I have been listening to my conservative and liberal friends and also reading things they suggest or send to me. There are clearly two factors influencing political thought. The first is the upcoming presidential election and the second is an ongoing fact – the extreme divide in our country right now. As a writer, I am well aware of how words can shape a person’s thinking. In listening to the two sides and reading what they suggest and even doing a little exploring on my own, I find the language being used is full of two different extremes. The first is the use of emotionally charged words and phrases. They can be very positive such as love and romance or they can be negative such as rape and robbery. The second extreme is what we call the writing trade “weasel words” or “weasel wording.” You hear these all the time from politicians when they don’t want you to know how they feel or will vote on an issue. Here’s a generic example of that, “I can see the idea behind the bill was filled with good intent, but it contains several misplaced commas and therefore I can’t support it.” You see that sentence tells you absolutely nothing about what the politician thinks. Not supporting a bill because of grammatical errors makes no sense and yet the start of the sentence seems to say it was a good idea. I have recently heard this language from politicians ranging from the president to a local city councilor. Very closely related to weasel wording are words and phrases everyone agrees with, but are used to attack the opposition. A phrase that I have heard used by both sides in the current political divide is, “We need to defend our borders.” Here’s how that works psychologically on someone who a politician is trying to manipulate. The politician will first say something that he/she knows everyone’s likely to agree with and while you are nodding in agreement, the very next sentence will be on an attack on the other side. Since you are already in the agreeing mode, you’re more likely to agree with the politician than if they had just issued the attack without the phrase you could agree with. There have been and still are some politicians who use this so effectively they have been labeled as “tricky.” It is used affectionately by their own party and disparagingly by the opposing party.
There is one thing that is absolutely clear whether the party has a conservative or liberal point of view – they are trying to manipulate you. Even if you agree with them, please try to see the manipulation they are using. When you hear emotional words, tune them out and try to see what the intent behind them is. The intent may be something that you agree with or the opposite could be true. Tuning out the emotional aspect will let you make a reasoned decision on what’s being said or written. We have control over politicians because we can either vote them in or out of office, but we can only do that rationally if we understand their attempts at manipulation.
