Truth And How To Deal With Soundbites In Congress
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Now that Donald Trump has lost his megaphone on social media after being censored by the big sites, his supporters in Congress ought to realize that they have to be more accountable for the soundbites they try to put forward. That’s far from being the case, however, as some of these recent examples show. If you were to listen to the hearings on Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial, you would be in for a treat – a circus show that beautifully demonstrates how we should NOT communicate. How can our representatives practice more effective communication geared towards team politics? Bill Stierle and Tom demonstrate.
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Donald Trump has about one day left in office. We are at that point.
It has been a communication rollercoaster. I’m glad we were able to hold on.
Me too. Doesn’t it seem it’s been another world already because we’re not hearing about the hour-by-hour Tweets from Donald Trump. There are many things going on, but it does seem like the temperature has been lowered in the country largely because the president has lost his megaphone.
That’s been a tough piece for him because as a professional brander, marketer, salesperson, the megaphone is the thing that is needed to engage the group of people to move forward to buy your product or service, to be able to pick up what you’re selling. When a person promises something and they can’t deliver it, then all of a sudden, they’re moving on to the next thing instead of being held accountable for the last thing that they promised them they didn’t deliver. Whereas Barack Obama couldn’t promise that you can keep your doctor in this healthcare plan. Meanwhile, it was partly true that you could keep your doctor, but what he could not message is that if your doctor leaves this practice or this insurance company, you can’t go with them because you’ve already signed up for this other one and your doctor’s over here on this other team. It’s difficult because, how communication-wise can we have a healthy communication with others? The temperature is lower. That is the thing to capture.
Didn’t you read somewhere that there’s been a drop in fake news propagation as a result of this?
I heard that once he’s off Twitter, they were able to track the 73% of the promotion of fake stories and there was a 73% drop. That’s a lot. That’s re-Tweeting and that’s other people adding on to the story. It’s called riding the coattail of the disinformation. Because I’m inflamed about the disinformation, the activation of a fight, flight or freeze or even faint response is, “I don’t know what to do with this.” In writing, that’s the way a bit it’s going. You were trying to get somebody to read what we have written, and then activate and promote what we’ve written to another person. That is a challenge for us as human beings because we do get hooked on stimulation and things that are important to us that we’ve created a belief around. That’s a big part of what are we going to do to get away from soundbites a bit, get back to healthy communication, and be able to have our representatives be accountable for the words that they say. Be able to make them experience a greater sensitivity to when they open their mouth and they say something that there’s a cost of what you’re saying.
I’m thinking about what you said, “Is there a cost to what they’re saying?” I’m reminded of something that I’ve seen and it was a video by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina where he’s saying, “If the Democratic-controlled Senate follows through with this impeachment trial of President Donald Trump after he’s left office, then they’ve lost all credibility.” He keeps going on about how they shouldn’t do it. This is a bad thing. Somehow, they would be out of integrity if they do it. I’m like, “Who’s the messenger for this? Lindsey Graham? They’re out of integrity?” I was starting to look at it that way because here’s the guy that said, “If Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies in the last year of Donald Trump’s office, we’re not going to see the replacement or wait until the next president,” then he has flipped. He has no integrity.
No consequence. He didn’t lose his election over that. I was going like, “He’s got to lose his election over that.” No.
I thought he should have too. It was bad messaging and communication because all that his opponent should have done and all the messaging for his opponent should have all been Lindsey Graham cannot be trusted. He is a liar and he’s a hypocrite. You cannot trust any word that comes out of his mouth because he’s going to change it in the future to suit whatever purpose he has at the time. If they had hammered that in a more eloquent way than I did over and over, I don’t think Lindsey Graham gets re-elected.
The accountability piece is not in play here.
Now that Trump has lost his megaphone on social media, our representatives have to realize that there is a cost to whatever they say.
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Lindsey Graham feels emboldened because he got re-elected.
