The Tribune

THERE is an art and a folly to political communications, much of which is based on hunches, instincts, guess work, psychological insights and luck. The best political consultants gain experience over many years of practice and some failures.

Experts sometimes get it comically wrong because they fail to understand certain trends, the mood of the electorate or the zeitgeist. When there is an appetite for change there is little that can be done to subdue a gathering tide.

Polling, an inexact art and science, may be useful in certain circumstances, but they have predictive limits, especially when they are poorly constructed or reinforce the biases of those sponsoring and/or conducting the poll.

Consultants do not generally win elections, though they can help to guide a campaign and boost its capacity. This is certainly true for The Bahamas, where a procession of foreign consultants charging big dollars sometimes reinforce what their clients want to hear or believe, often to the detriment of the latter.

Political communications and messaging require an understanding of the core social and political culture of a given country or electorate. By example, we are a highly transactional, “throw me out” society, where many things, including votes, are monetised.

Getting messaging right is not easy. But once one discovers a certain lightning and bottles it, it becomes magic that, when repeated, is alchemised into political gold. A Bahamas tourism and marketing expert of many decades recounts a compelling anecdote.

Several decades ago, a meeting was called at the Ministry of Tourism to discuss hiring a new advertising firm because officials were displeased with the firm in the employ of the Ministry.

As the meeting was breaking up, an employee of the latter firm declared: “All we need to do is to find a way to say, ‘It’s Better in The Bahamas!’ “ The lightning was packaged, electrifying the Ministry’s marketing campaigns.

CULTURE

Culture matters. The Brexit vote in Britain to leave the European Union was about considerably more than economics, though economic arguments were hotly debated by Leavers and Remainers. In the event, the former won with 52 percent of the vote to the latter’s 48 percent.

There was a generational divide in the vote. Just over 70 percent of those 18 to 24 who voted cast their vote to remain, with 30 percent voting to leave. Among those aged 65 and older 60 percent voted to leave, while 40 percent voted to remain.

Some on both sides of the debate played loose with some of the economic facts. Some Remainers overplayed the supposed near Armageddon effects of the vote on Britain, while some Leavers promised a financial windfall that could be plowed into the National Health Service, which never materialised.

Still, as the Financial Times (FT) documents in the FT film, The Brexit Effect: “the economic costs of Brexit were masked by the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. But six years after the UK voted to leave the EU, the Brexit effect has become clear.”

In the film “senior FT writers and British businesspeople examine how Brexit hit the UK economy, the political conspiracy of silence, and why there has not yet been a convincing case for a ‘Brexit dividend’.”

Despite the sloganeering, which helped the Tories to win a landslide election victory, Brexit is far from done.

Identity, nativism and arguments about British exceptionalism helped secure the Leave vote. Brexit has had a deleterious effect on the British economy, which neither the Conservatives nor Labour want to talk about because most voters grew weary of the pre- and post-Brexit debate.

But even if the negative effects of Brexit were clearly demonstrated to Leave voters, most would likely still vote for Brexit because the cultural reasons for their votes outweighed the economic arguments.

The best communicators understand what motivates voters, and craft simple, compelling messages toward a certain end. The Brexit example is but one of myriad case studies of how political communications and messaging are simplified, sensationalized and brightly packaged to achieve a desired outcome.

PROPAGANDA

During the 2002 constitutional referendum the PLP led a successful propaganda programme to demonise the process and the questions, playing on the fears and prejudices of many Bahamians.

Even constitutional questions that were noncontroversial, like extending the retirement age for Supreme Court judges, suffered from the onslaught, poisoning the well for future referendums.

The majority of voters were persuaded to vote against all of the questions in the name of “process”, a simple mantra that worked as the PLP pushed hard to ensure their subsequent electoral victory.

Why do people often seem to vote against their economic or other self-interests? Welcome to the world of political psychology and political communications.

Humans are driven by a combustible and often competing admixture of motivations, most of which are subconscious, irrational, highly emotional and sometimes neurotic.

Most human beings typically think in dualities or in black and white, with perhaps only a few shades of grey, which is why fundamentalisms of all kinds are so appealing.

Most of us do not make political choices based on nuance and complexity. We find paradox and irony confusing, annoying and difficult. We desire the comfort of stark and clear choices: yellow or red, good and bad, natives versus foreigners, Christians versus non-believers, heterosexual as opposed to homosexual, us versus them.

After one Bahamian general election, a non- Bahamian who closely followed the contest told an official in one of our major parties that the party ran a brilliant campaign – for Switzerland.

RATIONAL

The messaging was rational and policy-driven, the observer noted. But it lacked the emotional content and simple sound bites mastered by talk show hosts, was the conclusion.

During general elections there is the constant refrain from some that a party needs to keep reminding voters about its accomplishments. Reciting accomplishments has limited currency.

While such recitations give a party some basis for re-election, many voters are driven by the politics of personalities and their current mood and state of mind. Despite significant accomplishments during their 2007 to 2012 term, the FNM and Hubert Ingraham were decisively rejected for a host of reasons.

In politics it is so often easier to oppose or make a case against someone or something than it is to make an affirmative case. Sometimes, prime ministers in The Bahamas mistakenly believe that the majority of voters select them in a fit of adoration.

The reality is that incoming prime ministers are typically the beneficiaries of the degree to which the outgoing head of government is loathed. For a complex of reasons voters often delight in humiliating leaders, finding such contempt satisfying.

A friend who worked in congressional politics in the US often observed, “When watching a commercial don’t focus on the product. Try to understand the emotion they’re selling!” He said the best political communicators are equally clear about appealing to the emotions of voters.

Anger is one of the most effective emotions, motivations and weapons in politics, whether the anger is reasonable or over the top.

Consider the anger, real or manufactured, of a talk show host on radio or television or a journalist cum commentator determined to help fell a politician, sometimes because of personal animus.

Because most talk shows eschew nuance and complexity, choosing instead stark black and white worldviews, they are highly effective in motivating others through mostly emotional appeals, including various base emotions which further poison political debate.

REPETITION

Often, the talk show host’s inner psychological state is projected onto an audience, with the host having one of the most effective weapons of political psychology and persuasion, namely, repetition.

A given show may become a rallying point for others with similar views, reinforcing certain emotions, as well as neurotic and other psychological states, which may become a force in itself.

Much of our political “thinking” is beyond the realm of conscious, rational and careful deliberation of facts. Our ideological leanings are influenced by biology, education, age and a variety of familial and sociological influences.

In a 2020 article in Scientific America entitled, “Conservative and Liberal Brains Might Have Some Real Differences,” science writer Lydia Denworth discusses research in the field of political neuroscience:

“Buried in many people and operating largely outside the realm of conscious thought are forces inclining us toward liberal or conservative political convictions.

“On the whole, the research shows, conservatives desire security, predictability and authority more than liberals do, and liberals are more comfortable with novelty, nuance and complexity.

“While these findings are remarkably consistent, they are probabilities, not certainties — meaning there is plenty of individual variability.”

The best communicators enjoy critical insights from psychology, sociology, history, sociobiology, literature, communications practice and theory and other disciplines. These communicators are able to weave these threads together to craft compelling narratives and creative political communications.