Underbelly: Being Deeply Wrong
I’m stealing “Rachel Maddow’s”:http://www.maddowonline.com/ “underbelly tactic” bit. Every show she describes a sneaky political propaganda trick used to distract and persuade.
The underbelly tactic I want to talk about I call *being deeply wrong*. If you want to control how the debate looks to outside observers — an important part of political persuasion — *being deeply wrong* will help you achieve that. The goal is to have your argument be so ludicrously wrong that your opposition is forced into _arguing with an idiot_.
bq. Don’t argue with an idiot; people watching may not be able to tell the difference. [ homily ]
The opposition will not know where to start and will tie itself into knots trying to refute each point; this makes them look disorganized, weak, ineffectual, and pedantic. You, on the other hand, get to be deeply wrong the same way each time, which makes you look steadfast and focused.
As a bonus, if your audience gets exasperated at how stupid you are being you can then shift the argument to the opposition’s rudeness and elitism.
After all, it takes only a few words to say “as the Iraqis stand up, we’ll stand down” or “stay the course,” but thousands of words to explain why those positions are deeply wrong.
Can you think of other examples?