We have six years of him using his stature. I don’t know how often he’s going to flip flop back and forth, but for South Carolina, he is their guy and they picked him. That’s what a democracy does, they pick their representatives. You get to pick who’s the state. “We’re going to pick this point of view and this is our guy and this is what our guy is saying. He’s saying that. We’re not accountable for what he is saying. He’s not going to be accountable for what he’s saying. We’re going to give him a pass so our side, our team, our party is winning or has a say.” It’s difficult.
It is hard to live with that from certain perspective. The other interesting thing that comes to mind going back to Donald Trump’s Twitter megaphone being shut off and Facebook and Instagram, he was suspended from a bunch of platforms. He complains that these platforms are infringing on his free speech, which if you dig into the reality of free speech, that’s not the case. The president has the ability to step up to the podium in the White House briefing room or press room at any time. He can speak on anything, and every news outlet, newspaper magazine in the country will hear him. They’ll cover it. He hasn’t done that. He hasn’t stepped up to that microphone. Why?
This is tough. It’s when you type something, you can depersonalize people and the situation in writing easier than you can in person. The points he gets into trouble when he gets in front of the camera and says, “It is what it is,” instead of, “Why are you not enraged about doing something about it?” When he does that in person and it comes out of his mouth, it’s different than when you Tweet that sentence, “It is what it is,” on Twitter because on Twitter, the reader can say, “It is what it is while the president is being accepted. Meanwhile, he’s doing the best he can because nobody could do it better than him.” They can assign the meaning to it. If you’re in person, you’re like, “It is what it is.” Even it is what it is, it’s problematic in person. You’ve noticed this while you’ve gotten vicious emails, and then you talk to the person online and the person’s sweet as a cupcake.
It’s something that I began experiencing several years ago in my first business on the internet 1.0, before the dot-com bust. What I’ve found is customers in particular, when they communicate with you over email, there is a different dynamic that was taking place when they communicate in writing versus picking up the phone and speaking with you. Some of them don’t realize the tone and the way that they come across in an email is much harsher, devoid of their tone and intent. Others feel emboldened to make more critical, harsh statements, assertions in writing in email communication or any kind of writing communication than when they speak verbally.
I still see this now in business. I’ll have customers who in my mind and others at my company who in the cliche make a mountain out of a molehill and email like, “This is such a such a terrible thing. How could you possibly do this?” My staff will read this email and it’s like, “I don’t even know how to respond to this.” We work on that with languaging and communication and how to respond to it. Sometimes my recommendation to them is, “You need to pick up the phone and call this person and talk to them.” My staff will take offense and not want to deal with this person the way they’re speaking to them in text. I was like, “It’s hard to read someone’s intent and tone. It’s easy to misinterpret it. They may be being unreasonable, but one of two things will happen if you pick up the phone, you both are going to communicate better and understand each other better and work through this issue, or when they get on the phone and speak to you, they’re not going to be as emboldened. They’re not going to feel that they’re as entitled. They’re not going to be as assertive. They’re going to end up being more reasonable because you talk with them.”
It’s a different thing. I know I’m not articulating this well but I’ve have experienced this. That’s to a large degree why President Donald Trump has not been taking the podium and speaking to the American people in a live sense or the press corps to try to get his message across because he’s less comfortable doing it. It’s harder for him to deny that he intended one thing and not another when he says something controversial when he does it verbally than when he does it typing on his smartphone.
When we look at how communication has moved over Twitter and even the events of January 6, 2021 for a Donald Trump follower, a Republican that would call themselves conservative, gets invited to a party, come January 6, 2021, it’s going to be wild. That’s like a DJ inviting you to the dance floor, “Come on out here. It’s going to be wild.” It’s going to be wild because we are going to get energized and rallied up about this thing that “I am selling you to be true.” The person that’s getting this text or email believes they have a personal relationship with the president. They don’t have a personal relationship but they believe they have a personal relationship with him. “He has the same conservative values as I do,” is what I’ve heard out of many people. Conservative values, which one of those are you talking about the conservative value?
