Which is the best approach? And the answer to that is that there is no right answer.
There is no quote/unquote best approach. The best approach depends on...
Hey, it's Min Liu from the Art of Verbal War, where people learn to excel in verbal skills
In this video we're gonna talk about something that happened a few days ago
I didn't actually see it happen
But I woke up logged into Twitter got a few texts from my friends
And I found out this was the number one trending hashtag in all of the Twittersphere
which was #kamaladestroyed, and what happened was Kamala Harris a U.S. presidential hopeful
Got absolutely destroyed in the debate by Tulsi Gabbard a US Congresswoman
Who I actually didn't know anything about until this happened
And she herself is now a trending hashtag as well
This is a great opportunity and please keep in mind, this is not a political video
I repeat this is not a political video
But it's an opportunity for us to kind of go over and discuss
How do you defend yourself from negative criticisms
Because inevitably
You, me, anybody, we will get hit by negative criticism at some point in our life
It could be at work it could be in a relationship with your spouse or girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever
And we have to learn how to defend ourselves
So let's just see what happened in the video and we'll see how Kamala Harris responded
Senator Harris says she's proud of her record as a prosecutor and that she'll be a prosecutor president
But I'm deeply concerned about this record
There are too many examples to cite but she put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations
And then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana
She blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so
She kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California
And she fought to keep tax bail system in place
That impacts poor people in the worst kind of way
Thank you congresswoman
Senator Harris your response
As the elected Attorney General of California
I did the work of significantly reforming the criminal justice system of a state of 40 million people
Which became a national model for the work that needs to be done
And I am proud of that work
And I am proud of making a decision to not just give fancy speeches
Or be in a legislative body and give speeches on the floor
But actually doing the work of being in the position
To use the power that I had to reform a system that is badly in need of reform
That is why we created initiatives that were about
Reentering former offenders and getting them counseling
It is why and because I know that criminal justice system is so broken
That I am an advocate for what we need to do
And not only decriminalize but legalize marijuana in the United States
Okay, so how do you think Kamala did? why don't you leave her a grade, and discuss why in the comments?
But according to me in my opinion, I'd say I'd give her a B or B - I think she didn't do great
She also didn't do poorly
She composed herself even after getting hit so hard
And she remained calm she wasn't defensive
And she didn't justify herself, or try to explain all her actions
Or get into too much detail about her decision
And which would have been a really poor thing to do
Actually she also tried to hit back at Gabbard
But it was more like a love tap than really a knockout blow
All she accused Gabbard of, was of making speeches
And I'd say the one thing that she didn't do well was
She didn't actually take the criticisms and put them in a more positive light
That was the biggest problem
So again, I'll give her a B or B -
Okay, so now let's talk about in general terms
How do you defend yourself from negative criticism
And I think there's really about four ways that Kamala Harris could have approached this problem
Number one is TIT-FOR-TAT
Basically you call me unethical and I'll call you a liar liar pants on fire
Number two is THE HIGH ROAD
She doesn't hit Gabbard back
But basically she tries to take the negative criticisms and put them in a more positive light
Number three is basically a HYBRID of the first two
you hit her back you also do the same thing
You you take the negative criticism and put them in a more positive light
And the fourth way is what I call THE META APPROACH
Which is you don't do any of those things, but you try to reframe the question or the issue
The larger issue, not the criticisms, but the issue in a more positive light
And Kamala took I think kind of a hybrid approach.
It's not exactly clear which is the third one
She tried to hit Gabbard back but not that effectively
And she also tried to cast her actions in a more positive light
But I would say not that effectively
So let's go over some examples of these four approaches
And some may be some better way of dealing with each one of these things right now
Let's take a look
So this is a possible TIT-FOR-TAT response
Yes, all those things happened, you talk about disproportionate impact
But the only thing that's disproportion is the size of your nose congresswoman.
This is the HIGH ROAD APPROACH
Yes these things happen
There are always hard choices to make when you're Attorney General
And if I make a decision one way, there are consequences sometimes unpalatable to some people
And if I made them the other way, there are also other consequences also
Equally palatable to another group of people
This is the HYBRID approach
Yes, all of these things happened but not in the way you make it sound
If you had bothered to research them objectively and completely
You would have realized the issues and deliberations involved were a lot more complicated
Than how you presented it
But you didn't and not only that, you mischaracterized every single incident
And this is the META APPROACH
Yes, all of these things happened, but when it comes to questions of criminal justice
They are a lot more complex than a simple soundbite like the one you just gave in convey
You say this is about ethics and how we treat criminals, but this is about much more than that
Let's be very clear who the real victims are here
You're trying to somehow make criminals into victims, but the real victims are the ones who they hurt
Okay, so now you're probably asking yourself
I know these four approaches you just showed me
Which is the best approach?
And the answer to that is that there is no right answer
There is no quote/unquote best approach
The best approach depends on context
So in a presidential debate that's one context
You can definitely hit back and you probably want to hit back at your opponent
You probably want to reframe all the negative criticisms in a more positive light
And you want to present your vision to to the rest of the audience
That's really important
But in a performance review with your boss, well, you can't hit back at your boss
So any TIT-FOR-TAT type of approach would be really suboptimal
At the same time, you're probably going to have to present any criticisms
That he or she has in a more positive light
Okay, I hope you learned a lot about how to deal with negative criticism
I hope you liked the video, please give it a LIKE
Please subscribe if you haven't
And if you want to learn more about verbal skills and verbal self-defense
go to my website at:
www.artofverbalwar.com
And sign up for the news letter
I'm Min Liu signing off, I'll see you guys next time