I’m rapidly becoming certain that the effectiveness of shoddy argument and strawman “enemies” in our current political climate has much to do with the relegation of rhetoric - in popular conception - to style, artistry, or useless, empty speech practiced by lying hucksters.  People don’t seem to realize that any statement that is used to convince a public of a need for change - in action, even if from inaction to action, in policy, in approach, or in thinking - is rhetorical.  Constructing an Axis of Evil, for instance, is a rhetorical action.  “The Terrorists” ® are a rhetorical construct.

These laughable creations allow our President to create such laughable comparisons of Iraq to the Third Reich (from what history tells me, the Wehrmacht was far more resistant and put up a much stronger fight than the Iraqi army).  It allows him to tell us - without our questioning of the origins of his statements - that “The Terrorists Hate our Freedom.”  It allows him to tell us that “The only way to save our Freedom® is to give up some of our rights,” a rhetorical sleight of hand that disrupts the common cultural association of rights and freedoms.

When we don’t approach claims through a rhetorical lens, it allows rhetors to take advantage of our assumptions and fears of “THEM,” to create a fictional entity that becomes the Anti-Us, a possible source of destruction, thus allowing fear for survival to overcome our rational mind, even if subtly and in the background, deep within the ID, sparking irrational reactions from rational beings.