That further discussion, “I believe in this guy,” instead of “I am able to discern or separate what I’m being sold with what the reality is.” Even with people that were in the Senate Chambers and were in front of Ted Cruz’s desk and were looking through Ted Cruz’s notebooks, “He won’t mind. There’s got to be something in here that we can get these guys with.” That’s following a Twitter line. That’s not following a truth. It’s following, “These people are doing this. He sold us out.” “No, he didn’t sell us out.” “This is what we wanted him to do.” “This is not what we wanted him to do.” “It’s all good here. We checked out this desk with Ted Cruz because we don’t have trust with Ted Cruz.”
When you friend somebody on Twitter and when you friend somebody on Facebook, it does not mean you’re their friend or that they’re fully listening to you. They might read your Tweet or post but it’s a false close relationship belief. “I’ve followed somebody famous and George Clooney will read my texts. Julia Roberts will read my texts. Tom Hanks is going to read my Tweets.” No. They don’t have a relationship with you. This is where it’s hard to get back to a healthy dialogue because we’ve got to move our way back to that healthy discourse that we’re looking at. How do we get people to debate effectively? How do we get people to have productive communication? That’s where we can stick the landing a bit.
That’s something that jumped out at me when the House was debating the article of second impeachment that was brought after accusing Donald Trump of inciting insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. I was watching some of this and listening to some of it even as I’m driving in my car, listening to the radio, because it was all being broadcast live. There was this interesting thing that happened. There was at this time that the House calls floor debate, this single article of impeachment. Because it’s a judicial action, the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the House and then the ranking member on the Republican side each have a certain amount of time allotted to debate these articles.
They each would yield so much of their time to other members. It was this parade of 100-plus representatives on each side of the aisle coming forward and making a statement. It was illuminating to me and disappointing to a large degree because this is a serious thing. The House leadership has filed a charge of inciting insurrection against the President of the United States. This is something that should be debated. In reality, what we have in the House of Representatives and to a large degree, in the Senate as well, people make up their mind as to how they’re going to vote before this “floor debate” is even opened. This parade of representatives is each trying to get in their 30 seconds to 1 minute to at most, 2-minute soundbite for the media to pick up so that their constituents back home will see what they have to say about this and understand their position.
I don’t think that was what the process has intended for this. It intended for there to be thoughtful, considered debate on, “Did the president really do this or did he not? Should we vote to impeach him and send it to the Senate for trial?” It was sad to see this. They were not listening to each other. They were talking past each other. Both sides, they’re both equally guilty of this. Nobody had taken the high road here. I remember talking with you after that. You and I both saw some of this. You role-played a bit and were showing me how this could have been done differently. I would love to spend a few minutes talking about that and sharing that with our readers, because there is this resigned belief or conceited belief that debate doesn’t happen in our legislative branch or at least not on the open floor. It may happen. They may debate and compromise horse trade behind closed doors but by the time it gets out to where any of us to see it, dramatic moments like John McCain going up and giving the thumbs down to the vote on repealing the Affordable Care Act don’t happen often.
He saved the health care for X number of people in his state by doing that as well as many hundreds of thousands or even twenty million Americans save themselves and their health insurance by doing it.
He didn’t even have a debate. He just made a decision that, “I’m not doing that,” and voted it down when his caucus didn’t expect them to do that. They expected them to stay in line with what the party leadership wanted. The debate, if it had happened, might have gotten a few other Republican senators to vote with John McCain on that. John McCain’s vote was enough but how can our leaders in Congress debate more effectively? They need some training and skill.
It’s oppositional. Thank you for the request because we can take a look at that. When it’s oppositional, it’s like two people shooting at each other and they’re shooting words and seeing if they can get a bullet to stick. It’s a bad action. Shoot them up. They’re all shooting each other and they’re trying to get one bullet to land instead of listening. It’s not to listen to agree or disagree. It’s listen to provide proactive grounded empathy for what the person has said. If somebody says some BS and it doesn’t meet your need for truth, you can’t call it out as a lie. You’ve got to call it out about how it affected you. The person says something that you don’t agree with, if you call them a liar, you lose. There might be a temporary win of my side that says, “You’re lying,” but you’re losing a long-term ability to communicate with that person. Rand Paul voted down that hanging thing. The Senate’s like, “This is an easy one. You vote unanimously on this one.” Don’t hang people, bring them to court. That’s what to do. That vote, they didn’t know how to skillfully talk through that.
