hypnolibertarian

In our exploration of hypnotic communication in politics, let’s start with what has been called “negative campaigning.”  Many pundits have decried negative campaigning as something divisive, polarizing, and an example of the character of the candidate.  If they can sink so low as to just call the other candidate names, then they are just exposing their own lack of character and answers to the complex problems that face our country.

The inevitable response is a very pragmatic one: negative campaigning works, and works better than any other technique.  However, if we are examining the use of communication to influence the voters, we must ask, “Why?”

When I was trained as a hypnotist, I learned that it is important to construct suggestions carefully.  In particular, pragmatically (I know of no academic research that verifies this, but it is taken for granted as true by clinicians) that there are two ways to motivate people.  One is to present a goal and ask them to  move towards it.  The other is to present a bad result and ask them to move away from what they dislike, at makes them uncomfortable, what they fear.

A quick example is found in the suggestions to stop smoking.  One way is to create a wonderful reality where the client is enjoying good health, easy breathing, scents that they had not smelled in years.  The second is to create a horrible reality of dying of lung cancer, clothes smelling of smoke, gradually diminishing abilities to play sports, run, walk, and even breathe.

The point is not that one is intrinsically better than the other; each is effective given the client.  One of the first things to find out is how the client  motivates him or her self, then adjust your communication accordingly.  Good car salesmen do this all the time; do you buy for the wonderful car, or to avoid costly repairs and breakdowns?

The reason negative campaigning works is that it reaches that portion of the electorate that is motivated by moving away from a bad situation: “away people.”  For this, you need a villain (at least most easily), and the other candidates are the most obvious choices.  There are others, beloved of some politicians: “Big Oil”, the rich who don’t pay their share, terrorists, black people, Jews, whatever.  The mixture above is deliberate; “black people” and “terrorists” could not be farther apart from each other (nor could Jews).  What matters is that the person receiving the communication regards that result negatively.

To avoid negative campaigning is to avoid fully half (my clinical experience indicates more than half) of the electorate who are motivated away from negative things.  Negative campaigning works because it appeals to that motivation pattern, and to promise never to engage in negative campaigning is to pass by more than half your audience.

Appealing to your motivation pattern is inherently unconscious communication.  The logical message is there, but so is the unconscious one: run away from this or move towards this.  I spoke in the introductory material about suggestions that fit the patterns of the unconscious mind, and this is one of the most basic patterns in our personality.

Which kinds of ads do you react to?  When you get out of bed in the morning, is it because you want to experience what is coming or is it because you will “get in trouble” if you sleep another hour?  Neither is better than the other, but knowing how you motivate yourself is valuable in trying to improve yourself and in observing how politicians (and others) try to appeal to your basic motivation style.  Look for it in the next few days.

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