Talking points
Crossfire Dweeb: "We do honest debate on this show."
Jon Stewart: "No, you don't. All you do is scream the talking points at each other."
Talking points are arguments that touch a nerve.
A familiar way to dismiss a political argument is to identify it as a talking point. The accusation is levied against an argument made by an opponent. It also works to dismiss a point made by someone on one's own political "team." It identifies some unwelcome factual concession that exposes a weakness in the team's orthodox position, its ideological phalanx. Calling it a mere "talking point" for the other side is a quick repair job to the front line.
"Why that's just a Republican talking point," people write me in complaint when I write that Joe Biden is elderly and appears spacey sometimes. I also hear it when I write that high gasoline prices are a visible sign of worrisome inflation. I haven't written much in criticism about the sloppy American exit from Afghanistan, but if I did, I expect someone would identify that, too, as "just a Republican talking point."
Republican readers may disagree, but I think this blog is harder on Democrats than on Republicans. I don't think I have become a cranky curmudgeon Republican. I perceive that Democrats and Republicans have entered silos of conventional, acceptable thinking within their parties. People get willful blindness and stubbornness. They defend the indefensible because the idea they defend is "our" idea--within that phalanx. Because I care about success of good Democratic policies--especially during this Trump era--I work harder to "help"--as I see it--Democrats. I want them to stop doing and saying foolish, unpopular things. Just because a Republican says something is bad doesn't automatically mean the opposite is true. It might just be a fair point. It is almost certainly a point that hurts Democrats politically.
Some things are simply undeniable. I don't want to pretend to the contrary just because I prefer Biden to Trump. To my eye, and I have seen him up close a half dozen times, Biden looks and acts old and spacey. Nearly every Democrat admits this in some form, when they let their guard down and speak honestly. I don't need to "interpret" gasoline prices. They are posted right on the signs. Desperate people falling to their deaths from the landing gear of planes leaving Afghanistan make an undeniable image of a messy exit.
Biden's condition, gasoline prices, and Afghanistan are Republican talking points. If a Republican advocate is challenged on TV about Trump's insurrection plot, the response is the briefest pretense of comment on Trump and then a "what-about" pivot to the Biden's fitness, gasoline prices, and Afghanistan. Republicans don't want to talk about Trump's coup plot. They want to talk about their issues. But the fact remains that the three points are genuine points of political vulnerability. Properly understood, they are advice. Maybe Biden needs to announce he isn't running in 2024. Maybe Biden should demonstrate more visibly that he is trying to reduce gasoline prices. Maybe Biden should make conspicuous changes in the intelligence and generalship teams that handled the Afghanistan exit.
We are seeing how toxic the "it's just a talking point" attitude is for Republicans, too, when we see how powerfully Republican loyalists dismiss Trump's sedition plot. It is, indeed, a Democratic talking point. The more we learn about his plot, the more dangerous and tawdrier it is, yet Trump is demanding that his stolen election story remain inside the GOP phalanx of acceptable thought. Apparently a majority of Republicans believe their pivot and think the coup effort wasn’t real. Republicans are cleaning house in primaries, getting rid of people who dare acknowledge it.
Talking points are intended as weapons but they are also gifts. They tell parties what they need to fix.