Rather than look at this from one or another political vantage point, let’s just look at the subject as ones like it are discussed in Comebacks at Work. To understand people and how to respond to them, it’s important to “pulse the person.” This mean watching for patterns. This rule is critical in determining how to respond. And here is one rule of thumb:
If an otherwise rational person keeps doing something over and over despite seeing that it doesn’t work, what does that mean? It usually means they’re doing exactly what they want to do, and that their primary goal isn’t the stated one.
Patterns tell us a lot about people. And they are clues to how we should respond. URPs are unwanted repetitive episodes, usually dysfunctional exchanges we have with others and they with us. But a person can have an URP with many people who work for him or support her. In the president’s case, if indeed his hands are tied by this recent election, he is once again not communicating effectively by letting David Axelrod be the first to articulate the problem. It appears to be a dodge. And this is not the first time. It is a pattern.
What we don’t know for sure is whether it is an unwanted one. In others words, is he willing to further disappoint his followers for a reason he is not sharing (one being reflected in his communication) or is he less skilled a communicator than most thought? This is the kind of step we write about when discussing how to separate offense vs. insult. The first is more accidental, the second purposeful. And so different sets of responses or comebacks “fit” the situation.
If the president is inadvertently in an URP, then those can be broken if you become aware of their existence and utilize “choice points”(propitious moments) to redirect the interaction. If he does not do this, the impression will be that he never did intend to end tax cuts for the wealthy. If he lets that impression “live,” then he will own it. He will have abdicated his the 75% Rule: being responsible for conveying where he stands in opposition to an inaccurate impression.
The Republicans may have initiated the impression, but he’ll own it. And that’s exactly what happens to us in our lives when we don’t have a repertoire of comebacks that allow us to alter perceptions. We let others dictate how our actions are to be interpreted. We tell ourselves that others just don’t understand or they’re not sufficiently informed. But whose fault is that?
Personally, I’d advise taking very strong action to end the URP if he plans to be re-elected. Here again, we don’t know if that’s even an important goal. Many of his followers are perceiving too many “disconnects” between what is said by the president and what gets done.
More on URPS, choice points, disconnects between words and action, 75% rule at Comebacks at Work here