It seems like that the Senator would prefer justice to be dealt with a person personally rather than through the court system. Is that correct? All of a sudden, why are you not trying to get people through the court system instead of voting down by saying, “It sounds like that the Senator has the belief that the current law has enough support, that what we currently have is enough, that we don’t need this extra layer of what my experience of the truth is.” I’m acknowledging or hearing what the person has said first and then I’m saying, “They feel doubtful and skeptical that this law is too much. I can appreciate that.” They would rather have less laws than more laws. They happened to be a law maker that’s voting to keep less laws because the good people of Kentucky have a thought and a belief that less government is a better thing than people in our complex society having certain number of ways to guidelines for these rules and these agreements that are legal or not. The walkthrough is we’ve got to get people to become greater allies with each other and listen to each other, not as much from an adversarial position or an oppositional position but from the place of empathy and care for what the person has said before them. Let’s go ahead and role play something and let’s see how this would work.
Let’s say you’re Jim Jordan in the Congress arguing for the one side and Jerry Nadler on the other. I don’t remember exactly what Jim Jordan said versus any of the other members of his caucus. One of the things that came out is he or someone on the Larry Hogan side would say, “This impeachment effort is a waste of time. There is no way the President will be removed from power before January 20, 2021 when Joe Biden is sworn in. We are wasting our time here.”
It sounds like a Congressman is having a thought about saving time and they’re choosing to put time ahead of the Rule of law. My vote and the reason why we’re standing here is we’re putting the Rule of Law ahead of the time efficiency that the Congressman is advocating for. This would be worth the time to discuss instead of thinking about the way the vote might land. We need to stay closer to the rule of law on this one rather than figure out on whether or not we’re going to go home to dinner. We need to do our job here. I’m responding to what he said. I could come in with a prepared speech. “The President cited this. The President did this. This is what he said. That’s the reason why. I’m on the record because I said this.” Instead of a responsive, collaborative narrative that acknowledges that the Senator wants to save time so he can get home to dinner. He’s not interested in following the Rule of Law that you can’t say everything and not be held accountable. You might not get impeached with the few days that are left, it’s still up to us to hold the line for integrity with the law. How much sound bite would that get? Tons.
It will get tons because it’s no longer they’re each talking past each other, making a statement in isolation. It’s specifically responding to something someone else said. If any of them had that skill, whoever would do it, it could have been the Republicans doing it that take a lot of wind out of the sails of the whole impeachment effort if they were skilled and knew how to do it.
People need to listen to each other, not from an adversarial position, but from a place of empathy and care.
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They could do the same thing right back.
That would be the shocker. Whoever is unprepared to then respond back to that in a thoughtful, compassionate way is going to end up looking like they’re on the wrong side of the issue.
We’ve got to get back to a healthy dialogue versus a reactive response or a statement of, “This is where I stand.” We know where you’re going to stand when you vote. You don’t have to tell the good reasons why you’re doing that unless you’re talking about the values that you’re pursuing. Integrity to the law looks like to me if a person says the sentence, “I’m going to go down there with you,” and you’re the leader of the free world, that’s enough to motivate a person’s followers to break a law without impunity for the President but not for the law breaker. He set up his followers and his voters to work against the Rule of Law, whereas we already went through the Rule of Law and in 60, 59 cases, the President’s legal arguments were not accepted by the court of law. Regrettably, he motivated them against an untruth because we’re a country of laws.
Let me give you one more to role play. I remember Kevin McCarthy who was one of the ranking members of Larry Hogan’s in the Congress. He’s not the head of the judiciary committee but he said, “What the president did does not rise to the level of impeachment. We should not be impeaching him. We should seek to censure him instead.” That was one of his big statements. How would you respond to that if you’re Jerry Nadler?
