defensive, does it make some sense that somebody might also have a posture of defensiveness?

It does. It’s a natural knee-jerk reaction.

If somebody has the experience of contempt like, “I don’t like you or your party because you did something. Your party stands for or does something or advocates for a certain group that I don’t agree with.” They’re going to have this contempt or this bitterness that is going to be expressed. Here’s when it gets difficult. How long can we keep doing this?

I don’t know.

Can you imagine being used, criticism, defensiveness, bitterness and contempt? Eventually, what winds up happening is that they get tired and then they start to withdraw. That’s what they see. That’s called obstruction, when you withdraw from a denial after you’ve criticized and became defensive and thrown-in a bunch of contempt. I don’t care what you’re doing and then withdraw and that’s what you call the second article of impeachment is obstruction. “I’m not going to let you talk to any of my people and we’re going to withdraw because we don’t like what you’re doing. We’re going to get other people to criticize.” All of a sudden, you’ve got these four things that are showing up: criticism, defensiveness, contempt, withdraw. It makes the conversation very narrow because all that’s left is blaming and shaming. You could see how it is hard to come back from and build respect when human beings get stuck in blaming and shaming. There’s nothing to say left because when somebody blamed something to another person, the person shuts down. They go like, “I’m not going to talk anymore.”

It also seems that it feels like we’re through the looking glass here. We’re in a bizarre world where certain people say, “The impeachment process is valid. It’s the law. It’s the constitution,” then you’ve got the president saying, “It’s completely unconstitutional.” He throws it right back.

How do you do this? How do you defeat it? What do you respond? Let’s do a role play and watch how I am going to build an alliance with you, no matter how many times you might criticize, defend, withdraw or content. Give me a sentence that you’ve noticed that it’s been very difficult for your ears to hear.

Explanation, even problem-solving, does not carry the vibrational currency to overcome somebody's belief.

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It didn’t matter the criticism or defensive sentence that you said or whatever the blaming or judgmental response that you brought because all I did was stay on your side a little bit.



Can you imagine what would happen if a reporter did that interviewing the president?

There’ll be all kinds of new levels of truth that he would start speaking about how he struggles with following rules, how he struggles about getting his own choices, as well as people acknowledging how difficult that is for him. That’s what he would go into, “Poor me. I should’ve gotten this. This reminds me of another time that I could get fairness.”

He typically says, “No president should ever have to go through this.” Part of what he says is, “This is terrible. No president should ever have to go through this.”

His mindset of a president is very much like, “I get to make the things and people got to follow what I’m saying.” Meanwhile, it doesn’t matter if somebody’s been studying economics, finance or manufacturing their whole life. He thinks he knows that it leaves off the ability to be humble and the ability to take advice, learn, turn and listen better.

This was an interesting quote that I want to share with you that came out of a letter that the president signed and sent to Nancy Pelosi protesting the impeachment vote. He said, “The articles of impeachment introduced by the house judiciary committee are not recognizable under any standard of constitutional theory, interpretation or jurisprudence.” We’ve all seen on the television in the judiciary hearings that, in fact, there were several constitutional scholars who were reporting not only constitutional theory but also interpretation and jurisprudence. In fact, everything going on is completely constitutional. What the judiciary committee and all the process of interviewing the witnesses have been completely within the constitution.

When an accusation comes in like that, notice how you went to try to explain the truth.

The American way is standing for ethics and values even though many people don't necessarily see it that way.

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The person does not want to be associated with it. One of the things he’s good at is making a statement to meet his need for respect and recognition, which our society and our business system give. It pushes a lot of respect to two different groups of people in our society, rich people, famous people, and celebrities. We’ve been pushing those in that direction. We give them the respect that many of them do not deserve. We give them choices, many of them take advantage of it. These are people that because they’re rich or they’re famous, people will come up and literally help them do all kinds of tragic things to others because they’re with this rich person or they’re with this famous person.

I’m struggling, Bill.

America’s self-worth and respect are struggling. That is exactly the right feeling. Your body’s working perfectly, Tom. It’s upsetting on my side, from the perspective of specifically speaking, is when somebody is using the language of criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and withdrawal. The language of blaming and shaming, what they’re doing is scorching the relationships, the other person and their job.

Let’s talk about that vibration. The only thing I’m seeing are the Democrats trying to stay in the place of following on the rules. We’re going to vote on impeachment because we can’t let them get away with impacting the next election. If we don’t follow through, then he’ll keep doing it or do it again. The only thing that I’m hearing coming out of Nancy Pelosi battling all this scorched earth messaging is I’m praying for him.

That’s all she’s got. The vibration is not strong enough.

If you were the Democratic leadership, that could be Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff or Jerry Nadler, or any of these committee leaders that are chairpeople, leaders in the house and maybe leaders in the Senate. It could even be a Chuck Schumer or somebody like that. How can they communicate at a similar vibration level against this scorched earth messaging?

It might start like this, “I’m Nancy Pelosi or I’m Chuck Schumer, I’m here to speak about restoring integrity and respect to America. I like to restore respect and integrity to our system of law and the values that we stand for. We’re here not to impeach a president. I am not interested in teaching a president.” Notice what I did is something very counterintuitive. I’m not interested in impeaching a president. What I’m interested in is restoring the respect for law, the standing for values and making sure the ethics that we choose to follow, we follow through on. If somebody can’t play and participate within the laws and in the ethics that we participate in, that’s not good for America and what America stands for. We’re here to take a vote to do something, to stand for respect, truth, integrity, and safety. It is not safe to have somebody to make a decision that is not inside the framework. We took an oath to follow the framework, and so we did.