The more things change the more they stay the same.
Mark Hyman’s recent commentary in which he pretends to call for a strong Democratic Party could have made some salient points about growing
political polarization, the significance of a “post-ideological” president, the
importance (or lack thereof) of parties in a year when the leadership of each
major party took it on the chin.
But salient points are not what one ought to expect from Mr.
Hyman.
Instead, we get more of what—to some of us, at least—is an
all-too-familiar horde of logical fallacies, unsupported innuendo, and a dash
of casual race baiting.
Nominally, Hyman is opining about the importance in our
democracy of two strong parties. Mark is
apparently losing sleep about the Democrats not being up to the challenge of
being the GOP’s sparring partner.
This is, of course, simply an insincere rhetorical framing,
using the old rhetorical warhorses of “insincere advice” and “faint praise” to
feign concern while condemning.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course. Rhetorical novelty would be really asking for
the moon in this case.
