Public Speaking Tricks Politicians Use (And How You Can Too)

Politicians are very well trained to sustain fire, heavy fire. They’re trained to answer questions under pressure, so it’s a joy to watch them. Politics is all about rhetoric. Cicero said: “There’s nothing sufficiently impossible that cannot be made possible through rhetoric.”

What do they do very well? Because they’re masters of rhetoric. They practice nonstop. Obama 8 years, 4,000 speeches. The second thing they do very well is they have a very, very clear message. The message is that one thing you want them to remember many years from now, if you have a clear message, the chances of voters voting for you are going up.

Like Tony Blair in the UK: The third way. What’s the third way? It’s like a mix between capitalism and socialism. Obama: Yes, we can. Trump: Make America great again. Kennedy: We choose to go to the moon. He said it three times in that famous, very famous moon beautiful speech. Cicero: “Leave Rome.” He was saying to Catiline.  You condense everything you’re telling them in that one thing.

And the other thing they do very, very well is they have a very clear structure. For instance, there’s a very famous one used by everyone from Martin Luther King to whoever spoke last week: which is, first you describe the problem that we have, then how are you going to solve it? Then you describe the situation with that solution, so you visualize, and then actions to get there. It’s called the Monroe Motivated Sequence.

And there’s one thing they do very, very well, which is they use emotions in their speeches. Emotions move people to action. Facts, we need to process, emotions just fly. And they use stories. They name individuals in the audience, like happens in every State of the Union speech in the U.S. now. They bring guests and they ask them to stand up and then they cheer them. They’re using emotions. And emotions are very much linked to totemic words, which are words that trigger emotions in people’s minds. Like progressive, equality, social justice, sustainability, resilience, compassion, free-market system, because if you say capitalism, it may sound bad. In this way they provoke emotions in their audience’s minds, which will move them to action.

One other aspect in political speeches is they use rhetorical resources. The most often used one probably is the three-part list, or three column. One, two, three. I stand before you today. The representative of a family in grief and a country in mourning before a world in shock. It seems like whatever he said is conclusive and people always clap. Three-part list is a very sure applause ruse.

The other one they use very, very often is contrast: not this, but that. The most common contrast is probably ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. Shakespeare was a master of these things. There’s a very clear contrast with three-column combination, he says: Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I’ve come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

They also use anaphora, which is repeating the same words at the start of every consecutive sentence. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. Epiphora, which is ending every consecutive sentence with the same words.

And the other thing they do is they frame their speeches. Especially charismatic speeches always contain these five frames. Number one, they talk about the future. Always the future. Number two, they talk about the group, like the nation or the political party. Then they refer to individuals. Then they talk about values, freedom, liberty, brotherhood, loyalty. And then they refer to themselves as I’ve been there. Like you, I know what you are going through, I’m one of you.

And lastly, the other thing they do very well is they are trained to sustain fire. First, they shut up. When they get an aggressive question, they think about what to say, and then they come up with the best answer. And part of that best answer can be revealing the questioner’s cards. So I know, what you are doing, you’re not going to catch me.

What do we not like about politicians? What relates to rhetoric? First, they never answer the question. Or most of the time. And what they do very, very well is they bridge. Now bridging consists of the following. First you acknowledge there’s a question and then you bridge to your message. If you win by only one vote, will you carry on as Prime Minister? Leadership is about taking the right decisions, not the easy ones. The bridge in debates is not bridging to your message, the bridge is attacking. So they counter attack the person who attacked them and then they go on to sell. If you defend yourself, you’re already losing.

And then the other thing that they do is they twist reality. Why do politicians get away with this? Three big reasons for that: One is repetition. It’s called the illusory-truth effect. So the more we hear something, the more we tend to believe it. The reason for this is that it’s hard to process new concepts. So if something is repeated often enough, it’s going to be easier to digest versus that new thing coming. So you tend to assign truth to that repeated statement.

Second is the size of the lie. We go: “it’s impossible that that person is lying so colossally, I wouldn’t do it”. And then the third thing is we don’t have time to analyze political programs, much less to make sure that this guy is real or he’s faking something. Politicians are very well trained in rhetoric. Rhetoric is persuasion, and politics is all about persuasion.