That kind of rhetoric is both simple and powerful. I have not thought of it that way.
In the US, as the political analyst Thomas Frank noted a decade before Trump’s win, the Republicans have often “chosen to wage … battles where [complete] victory is impossible”, such as over immigration, so that “their followers’ feelings will be dramatised and their alienation aggravated”. The purpose of Trump’s proposed border wall is less to keep immigrants out – there are countless other entry points – than to keep his base feeling besieged.
That kind of rhetoric is both simple and powerful. I have not thought of it that way.
Kind of like how banning abortion doesn't prevent unwanted pregnancies and abortions nearly as well as comprehensive sex ed and access to birth control, yet the Republicans keep pushing for the...
Kind of like how banning abortion doesn't prevent unwanted pregnancies and abortions nearly as well as comprehensive sex ed and access to birth control, yet the Republicans keep pushing for the less effective method. They have no interest in stopping abortion, they have an interest in keeping people fired up about it so they'll get to the polls.
It's that nonsensical, primal lizard brain stuff that makes people who are perfectly happy to drive in cars afraid to get on an airplane. Who're more afraid of vaccine side-effects than measles' effects. Who think nuclear power's scary and we'll just stick to coal.
That kind of rhetoric is both simple and powerful. I have not thought of it that way.
Kind of like how banning abortion doesn't prevent unwanted pregnancies and abortions nearly as well as comprehensive sex ed and access to birth control, yet the Republicans keep pushing for the less effective method. They have no interest in stopping abortion, they have an interest in keeping people fired up about it so they'll get to the polls.
It's that nonsensical, primal lizard brain stuff that makes people who are perfectly happy to drive in cars afraid to get on an airplane. Who're more afraid of vaccine side-effects than measles' effects. Who think nuclear power's scary and we'll just stick to coal.