Death and rhetoric: The four tactics for when you lose the argument about USAID

Introduction: The illumination in the inevitable darkness.

We all grow closer to death every year. I fear the undiscovered kingdom but I also appreciate it. My inevitable demise makes me focus on what’s more important. In my youth I was interested in what the best policies and practices were more than practical politics. As important as that is, the older I get the more I accept that politics is the art of the possible and we should consign ourselves to the fallenness of humanity.

It is with such morbidity in mind that I find the response to the USAID scandal fascinating. It is illuminating that leftists are avoiding how dumb all the LGTB+ <<>P propaganda spread by USAID is while still defending the program. If one thinks like a sociopathic tactician or a sophist, these all make perfect sense. If you can’t argue logically about a subject, then avoid the subject and don’t bother with logic.

Tactic Number 1: Say it’s a very small thing.

It is true that USAID is about 1% of the federal government’s spending. This is what I like to call the "there are bigger problems" fallacy, which is a variation of the irrelevance fallacy or the red herring fallacy. It is technically true that America has bigger problems than the dumb spending by USAID. But it does not logically follow that the U.S. government should not stop dumb spending. If I am assaulted, and the police say, "Well, there are murders happening, so we don’t have to worry about trespasses against you," that would be logically absurd and morally reprehensible.

This logical fallacy is useful to leftists because it contains some Truth, so that helps them move the argument away from the actual bad policies.

Tactic Number 2: Attack the people who make the correct arguments.

This is an ad hominem mixed with the irrelevance fallacy. “Well, no one voted for Elon so what he says isn’t relevant and he shouldn’t have so much power.” I would like to respond to such people with the query, “Well, people voted for Trump. If Trump was doing all the policies, would that be legitimate if he was elected?” This is followed by the idea that Trump is an illegitimate dictator, so he should not be allowed to stop government spending. (YouTube source here). Think of the typical ranting on The View. This avoids how bad the government spending is.

Tactic Number 3: Shouldn’t we fund the bad programs in order to fund the good programs?

In a recent press briefing with Elon Musk and Donald Trump, a reporter asked in essence, shouldn’t we fund all of USAID in order to prevent diseases that might affect America? The implication is that any attack on any program imperils all the good things that USAID supposedly does. And to be fair, it is reasonable that with so much horse manure there is a pony buried somewhere in USAID.

This uses a potential good to justify a definite bad. This is a particularly egregious mix of the slippery slope fallacy and the straw man fallacy. As this argument can easily be negated by saying, "Well, we should fund what is good and not fund what is bad," I will quickly move on to the most interesting tactic.

Tactic Number 4: Appeal to tribalism and pathos and reframe basic words and concepts.

This is the most difficult to argue against because there really isn’t any argument here. It is a negation of argument.

Apparently, Trump getting elected and doing what he said he would do is against democracy.

Also, the government spending less money on causes that the vast majority (and probably a majority of Democrats) disapprove of is wrong because Elon Musk. Somehow Elon Musk cutting bad government spending is an evil billionaire putting his hands on your money.

In other words, Democrats good and Orange-man bad.

I caution my fellow Ricochetti, particularly those who are autistic or in scientific fields, not to underestimate this tactic.

Many people operate entirely by feelings and not logic. So by avoiding logic and appealing to emotion, you can appeal to many people. This is one of the easiest ways to avoid the logical arguments about how bad USAID spending is, if you can do the emotion.

The reason why leftists are obsessed with pretty speeches and being cool is that those characteristics are necessary to appeal to emotions. Think of Kamala Harris trying to focus on positive vibes. Tellingly, I have observed that the leftists who blame Harris for their failure in the 2024 election focus on how she failed to excite people rather than her intellect or her morality.

Again, in a sociopathic sophist fashion, that leftist criticism is justifiable. Remember that sophists don’t believe in right or wrong and they don’t believe in character. Sophists argued that whoever could speak beautifully enough to win a court case was right. It carries over that if Kamala Harris could convince people that she was a competent executive, and a decent executive, then she would be. Likewise, the most rabid NTers are angry not about anything substantive about Trump but rather his aesthetics.

This isn’t to say that aesthetics and rhetoric aren’t important. I doubt that Jesus, Socrates or Confucius ever argued that. They all focused on making very good arguments after all. But they considered good arguments secondary to Truth or the pursuit of Truth.

Conclusion: What we are really arguing about.

Trump is taking away the power of the Deep State that supports leftists. He is weakening the self-interested power of our Woke/leftist elite and they cannot stand it. It is they who should decide what to do with America’s money. It is their right because they are of the right class and went to the right schools and have the right friends who all agree with them.

Nohaaj thinks that the established leftist elite are defending expenditures on USAID because, “they are in on the graft.” I agree with him but I would emphasize two points. Firstly, I think this is more about a thirst for power, for personal profit, even though they are not mutually exclusive. Secondly, I think that they genuinely believe they are the good guys because being certain of their virtue helps them in their quest for power and money. (This is how post-modernism ties itself with moral absolutism.)

Why rhetoric is so critically important to policy debates is that it can determine whether or not we even bother with logical arguments about policy. In my youth, I thought I could read all the books about philosophy and policy and write a policy paper that addresses everyone's concerns and get some legislation passed to improve America.

It felt like I had all the time in the world to read all the books and make the best policy. If the right policies didn’t show up in the short term, then that gave me another election cycle to study more. But with the finitude of my mortality setting upon me like the afternoon sun, I realize that winning in the short-term is as important as getting the perfect policy paper.