Until relatively recent times in modern American history, communication by U.S. presidents and leading candidates has often been highly impressive.
Think of:
+ The pithy memorable sayings of President John F Kennedy like: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country!”
+ President Ronald Reagan’s anecdotes – and positive responses to suggestions that he was too old to run for re-election: “I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”
+ Those electrifying speeches of Barack Obama before and after being elected on the theme of “Yes, we can!”
Alas when it comes to the 2024 presidential election campaign, these historic communication heights have not so far been matched.
This at least partially explains why so many Americans – up until last week – were complaining that they did not want to be forced to choose between either of the two leading candidates!
And now President Joe Biden – after a series of seemingly age-related communication slip-ups and bumbling performances – has been persuaded to end his re-election campaign to give the American people the choice of a new Democratic Party candidate.
Meanwhile the Republican Party candidate for president, Donald Trump – before and since his survival from an appalling assassination attempt – has characteristically gone on making bombastic claims, which don’t always stand up to close scrutiny.
So as ever, there are lessons from the ongoing presidential campaign which can be picked up by all of us seeking to take our communication skills to a higher level.
Let’s look at a few of them…
Even if you’ve narrowly survived an assassination attempt, what you say publicly still needs to pass the truth test.
Donald Trump has been trying to use his escape from death as means of combating opponents’ claims that he is a “threat to democracy” such as when he sought to overturn his presidential election defeat by inciting the storming of Congress in Washington in January 2021 – and pledging to be a dictator.
Since surviving the assassin’s efforts, Mr Trump is claiming that he can’t be a threat to democracy because “last week I took a bullet for democracy.”
Sympathetic though we can be to someone who has been hit in the ear by a bullet, when you watch this following video it’s hard to see any logic within it.
Donald Trump’s new vice-presidential running mate, J. D. Vance, is very much in his own mould when it comes to shifting position dramatically on important things.
When Mr Trump successfully ran for president in 2016, a then beardless Mr Vance declared publicly that he would not vote for Donald Trump and even compared the man who has just become his new boss with Adolf Hitler.
Given that he’s now agreed to be the Donald Trump running mate, this following video interview is giving Mr Vance a lot of explaining to do.
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Even after his disastrous performance in this year’s presidential debate with Donald Trump, President Biden had the chance to recover through a series of high-profile appearances.
Alas the moment when he really made it impossible for himself to continue was when he verbally mistook Ukraine’s heroic President Zelensky for the leading villain on the world stage, Russia’s President Putin.
It’s not a guarantee to the challenges of old age, but you can always minimise your chances of messing up a key line by rehearsing it out loud in advance to reinforce the neural pathways in your brain.
If only President Biden had done so more effectively before saying this in front of world leaders and TV cameras at the Washington NATO summit:
If you and/or your team need to take your verbal communication to new levels, check out the options at:
https://www.michaeldoddcommunications.com/michael-dodd-services/
If you need to give better answers to blowtorch-on-the-belly questions at work, click on this link for the book to guide you:
Whether or not you want to become the leader of your country, being able to communicate more impressively at work is a very learnable skill!