Try Listening

Looking back at the results of the 2008 presidential election, it is easy to see the Republicans took it on the chin pretty good. What they experienced was no glancing blow or lucky punch, but a shot right smack in the kisser. Even though the election is still less than a week old, discussions and commentary is already underway as to what this "party of Lincoln" now needs to do to pick itself up off the canvas and become to regain its position as a a viable voice in the American dialog. I will leave it to the many pundits to speculate as to who should or will be the leading voice of the Americans, but from a communication perspective, I believe Republicans have a fundamental problem that will sincere and sustained effort can be overcome.

The party's downfall did not happen over night. Their rejection of so much of the American electorate did not, as it were, come out of the blue. For communication to truly work and be effective, it must be a two-way street. One person talks and another listens. The listener then becomes the talker and the talker becomes the listener. This is a choreography all of us who enter into a dialog follow. For there to be true dialog, two parties or entities must participate. If only one party participates, then the dialog simply does not work. It becomes a spectacle of one party talking at another rather than with. It is no secret that this kind of dynamic does not happen to last long before one of the parties simply turns away and gravitates to another that will be more amenable to a sustained two-way exchange.

In the past eight years the Republican leadership stopped listening to the people. There are plenty of specific examples of this. Economically, for instance, the majority of the American people were suffering and not being shy about voicing their plight. But were any of the Republican leaders listening? According to polls, the majority of Americans wanted health care. But who on the Republican side was really paying attention to those voices? The number of Americans wanting the country to end its take over of Iraq seemed to grow with each poll. Who among the leaders of the Grand Old Party was paying attention to this?

Listening does not necessary result in agreement. But what it does mean is conversation, partnership, connection, and collaboration. It is these pieces of reality that the American electorate was looking for from Republican leaders over the past eight years and these pieces of reality that it was not getting. The eventual result of this frustration and disillusionment saw increases in Democrat members of the House and Senate and a Democrat president. As a result, my recommendation to Republican leaders is to take a deep breath and devote your energies for now in finding an ear rather than a voice. If the Democrats can do it, then you can, too.