Rhetoric and Demagoguery

Roberts-Miller argues that we should pay more attention to the role of demagoguery in public deliberation, especially to the question of what impact it has. In chapter one she considers an instance when minds were changed—the debate over the Iraq invasion. The case for war was a case about identities—Americans were given the false choice of being a hero in an action movie or being the effeminate intellectual who wants to deliberate. They took believing instead of deliberating. Chapter two examines three instances of demagoguery, wherein deliberation and submission are pitted against each other. The first example comes from a fourth century BCR rhetor; the second revolves around an argument regarding segregation; the third concerns the U.S. Supreme Court’s demagoguery defending “Japanese internment”, where the argument is against deliberation and for submission to “the facts” (fabricated) and to the military. Chapter three highlights testimony regarding the “evacuation” of various groups from “military zones”. The demagoguery in this case was in the service of an irrational, incoherent, and even fascistic way of managing fears. Chapter four explores demagoguery engaged in by (and for) the elite and a kind that presents itself as scientific and of the in-group/out-group genre. The final chapter examines several instances of demagoguery. In conclusion, she cites that demagoguery is not always bad, but when it is, it is not because of their demagogues, it is because we choose too much of it. Annotation ©2019 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)
Demagoguery, Roberts-Miller contends, depoliticizes political argument by making all issues into questions of identity. She broaches complicated questions about its effectiveness at persuasion, proposes a new set of criteria, and shows how demagoguery plays out in regard to individuals not conventionally seen as demagogues.
In a culture of profit-driven media, demagoguery is a savvy short-term rhetorical strategy. Once it becomes the norm, individuals are more likely to employ it and, in that way, increase its power by making it seem the only way of disagreeing with or about others. When that happens, arguments about policy are replaced by arguments about identity—and criticism is met with accusations that the critic has the wrong identity (weak, treacherous, membership in an out-group) or the wrong feelings (uncaring, heartless). Patricia Roberts-Miller proposes a definition of demagoguery based on her study of groups and cultures that have talked themselves into disastrously bad decisions. She argues for seeing demagoguery as a way for people to participate in public discourse, and not necessarily as populist or heavily emotional. Demagoguery, she contends, depoliticizes political argument by making all issues into questions of identity. She broaches complicated questions about its effectiveness at persuasion, proposes a new set of criteria, and shows how demagoguery plays out in regard to individuals not conventionally seen as demagogues. Roberts-Miller looks at the discursive similarities among the Holocaust in early twentieth-century Germany, the justification of slavery in the antebellum South, the internment of Japanese Americans in the United States during World War II, and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, among others. She examines demagoguery among powerful politicians and jurists (Earl Warren, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court) as well as more conventional populists (Theodore Bilbo, two-time governor of Mississippi; E. S. Cox, cofounder of the Anglo-Saxon Clubs of America). She also looks at notorious demagogues (Athenian rhetor Cleon, Ann Coulter) and lesser-known public figures (William Hak-Shing Tam, Gene Simmons).