I feel enthusiastic that the Congressman is bringing up censure. Censure is when a body votes to not allow a person to speak because they are not speaking from the Rule of Law. Does that mean that the Congressman is going to put a proposal up in order to censure the president? Is that what the Congressmen would like? If the congressmen want to put a proposal up about censuring, I’m interested in that. I’d be willing to vote with the Congress across the aisle to censure the president. Let it dangle. Instead of the impeachment, it’s with it. Here’s the weird part about it, when we went through the Congressman Joseph McCarthy that was the red scare and the communist in the ‘50s, the Congress censured him.
They had the courage enough to go, “Sit in the back row, you can’t talk.” They all voted to not let him speak. They did it to their own. The other party, they’re going like, “You are not helpful to a functioning democracy. Back of the row, sit there.” It’s the end of his political career because you can’t speak anymore because you have used your language and scared people in believing into something that was not fully true. It was partially true but it wasn’t fully true. They censured him. Twitter and Facebook have censured the president. That’s the way to think about this is that they’re the ones that are doing the job that the Congress and the Senate should be doing with the president, “Mr. President, you’ve been censured from Twitter and Facebook. The Congress and the Senate voted on it because you’re making our work harder over here.”
Regrettably, when a party doesn’t have good policies and they’re not advocating for something that is real or alive, they’re advocating to be oppositional. If the Republican Party wants to put a healthcare plan and sit it next to Obamacare and approve upon it and make it better so it helps the American people, I am interested in that discussion. To promise it for twelve years and not deliver it, it’s unsettling. We’ve been fighting a healthcare thing all the way back to Bill Clinton. We’re trying to get our government to care for its people through healthcare. That’s why we do it. I’m not saying it’s not a bare and I’m not saying this is not a problem, but how do we get the people inside our borders, cared for so they have a productive tax-paying life? How do we do that? How do we get them and help them rise up, and be a part of this experiment? How do we do that? Not like the way we’re dealing with it.
These are some of the statements that were being hurled out. One representative, Matt Gaetz from Florida said, “Impeachment was branded unnecessary and divisive.” It’s only being done because Democrats want to keep the focus on President Donald Trump so they can hold together their fragile coalition.
I appreciate the Congressman for mentioning that he has a thought that our coalition is fragile, and that he’s concerned about our democracy in such a way that he’s interested in reducing volatility in our House here. I’m interested in reducing volatility and increasing cooperation and collaboration too. There is a balance between allowing people to say and do things in the Rule of Law and regrettably, this body is about the Rule of Law. It’s not about, “I’m interested in talking to people about something that’s collaborative and cooperative.” When an individual like the president breaks the Rule of Law, somebody’s got to hold him accountable. I feel disappointment that the Congressman and his party doesn’t have the courage to hold his president accountable for the things he says. I can see how dangerous it is for him to hold the president accountable because there’s nothing like a great marketer and seller to Tweet against you in your party so that you aren’t allowed to speak with truth and integrity. Thank you, Congressman Gaetz for bringing that up.
They wouldn’t even know how to deal with that.
It’s sad and disheartening.
We talked about timing that there wasn’t enough time before Donald Trump’s office. Here’s another one. Tom Reed of New York said that Donald Trump needs to be held accountable for his actions but impeachment isn’t the answer. A snap impeachment will undoubtedly fuel the divisions between our citizens at the time when the wounds of January 6, 2021 are still raw. We cannot and should not support a rushed divisive action simply because the emotions of the moment demand it. “That’s not the American way,” he said.
It sounds like you would have a thoughtful debate about whether or not the president said the things he said or did the things he did, or has built up his followers to take such an action. I feel inspired and I would love to have an inspired leader protecting the American people from the Coronavirus and inspiring his followers to stop the disease. This is not a rush. We need to fight and protect ourselves from someone who is dividing us. There’s no rush here. There is a preventative action. This is the protective use of force. The only protective use of force this body has is impeachment. That’s the one we’re exercising now because that’s the way the Rule of Law works. It’s not to ignore the Rule of Law because we’re worried about somehow someone’s feeling. Is the Republicans worried about people’s feelings now? I feel doubtful and skeptical about that but I want to us to pay attention and keep our eye on the ball of following the Rule of Law. The president motivated his followers to march on the Capitol building when we were supposed to be doing our work here, scaring us because the need for safety wasn’t met in this House.
