How Not to Get Played

Using Your Brain Against Political Spin

One of the side effects of working in marketing is that you can learn a lot about psychology. You start to see how people think, how they decide, and how they react. And while most of what I do is about using those insights ethically, helping people make informed choices, making content clearer, more useful, the same tools can easily be used in darker, more manipulative ways. This is not a novel thought.

That’s exactly what happens in politics and commentary. The tricks that get people to click an email subject line are the same ones that make a soundbite stick, or a story feel true even when the facts don’t hold up. Which is why it helps to have a framework for spotting when your brain is being nudged in a certain direction.

Psychologist Daniel Kahneman called it System 1 vs. System 2. System 1 is the fast, emotional, intuitive part of our brain. It’s Kirk in Star Trek, charging in on instinct. System 2 is slower, more deliberate, the Spock voice of reason asking, “Does this really make sense?” Both have their place, but political spin thrives when System 1 is in charge and Spock is left in the corner.

That’s why certain tricks work so well. A single shocking story feels more important than statistics (that’s the availability heuristic. Think Jaws, where one shark attack makes the whole beach feel deadly).

We look for things that confirm what we already believe (confirmation bias), and we go with what feels good or safe rather than what’s true (the affect heuristic. Don’t Look Up made a whole film out of that).

And here’s one you’ll see everywhere: the “real person” story. A politician talks about a constituent who’s been let down by the system. A preacher shares a testimony about someone’s hardship or miracle. These aren’t lies; they’re humanising. But they’re chosen because they light up our System 1. We feel it in our chest before we’ve had time to weigh the evidence.

Different people respond to different kinds of appeal. In marketing, they often talk about four broad types of decision-maker: spontaneous, competitive, humanistic, and methodical. Spontaneous types go for urgency. Competitive types like the strongman leader. Humanistic types connect deeply with personal stories. And the methodical types they’re the ones still waiting for the data slide while everyone else has already clapped.

My point isn’t to dismiss the stories, or even the emotions they stir. It’s to notice what’s happening: this is your System 1 being pulled on purpose. That’s the moment to bring in System 2. Ask yourself: is this one story representative? Does it stand up against the broader picture? Or is it just there to make me feel, not think?

Of course, there are the rhetorical sleights of hand too: straw men, whataboutism, dog whistles. Frank Underwood in House of Cards made a career out of those. Once you spot them, you can’t unsee them. It’s like putting on the sunglasses in They Live: suddenly all the hidden messaging pops into view.

So what do you do when someone repeats one of these lines at you? Here’s where I like to channel Columbo. Don’t come out swinging. Just ask, “Could you give me an example? Do you have any data on that?” And then ask again. And again. “Just one more thing…”

Now, let’s be honest: you probably won’t change their mind. Biases are stubborn things, and people often double down when challenged. But you might slow them down. You might make the claim feel less bulletproof to everyone else listening. And you’ll remind yourself, and them, that confidence is not the same as truth.

The same goes for how we consume news and commentary. When something makes you feel instantly furious or terrified, that’s your System 1 being hacked. That’s the perfect moment to pause, to check another source, to read beyond the headline. It’s The Truman Show all over again: the world looks real until you start poking at the walls.
And here’s where media literacy tools really help. I’ve written about Ground News before, which lays out the same story across outlets with different political leanings. It doesn’t tell you what to believe. It just shows you how framing changes depending on who’s telling the story. When you’re aware of that, you’re less likely to get hooked by the first version you see.

That matters, because of the anchoring effect. Your first exposure to a claim, a headline, or a spin sets the mental baseline. And in a news cycle that’s faster and noisier than ever, being chronically online means your anchor might come from whoever shouted loudest first. It takes an intentional pause, a sense check, to pull yourself back before that first impression becomes the “truth” in your head.

And credit where credit’s due: I first started thinking about these tools more seriously after watching videos from Learn Copywriting Now on TikTok. She’s been breaking down rhetoric, persuasion, and copy techniques since the early days of the Ukraine invasion, and it’s a great example of how media literacy can live in everyday spaces, not just classrooms.

You don’t need Spock’s brain or Columbo’s trench coat to cut through the spin. You just need to notice when someone’s trying to hijack your gut, and give yourself permission to slow down and think. Because the truth is rarely in the soundbite—it’s in the questions that follow.