saw this rhetorical tactic pop up in the recent VP debate that has been bothering me for some time.
This tactic first started about four years ago, during the Black Lives Matter riots. I remember seeing videos of protesters barging into restaurants and intimidating the diners to raise their fists into the air and utter “black lives matter” for the camera. The videos often showed a few diners sitting in front of their meals, uncomfortably raising a fist in the air as the protestors moved among the diner to intimidate others. However, they seemed to look more like hostages of some middle eastern terrorist hoping they wouldn’t get tortured again if they refused to cooperate and say what they’re suppose to say.
I can’t tell how many times I was pressured to say it. “Will you say black lives matter? Say it. Proclaim it for other to see.” I refused, not becauae I am some racist, misogynistic, homophobe, QAnon noob. I refused because I simply refused to play that game. It’s a lazy, uninspired rhetorical device.
Since then, this new rhetorical device is used to twist the arm of an individual into stating support for whatever cause they want us to support.
Predominantly, that phrase has morphed into “say his/her name “
Fast forward to Tuesday’s VP debate. The “moderators” asked JD Vance if he would acknowledge whether Trump lost the election in 2020.
Of course to the moderators and the subsequent press, only one answer mattered if he was to not be shamed. He didn’t give them one and was crucified in the press and among Kamala’s zombie herd.
The last four years, Biden has been the president. And contrary to the view among the groups above, his term has been an unmitigated disaster. Just look at the way he is handling the Hurricane Helene disasters and multiply that by four years.
Never once do millions of Americans say Biden is not the president. There is no beyond-a-reasonable-doubt kind of proof.
That doesn’t mean they are not suspicious. My response in after the election night 2020 was “that’s weird.” How did all the ballots counted over night break for Biden by 80% to 20%–a statistical improbability?
That was the end of for me. Now we just had to get through arguably the worst presidential term in since Carter. (Don’t try to convince me, I know what I see. In other words, as the saying goes, don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining.)
I haven’t thought twice about the 2020 election. However, about the only thing to come out of it was a huge mistrust for the institutions I should be trusting. You won’t change that. I will have to see it for myself. The whole process will have to re-earn my trust. (No, a Trump win will not do that. It will take much, much more, and frankly I think we’re beyond trust.))
Back to my point.
When the debate “moderator” asked Vance if Trump won the election, I cringed. Not at Vance’s answer, but that this rhetorical tactic raised its ugly head: pressure them to say something that would in reality be more nuanced.
Like myself during the blm riots, Vance refused the pressure.
Even if it means I won’t be in the club. Even if I will be mocked and hated. (If not that, the left will find some other way to mock and hate conservatives.)
The press has been doing a lot of this lately. The election and the January 6 riot–those seem to be the current go-to recently.
This rhetorical tactic is anti-intellectual. It is more like the first step in cultic brainwashing than it is a reasoning device.
America, we have to be smarter than this. We have to think (at least until Harris’s Ministry of Truth is established–ask John Kerry about that pesky 1st Amendment that keeps them from fighting misinformation as they define it.)
We have to rise above stupid rhetorical tactics and use effective reasoning. (Note: that doesn’t include puking stats that won’t paint the entire picture.)
America will survive this election, but we will be simply a shell of what this country was we allow ourselves to be so easily deceived.
The first step is to not believe or simply ignore anything the media says. They have their own agenda. Then we have to learn rhetoric–the art of persuasion–and be critical of simplistic rhetorical devices like the one discussed above.
The fight goes beyond the election.
The fight is about who we are as a people who can reasonably disagree and don’t use grade school tactics to win our point.
Be First to Comment