Rhetoric of reaction -> paranoid-style. Why? The rhetoric or reaction (perversity, futility, jeopardy) amounts to the stance that, ironically, those on the right are always the true tribunes of the humane values (reason, liberty, equality, etc.) those on the left purport to stand for but don't.
But there is no way to make out that the left never does anything but betray its values, requiring the right to step in and save them, without backstopping that with elaborate conspiracy theorising as to why this is so. But that paranoia then always needs ever MORE paranoia to backstop it in turn.
You can't say 'the CDC is good but here's how they could have handled Covid better.' You have to say 'the CDC would be good were it not exclusively staffed by sinister enemies of public health.' But now your rhetoric locks you into being a wrecker, since no other policy fits the paranoid picture.
So you get Stephen Miller saying - and probably believing! or at least believing he believes - not that having a center for disease control is a bad idea (too modern! Make America Medieval Again.) But that we need to let RFK wreck it to restore normal confidence in it. bsky.app/profile/josi...
THEN, when it has all-too-undeniably spiralled off into conspiracy nonsense, you can only spin yet MORE conspiracy theories to fix THAT. What insidious thing did liberals do that EXPLAINS why your side got hideously wound around the axle of paranoid-style thinking? www.mediaite.com/media/news/c...
My child's pediatrician told me my family will need to go to Canada for our COVID vaccines. I live in Chicago. Attn: @walkerbragman.bsky.social
Petard meets hoist, I guess.
Mixed metaphors and confused analogies aside?
I notice the Mediaite article didn't emphasise this side of it. But, yes, Erickson blames liberals for RFK jr.
