Larry D. Lauer

When do congressional investigators get tired of their own daily rants and give in to defeat? Or, how will they know when they are making enough progress that reaching a “tipping point” is realistic?

Our president is currently using Twitter to intimidate both his Congressional adversaries and supporters. He generates daily chaos, and then refuses to cooperate. He turns down all requests for information, and all invitations to testify. It’s a bully tactic that halts all progress, results in lengthy legal battles, and might buy him time until the 2020 election.

But never ending lies and attacks have an accumulative effect, and people will eventually tire of the constant meanness. It’s an inevitable feature of basic communication dynamics.

So the strategy for investigators must be to not hurry the process, employ a business-like tone everyday, and simply take one careful step at a time… all the while looking for small signs of a “tipping point,” and being ready to act when the time comes.

Oh, and there is one more communication dynamics feature: When colleagues finally do reach a tipping point and shift quickly from supporter to critic, they usually do so with deep feelings of disgust for their leader’s past behavior.