Shutting down conversations is an acknowledgment of failure

From "We cannot keep with the Republican talking points on this. You got to stop." by Ann Althouse. Being a constitutional lawyer, Althouse has a love of language, logic, and rhetoric. Usually has some interesting insights from close reading.

In this instance she has has picked up on the Democratic candidates who keep referencing Republican Talking Points as if to shut down the conversation through incantation. After establishing the factual record of each of the leading candidates using the phrase she goes on:

It's such a cliché already that its usefulness may already be gone, but let me do my part to try to kill it. I assume — and I am a moderate voter in Wisconsin, capable of going for either party's candidate — that the Republicans' talking points are their best arguments on all the various issues. A Democratic Party candidate, to be any good, better demonstrate skill at countering these arguments, these talking points!

It's especially bad to use the line agains the debate moderator, as Bernie did — "Jake, your question is a Republican talking point." It sounds as though he's implying that Jake Tapper should go easy on him and not challenge him with the very arguments he'll have to deal with if he's the Democratic Party candidate.

And it's terrible to use the phrase as a way to refuse to deal with a problem with your position. Julian Castro said "open borders is a right-wing talking point, and frankly I'm disappointed that some folks, including some folks on this stage, have taken the bait." His whole argument was Shut up, you sound like a Republican. And he wasn't even talking to the other candidates. He was talking to one of the moderators (Don Lemon), who had quoted President Obama's homeland security secretary, Jeh Johnson. Your immigration policy sounds like open borders! If it's not open borders, you'd better explain why!

Good points. I especially like the implication that they do not want to argue the Republican talking points because they 1) don't understand them, and/or, 2) Don't like them, and/or, 3) They don't have an affirmative agenda of their own which resonates.

They have an agenda. One of them has a plan for everything. But they are all airy, abstract, conceptual, and frequently do not touch on those things most real and most relevant to the public. They are hot-house Mandarin Class issues, not real people issues.

It would be easy to dismiss this as bubble insiders not wanting to talk about what's outside the bubble, without ever realizing how limited and contrived their bubble is.

But I wonder whether it isn't grounded on a larger dynamic. They simply do no want to engage in an argument which is pertinent to most people. Or maybe it is better to say, it is impossible to ground their ideological arguments in a fashion that is meaningful to the needs and aspirations of the everyday voter.

It is not that the Republican talking points are necessarily more real, more pragmatic, or more likely to happen. But most their talking points are pretty concrete and well aligned with what polls say the public is interested in: More jobs, more income, less crime, more justice, fewer wars, less regulation, more freedom, less corruption, more focus on the needs of Americans versus the needs of everyone else in the world.

Like those messages or not, they are relatable and communicable.

In some ways the insistence to not address Republican Talking Points seems like a disastrous pre-surrender. Our opponents are talking about things the voters care about and we do not. So let's not talk about it. That does not seem like a sound strategy to me. Create an affirmative plan that is relatable to people's interests, objectives and daily lives. That is the task.

It goes back to an underlying division. A free nation has a free discussion. Coercive nations want to shut the conversation down so it need not be discussed at all.