The other side’s head would spin.
They don’t know what to say to that.
They would be ill-prepared. Even if only one of the representatives of Congress could get this skill and they could be the spokesperson for their side, not to say everything but to help frame it in such a way, it would illuminate how unproductive those kinds of debates sessions are. They’re nothing more than each representative trying to get in their sound bite to be used in a future campaign commercial or to help raise money back home when they should be thinking through this, having a debate and making an informed decision, not just more team politics.
When you’re playing team politics, you’re circling around values. You’re not circling around talking points. We want to circle around values because values give us human being strength. It is the concrete underneath our feet that we can walk on with a lot of smooth and ease. If we’re talking about what integrity looks like and how this is, on a scale of 1 to 10, a 10 of an integrity breach and the person’s trying to say, “No, it’s not that bad. It’s only a 5.” A 5 still gets people to storm the capital and that’s illegal too. Either you’re going to censure him or we’re going to impeach him, pick it. You put up a proposal to censure him. Go and do that. If you don’t want to impeach, put something up better. If you want to censure, I’ll be glad to vote for censureship. Try it. Before he gets out, people are going to get pissed at you and you might get primary because now you’re accountable, Kevin McCarthy, for what you said, not just putting more propaganda or distraction into the narrative. You’ve got to be accountable for what you’re saying. You want censure? Good idea. Put that up. Let’s see what we got. Make a proposal. Knock on Nancy Pelosi’s door, “I think we can get out of this by putting a strong censure thing. I don’t think we want to do this other thing here,” and then make your case for that.
What’s interesting is it would call him out on that because he’s using censure as a defensive mechanism against impeachment. If it came to exhibiting leadership and putting forward a bill for censure on the floor first to try to preempt impeachment, he never would have done it because then he’s leading an effort to criticize the president. He wouldn’t have used it as an offensive tool but it would call him out on that because if he doesn’t do it then he lacks integrity.
The sizzle has more draw than the steak. The smell of the hamburger driving by a fast-food restaurant has more draw in it than eating the food. The anticipation and the possibility of getting the hamburger, it starts our bodies towards hunger. The thing that’s most unsettling about this is that we are getting pulled into a hyper branding, marketing, sales with no delivery. There’s nothing to deliver because unfettered capitalism can do that. I can sell my snake oil. What it if kills half the people that take it? That’s unfettered capitalism with no regulations to say, “This stuff may be killing somebody. It’s snake venom oil and it gets you calm. Half the people have bad reactions and half the people die.” To think we may want to have some regulation on that and this person might be overpromising on their snake oil.
The salesmen, the narrative of violence, you need to be strong for your nation. Who doesn’t want to get inspired by that? Be strong. Don’t be weak. Watch alternate right away. Be strong. Don’t be weak. Wear a mask so you can protect your family and your communities. I got Donald Trump re-elected by him advocating for strength in a direction that protects the working person and the family and the community that he says that is a conservative value. It’s not what he’s standing for. From my viewpoint, other people would argue. “No, he is. Look at all these accomplished.” I’m going like, “I’m not sure that they’ve been proportionalized correctly.” It’s like, “You’ve got a brand-new wall but it’s 12 miles long and it doesn’t work all that well.” It’s like, “Where did they put it? Was it at the best place possible?”
When you're playing team politics, you're circling around values, not talking points.
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How was that wall paid for? Did that come from Mexico? I don’t know about that.
It came from the military budget.
The Defense Department paid for it.
