Without Googling, How Many DUers Know What Rogerian Argument Is?

[chia]

30. It's an although-type thesis, conceding or allowing an argument for an opposing view,

before moving on to give reasons why you're arguing against that view.

I remember those from English Composition, and to answer your question in the OP:

It can be effective in some situations, with someone who has any objectivity left in their bones in the post-Trump era.

With people who have no objectivity (and no desire for it), I don't think it's effective. Things are too partisan now and that's to be expected when we're in survival mode. Having argued contra Trump for the past year and a half, I'm just as likely to walk away from a pointless discussion myself, and I know that they have as much chance of changing my mind as I do theirs.

It boggles the mind the way they can believe the lies they're told, and I've come to understand the awesomely terrible power of propaganda and the way it works to control the mindset.

I've often disparaged the conspiracy theories of the right, but sometimes I wonder about my fears of this country being taken down by a corrupt kakistocracy - and every time I tell myself not to give in to fear, I can't help but think of 1930s Germany. Are we canaries in the coal mine as history repeats itself, or am I suffering from Trump exhaustion?