Improving Your Emotional Intelligence: The Anger of Politics

In the state where I live, it is time for the governor’s race. One candidate is running a TV commercial with dramatization that is lampooning or mocking the other side. I was watching with a family member and my family member said the commercial made them angry. Bingo. The ad worked to a degree. Whether or not politicians themselves have the insight about this, the motivational energy of politics is anger. You get voters to the polls by getting them angry at your opponent. Politicians do this in every country including Canada and the UK. The two most common forms of anger in politics are indignation and disgust. In indignation, the anger is towards something perceived as unfair or unjust. In the anger of disgust, the anger is towards something offensive or unpleasant. People can get angry in a nanosecond. Mobs are groups of angry people at least unified in the moment on the one cause that they are all believing. Political rallies are essentially controlled mobs where the candidate or politician is out to rouse the faithful to stay faithful and carry the so-called message. Many people do not realize they are angry when talking about politics. They become escalated without realizing it. Social Media has more than demonstrated that politics is an angry, divisive subject. Social Media reminds me of why some families, workplaces, and drinking establishments have rules against talking about politics; such conversations get out of hand. The anger of politics is essentially why social media has been more depressing. I mentioned earlier that politicians saturate the airways with their ads. Whether politicians or advocacy groups, they are saturating the airways and now cyberspace with inflammatory material. Eventually, this anger becomes depressing and maybe even oppressive, and people feel bad. This anger underlies the concept that our country is polarized. I think all the media can see is the anger on social media. Good mental health includes good emotional intelligence. Many think that they are being intellectual in talking about politics. Being able to talk about politics is supposed to represent being informed. However, they do not present as being mindful of their emotional states nor do they appear to be watching the social cues of those around them. So . . . here is a suggested exercise towards good mental health. Listen to two or more other people discus politics. It is likely the political conversation will demonstrate some level of anger. The conversation will likely escalate. If they disagree, it will escalate because one or both of them are trying to prove themselves or prove their point. Your urge to chime in may be your feeling some form of anger too. If you were watching the talking heads on a news channel, did you find yourself barking at the TV screen . . . well, they couldn’t hear you or me. When I first started watching and staying out of the conversation, it became very instructive. I noted that the anger expressed in political conversation is almost an irresistible temptation to dive in and say something. Usually, the people in a political argument never prove anything to anyone other than politics is an inflammatory subject. I also continued to take stock of the people who continued to engage in political arguments or who frequently made angry political comments . . . they lacked emotional intelligence in other areas of their lives. They frequently lost their composure or temper for simple matters. In my pursuit of understanding and developing emotional intelligence and watching all these worthless political conversations, I have had to tell myself . . . the world was not going to end if I did not state my opinion... . and I did not have to prove myself or the correctness of my views. I found practicing this method helped the practice of emotional intelligence move to other relationship areas. It was a good thing.