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So when I do my job, people hate me.

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In fact, the better I do my job,

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the more people hate me.

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And no, I'm not a meter maid,

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and I'm not an undertaker.

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I am a progressive, lesbian
talking head on Fox News.

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(Applause)

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So y'all heard that, right?
Just to make sure, right?

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I am a gay talking head on Fox News.

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I am going to tell you how I do it,

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and the most important thing I've learned.

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So I go on television.

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I debate people who literally want
to obliterate everything I believe in --

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in some cases, who don't want
me and people like me to even exist.

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It's sort of like Thanksgiving
with your conservative uncle

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on steroids,

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with a live television
audience of millions.

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It's totally almost just like that.

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And that's just on air.

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The hate mail I get is unbelievable.

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Last week alone, I got 238
pieces of nasty email

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and more hate tweets
than I can even count.

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I was called an idiot,
a traitor, a scourge,

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a cunt and an ugly man,

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and that was just in one email.

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(Laughter)

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So what have I realized,

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being on the receiving end
of all this ugliness?

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Well, my biggest takeaway

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is that for decades, we've been focused
on political correctness,

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but what matters more
is emotional correctness.

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Let me give you a small example.

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I don't care if you call me a dyke.
I really don't.

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I care about two things.

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One, I care that you spell it right.

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(Laughter) (Applause)

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Just quick refresher, it's D-Y-K-E.

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You'd totally be surprised.

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And second, I don't care about the word,
I care about how you use it.

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Are you being friendly?
Are you just being naive?

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Or do you really want
to hurt me personally?

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Emotional correctness
is the tone, the feeling,

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how we say what we say,

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the respect and compassion
we show one another.

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And what I've realized
is that political persuasion

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doesn't begin with ideas or facts or data.

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Political persuasion begins
with being emotionally correct.

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So when I first went
to go work at Fox News,

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true confession,

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I expected there to be marks in the carpet

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from all the knuckle-dragging.

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That, by the way, in case you're paying
attention, is not emotionally correct.

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But liberals on my side,

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we can be self-righteous,
we can be condescending,

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we can be dismissive of anyone
who doesn't agree with us.

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In other words, we can
be politically right

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but emotionally wrong.

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And incidentally, that means that
people don't like us. Right?

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Now here's the kicker.

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Conservatives are really nice.

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I mean, not all of them,

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and not the ones who send me hate mail,

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but you would be surprised.

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Sean Hannity is one of
the sweetest guys I've ever met.

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He spends his free time
trying to fix up his staff on blind dates,

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and I know that if I ever had a problem,

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he would do anything he could to help.

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Now, I think Sean Hannity
is 99 percent politically wrong,

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but his emotional correctness
is strikingly impressive.

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And that's why people listen to him.

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Because you can't get
anyone to agree with you

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if they don't even listen to you first.

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We spend so much time
talking past each other

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and not enough time talking
through our disagreements.

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And if we can start to find
compassion for one another,

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then we have a shot
at building common ground.

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It actually sounds really hokey
to say it standing up here,

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but when you try to put it in practice,

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it's really powerful.

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So someone who says they hate immigrants,

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I try to imagine how scared they must be

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that their community is changing
from what they've always known.

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Or someone who says they
don't like teachers' unions,

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I bet they're really devastated to see
their kid's school going into the gutter,

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and they're just looking
for someone to blame.

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Our challenge is to find
the compassion for others

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that we want them to have for us.

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That is emotional correctness.

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I'm not saying it's easy.

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An average of, like, 5.6 times per day

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I have to stop myself from responding
to all of my hate mail

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with a flurry of vile profanities.

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This whole finding compassion
and common ground with your enemies thing

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is kind of like a political-spiritual
practice for me,

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and I ain't the Dalai Lama.

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I'm not perfect,
but what I am is optimistic.

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Because I don't just get hate mail.

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I get a lot of really nice
letters, lots of them.

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And one of my all-time favorites begins:

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"I am not a big fan
of your political leanings

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or your sometimes tortured logic,

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(Laughter)

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but I'm a big fan of you as a person."

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Now this guy doesn't
agree with me -- yet.

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(Laughter)

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But he's listening --

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not because of what I said,
but because of how I said it.

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And somehow, even though we've never met,
we've managed to form a connection.

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That's emotional correctness,

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and that's how we start the conversations

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that really lead to change.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)