How conservatives use ‘verbal jiu-jitsu’ to turn liberals’ language against them | Analysis by John Blake t.co/QRdUMylq4w
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) August 20, 2023
The two frontrunners for the White House in 2024 are tied in a hypothetical rematch. Congress is paralyzed. Every big election seems to be decided by razor-thin margins.
By almost any measure, the struggle for political dominance in the US seems deadlocked between Republicans and Democrats. At times, the two parties resemble a pair of punch-drunk boxers, slugging away at one another in a contest that neither can end.
But there is one political battleground where Republicans triumph virtually every time — and control of this arena could determine who wins the White House in 2024.
Republicans are masters of verbal jiu-jitsu. It’s a form of linguistic combat in which the practitioner takes a political phrase or concept popularized by their opponent and gradually turns into an unusable slur. Like the Japanese martial art known as jiu-jitsu, its devotees avoid taking opposing arguments head on and instead redirect their opponents’ momentum to beat them.
www.cnn.com/2023/08/20/politics/conservatives-verbal-combat-blake-cec/index.html
h/t dr0id