high profile dems need to stop mollycoddling sensitive snowflake republicans’ feelings and call them out on their bullshit all day every day
Indeed. However, republicans know they’re full of shit, it’s a tactic they use. Intellectual dishonesty and bad faith arguments. And their voters know it too because they’re the same.
This works in 2 levels. If they know their arguments are dishonest, it’s important to call them out on it and let them know that their BS didn’t work, and that they have further debased themselves in the discourse by attempting a bad-faith argument. We need to dispel the myth that playing dirty and arguing BS has no consequences. It has severe consequences, as the bad-faith actor loses credibility, respect, dignity and their seat at the table.
If they don’t know that their arguments are dishonest, calling them out allows an opportunity for progress, by engaging in the discussion to show them how their arguments are BS, and how they’ve debased themselves, exposing their ignorance, their bad company and sources, and pointing out how they are losing their seat at the table if they don’t sharpen up their civics.
Either way, taking the “high road” against dirty politics serves little purpose. Calling them out and holding a mirror to their dirty faces is essential if we are to have real dialog. Bullies only know strength.
The response to a low takedown attempt is a knee to the face, because it says: we saw it coming, you’ve achieved nothing and impressed nobody, and you are now concussed from the weight of your own ineffective maneuver.
Notice how the “high road” would actually be detrimental because it’s enabling. Engaging in discourse with their bad-faith BS only serves to validate their BS, legitimize their argument and show them unearned respect as participants in the discussion. When they act in bad faith, if we don’t treat them as bullies deserving of a knee to the face, we’ve embraced their BS and validated their approach. So, of course, they will do it again and again, and take it further every time. The “high road” people have made our political division worse, not better.
The bully doesn’t ponder on their bad string of choices until something shakes them up. If we want our national discourse to regain civility, since we’ve allowed it to get this bad we now must teach a bunch of people how to behave, by the way of corrective blows in response to each of their BS attacks.
And we must teach the “high road” people to cut it out and smarten up in how they deal with bullies and cultists. You are not going to Kumbaya a cultist away from racism, misogyny and religious adoration for their orange crimelord - because there’s no time and space to sit down with each broken, indoctrinated mind and cuddle it back to health. We need to set firm boundaries on how much BS we’ll tolerate (and at this point it should be near none), we need to hold a mirror up to their BS to show them how we see them and how much they’ve lost the argument and the respect, and we need to clarify why they are dead wrong and full of shit, and stress that they are the largely responsible for turning our civics into a mess and we demand that they cut it out.
Peter Shamshiri from the podcast 5-4 demonstrates how this is done in their patreon only episode Your Questions: Jury Nullification, Law School Reform, and More
I wish I could post the clip because it’s so well done and so cathartic but here’s the transcript:
0:46:19.2 Peter: “My question is, why don’t you ever invite guests on who disagree with you? If your arguments are strong, there is no downside. Plus it would be nice to hear how you react to others of goodwill who don’t see things how you do. Just a thought.” Well, the question I would have for this listener is why the fuck would we ever do that [laughter]?
0:46:40.0 Rhiannon: The downside is I have to hear a conservative talking on my fucking podcast.
0:46:45.4 Peter: The downside is the podcast would suck ass first of all, [laughter] Okay. We’re a podcast about critiquing Supreme Court decisions. If you want to hear the other side, just read the fucking opinions. That’s the other side. That is the purported smartest people in America trying to do the other side.
0:47:03.1 Rhiannon: Exactly. Clarence Thomas has the platform. Fox News has the platform. We’re doing our own thing over here.
0:47:09.1 Peter: Fucking read the VALA Conspiracy or whatever you feel like doing.
0:47:12.4 Rhiannon: Exactly.
0:47:12.9 Peter: Plenty of people have written about like the conservative fetishization of like debate. The implication here is that by debating with some conservatives, we’d all somehow arrive closer to the truth. Right? Despite the fact that there’s like endless research showing that that’s just not true and not how debate works. And my strong hunch is that this dude is not writing into National Review or whatever pervert publications he reads requesting that they give space to opposing views. It’s just something you want left-leaning media to do so that you can hear your fucking freak friends in their ill-fitting suits describe their arguments to our faces directly.
0:47:51.8 Rhiannon: Exactly.
0:47:53.4 Peter: Turning our podcast where we speak openly from a left perspective about the law into some bullshit New York Times debate nonsense that no one wants to hear and would end our careers as podcasters.
0:48:07.9 Rhiannon: That’s great.
0:48:10.4 Peter: So my strong suggestion to this listener is for you to shut the fuck up and suck my dick.
I love what you write, and I agree. Or rather, I want to agree.
We need to dispel the myth that playing dirty and arguing BS has no consequences. It has severe consequences, as the bad-faith actor loses credibility, respect, dignity and their seat at the table.
But like… Maybe I’m misinterpreting what you mean, but I’m sitting here thinking that apparently it has no consequences. Trump hasn’t gotten in any trouble for the absolute shitload of things he’s done and said over a period of at least 9 years (not to mention everything before that), and he’s still for some inexplicable reason eligible to run for president and thus have a very big seat at the biggest table there is, and is polling well for some reason. I see no reason to believe there will ever be consequences if there has been none thus far. But I really hope I’m wrong.
At the end of the day, the goal still needs to be to get politics “back” to being a cordial affair. I agree that you can’t just take shit without responding but you also need off ramps.
their voters know it too because they’re the same.
their rich voters know it, i agree. but if the majority of GOP voters who are rural broke uneducated bumpkins can believe trump is “chosen by god” and only vote for guns, jesus, and gEtRiDoFtHeGaYs, then they can absolutely genuinely believe all the bullshit they’re being fed
edit: perfect example https://youtu.be/-TQo2D4RtDY
I’m definitely noticing a shift in the discourse. Gloves seem to be coming off for democrats, and that’s a good thing. They have spent way too much time explaining away baseless accusations and not firing back.
I hope you’re right, OP. I hope you’re right.
What fight is this image from? Looks like a short one.