To stick the landing on this because that’s the hard part of this is that listening. Can you listen and provide a strong, empathetic, compassionate response and lead the person, your speaker or the person you’re listening to into a place of accountability? Can you lead them there? In the past we’ve talked about this, it’s called walking the plank. Can you get the person to have integrity and tell the truth before you push them into the sharks? It’s like, “You’re walking the plank here but if you’re not telling the truth, and if you’re not in integrity with the people in your district, we’re going to make you pay for that.” Not, “We’re going to allow you to reinvigorate the false beliefs that your voter has just because it’s going to get you re-elected.” It is regrettably the deal that a lot of South Carolinians made with Lindsey Graham. They made the deal, “He’s one of us, talks like us, thinks like us.”
“It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t have integrity. He scored for our team and we’re going to keep him on the team.”
“He said that on the Senate floor about Donald Trump, but the next day he said that, and that doesn’t count because he’s still on our team. He’s still a part of Donald Trump.” All of a sudden, he gets screamed in an airport and he flips on that? Where’s the toughness in this thick-skinned elites a bit? If Lindsey Graham had the skill to the woman that was yelling at him, “Pause, ma’am you would like me to advocate for the president only.” The woman would have said, “Yes, you’re a traitor.” “You would like me to hear that I’m a traitor because you would like me to support the president in a loyal way and not call him out when he makes a mistake. Is that correct?” It’s hard when somebody does not follow the Rule of Law and then voters who are loyal to the person give them a pass on that. If you broke the same rule, you would spend time in jail. We’re doing our best to support the president and trying to have his leadership move forward but when he crosses the line, we’ve got to speak up to pursue the truth the best way we can. He would then set himself up to run for president if he spoke like that. Now he wouldn’t be a partisan heck.
Was that a label?
A label of diagnosis. I put it right in the middle of the show. People would go hold me accountable for that. The anchoring of labels and diagnosis are happening in our brain and we can still be compassionate to the point of view is that Lindsey Graham is trying to support his people in his votes, and he’s using language the only way he knows how. It’s not that he doesn’t want to speak compassionately to people. It’s hard when people have so much emotion, they’re voting from their emotion and they’re not voting from their values. They’re not voting from their needs. They’re voting from their emotions, which is not the strongest play.
We’ve seen on both sides of it. It’s the same side. Lindsey Graham being attacked in the airport in South Carolina when he flew back home by constituents calling him a traitor for not supporting the president. We saw Mitt Romney faced with the same type of thing in an airport because he was vocal in support of the impeachment as well of Donald Trump inciting the mob. If they each had some of these skills because they are forced to speak. Mitt Romney, he speaks to people in the airport. He’s a private citizen. He doesn’t have a Secret Service protecting him. He’s further along the way there because he has real values. It’s just a matter of articulating them. Giving empathy to the person who is challenging him, it would be much more effective and it would turn what’s otherwise a recorded cell phone soundbite that helps fuel the fire and the division. It might help bring people to better understanding and closer together.
That’s the thing that’s unsettling is that these people got to lead. You and I both know that there are a lot of money involved from these donors to these candidates individually. They do not get to do what they used to do 30, 40 years ago. They don’t get to raise their own fund. They have to work way harder at fundraising these days than they ever had to. Their job is not about writing laws because they’ve got to spend so much their time campaigning and raising money and talking to donors. That’s one of the biggest tragedies of a citizen of United States. Money did not make things better. There are things that money make better but this is not one of them.
The volume of money spent in Georgia with the runoff election could have gone to such better use. I’m sure that people at Georgia we’re sick of all the advertising.
It leaves us in a good spot about how do we keep getting the quality of communication and hold the people accountable for their actions and their words and be able to create a healthy debate where we’re working on the problems that we need to solve as a nation and the ones that we need to face. You can imagine what that would look like when we can start to get into a place of restoration or healing so that we can have each other’s back moving forward. That’s where we got to stick the landing to be able to help each other moving forward and communicate with each other better. It’s not about winning. It’s about how do we get into a place of collaboration and cooperation. That’s where the win is.
That would be nice. I hope for that day.
That’s a good one. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Thank you.
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