How the rhetoric game is played today

Or, Democratic madness on abortion

This quick post is motivated by an appearance by Tim Walz on “CBS Mornings”. You may click here for the video, but let me share a summary and transcript from Curtis Houck.

Tim Walz twice refuses to answer questions on ‘CBS Mornings’ whether he and Kamala Harris oppose any restriction on abortions, even in the third trimester and well after a child reaches viability....

Adriana Diaz: “One of the things that Vice President Harris says she wants to do is restore abortion rights. Should there be any limits on abortion, including limiting third trimester abortions?”

Tim Walz: “Look, the Vice President has been very clear, making sure that we restore the right of Roe versus Wade, making sure that women and their health care providers, because these services are health care, making sure those decisions are made in the best interest of the health of the mother and that’s exactly what we’ve talked about the entire time. So, for 52 years, we were very clear on where things were at. Donald Trump gleefully talks about the beautiful thing that he’s done, which means women having miscarriages in parking lots. I’m down here, and was in Georgia yesterday where Amber Thurman died, and it was totally preventable, had we not had a Donald Trump abortion ban. So we’ve been clear about that. Restoration of Roe, that’s what we’re looking for.”

Diaz: “Should there be a federal third trimester abortion ban?”

Walz: “Look, well — I’m going to go back again, Roe was very clear on what they did. We want the restoration of Roe, and that’s the position we’re taking.”

The most important thing I can say here is to note that the Democratic Party has now worked itself into a position where it literally cannot affirm a single restriction on abortion. Not one. Any confused Christians out there who still think you can support this party, take note. Walz could have been asked “should abortion be illegal one day before natural birth would occur?”, and he still would have avoided answering. That’s the Democratic Party now.

How did we get here, though?

How did we get here, though? Why do they operate this way? And here I can offer a few thoughts on how the rhetoric game is played these days.

First, if we imagine a scale from 0 to 10 where, on any issue, the Democrats want a 3 and the Republicans want a 7, the Democrats always open negotiations by asking for 0, and insisting anything to the right of 2 is terribly unjust. The Republicans, wanting to be seen as reasonable moderates, happy to compromise, we aren’t extremists over here!, open negotiations at 7. The two parties then meet in the middle, and guess which party gets almost exactly what it wanted in the first place every time. Unless they want to actually support killing a child after birth, abortion without limits is position 0, and that’s all Walz is willing to talk about.

“But constantly asking for 0 will cause the public to realize they really are nutty extremists and reject them!” Maybe. But just like “this crazy national debt will cause hyperinflation!”, it could still happen, but it hasn’t happened nearly as soon as a lot of thinking people thought it would.

Two, one way the GOP is often stupid is that it very happily invites the camel’s nose into the tent, of course it’s reasonable for the government to make a little law about this or that, and once Democrats take power they shove the camel the rest of the way in and then use the camel to destroy the tent. I could offer examples, but the example is now almost the entire federal administrative state, every agency of which has spread lightyears beyond its original intent. Well, Democrats aren’t going to make that mistake. They are a party now which tends toward the extremes in all things, embracing an absolutism which, while quite evil, protects itself by refusing to give even an inch to opponents.

So you understand, if Walz had been asked, “should abortion be legal 15 minutes before natural birth would occur?”, he would not say “no”, he would say “well, we are dedicated to opposing Trump’s Abortion Ban, which resulted in this death in Georgia (not really, also a lie), and blah blah blah”. He doesn’t give an inch. Because giving in to “15 minutes” is just prelude to “30 minutes”, prelude to “1 week”, prelude to banning it completely! Don’t give an inch. Be evil, but don’t give an inch.

Third, worth pointing out again that he is asked a direct question, twice, and he never answers it. The Party has no interest in reason, no interest in engaging in dialogue and debate, not of any real sort. They are propaganda people now. You pick your narrative, and then you go repeat it 10000 times. You win by saturation. You’re just going to out-talk truth and reason, you have a larger megaphone and more stamina. (You worship the state and politics and will spend every evening on it, your opponents want to spend time tossing football with kids in the yard - guess which side tends to do better in a popular democracy.) You don’t acknowledge that other points of view exist, even when they are thrown directly in your face. It hardly matters if the narrative has any truth to it (“Trump’s Project 2025”, which Trump never had anything to do with, and which he disavowed, is a nice example here). Ignore whatever they just asked you much as you can, repeat the chosen talking points and buzzwords to reinforce the propaganda, that is your job when you go on TV.

And fourth, they also ignore the chance to reason because the argument of the Democratic Party today is not, “our policy positions will be better for the country than the positions of the Republicans”. Their argument is “we are angels of light and our opponents are Nazi demons”. This has caused them to avoid events that might otherwise have helped them (like the Al Smith charity dinner), because you can’t sit down for a friendly event with a Nazi demon, people might start to see him as a pretty normal human being instead, which would totally ruin everything you’re trying to build. And you don’t bother to legitimize the opposition by dialoguing with it. Just remind the public that your opponents are demons and you are angels.

THE END