The Future of the American Left, Part Two: The Tactics of Our Opponents

Photo by Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0)

In my first essay of this series, published last week in the Quad, I discussed what I believed were the weaknesses of Bernie Sanders’ candidacy for President, and how left-wing activists in America can avoid repeating that campaign’s mistakes and move on in pursuit of victory. I also outlined that this second installment would be about organizing the left, and while that essay is still forthcoming, I thought it would be more logical to first discuss both what we are organizing against.

So what is the left organizing against? The true antithesis of our beliefs is the radical, fascist right-wing of American politics. The American Republican Party has trended farther and farther to the right and become more and more anti-intellectual over the course of the last few decades; until now they are led by Donald Trump, who is somehow both an imbecile and an effective fascist leader. As has been repeated ad nauseam in journalism and elsewhere, facts are no longer universally agreed upon. An insistence on being in the right is all that is required to sway support for one’s ideas.

This didn’t simply happen, however, and it certainly wasn’t something Donald Trump or the Republican Party invented. Two other entities pioneered this vitiation of political discourse: Fox News and the alt-right movement.

Anyone who considers themselves a leftist and is reading this essay almost certainly already knows this. It is painfully apparent to anyone with critical thinking skills that Fox News has twisted the truth for as long as it has existed. It is also apparent to anyone who experiences empathy and compassion for others that the alt-right, as a whole, feels no such thing. Recognizing all this is one thing — combating and defeating them is entirely another.

Both Fox and the alt-right espouse similar rhetorical tactics: forcing their opponents to perpetually explain and defend their positions; masking the facts of an issue behind a misleading and sensational statement; reducing a nuanced, complex issue down into a binary; and many others. All of these tactics are insidiously intended to portray an attitude of control and authority even when the positions they present are factually incorrect. This is the downright Machiavellian part of the far-right’s tactics: their goal is never to convince the person with whom they’re debating — it’s to convince their audience.

It is painfully apparent to anyone…that Fox News has twisted the truth for as long as it has existed.

In a debate, the natural instinct — at least for people debating in good faith — is to convince the other person. That natural instinct is why virtually all liberals and quite a lot of leftists are so susceptible to falling victim to the far-right’s tactics and helping them achieve their rhetorical goals. Because right-wing activists and voters have in recent years more frequently resorted to rhetorical methods such as these, recognizing them for what they are is imperative if we are to successfully undermine their effectiveness.

The YouTube channel Innuendo Studios produces a series titled “The Alt-Right Playbook,” and while it’s specifically about the tactics of the alt-right, it can be applied to those of Fox News as well. Its videos are relatively short, but each thoroughly unpacks a different method the alt-right uses to change the dynamic of a political discussion. In their video “The Alt-Right Playbook: Never Play Defense,” they lay out specifically the tactic of forcing opponents to explain and defend their views, always seeming to be reactive to the conservative’s active. This active-vs.-reactive dynamic creates the illusion for the audience that the conservative is winning the argument, while simultaneously exhausting their interlocutor.

In “Never Play Defense,” the video’s creator and narrator Ian Danskin says, “if someone tries to force you to play defense, you don’t have to play,” turning this particular far-right tactic against them by suggesting that refusal to engage is a valid counter to it.

In addition to that opportunity to refuse engagement, I believe that calling out and attacking the method itself is an effective oppositional response. Saying, “you keep condescending and attacking, rather than engaging with the facts because you can’t engage with the facts” takes the power of their method and turns it against them. Now you are the one on the offensive, and the right-winger you’re debating must decide whether to defend, withdraw or continue attacking. Whatever they decide, in avoiding the appearance of reacting, you’ve taken away their power and won.

The idea of “never playing defense” is a part of and supporting framework for almost all other right-wing talking points. While I don’t have the space on these pages to unpack it, the tendency of Fox News to use misleading and sensational statements relies on it when their anchors or viewers are called out on spreading them is an example. The American right relies on many other spurious rhetorical practices beyond all this, and I recommend watching the entirety of Innuendo Studios’ “The Alt-Right Playbook” to learn more.

At the end of the day, it is obvious that leftists in America must learn to spot the tactics of the right and learn how to wage an effective rhetorical war against them not only to achieve victory in more theaters but to simply survive. We have been losing that rhetorical war for far too long, and it’s high time we fought back.

We have been losing that rhetorical war for far too long, and it’s high time we fought back.

Next week, the third installment of the Future of the American Left series will be published online for The Quad and will focus on what American leftists are fighting for: our goals of universal opportunity, equality and justice. The first two parts of this series were focused on how the left should operate, but in Part Three, I’ll be discussing why leftist ideals exist in America in the first place. It is arguably the most important one thus far, and I hope you’ll look out for it.