Common, but utterly useless political rhetoric

Stop telling people to play tennis with a bat

If we’re playing tennis, and I say I’d rather play baseball, you’d think I was insane if I brought out a bat and starting trying to whack the ball out of the court.

Same argument applies here:

• “He thinks taxes on the rich should be higher, but he paid zero tax last year. How hypocritical!.
• (add more later)

Voting against your own interest isn’t a gotcha

You’d rightfully critique rich people voting to lower their own taxes. You want them to vote against their own interest.

Why do you think it’s weird that the less wealthy vote against their own interest?

Escalating to convince people of smaller issues

You should escalate in order to grab people’s attention, but escalating mostly doesn’t sway people that disagree with you.

“He doesn’t care enough about black rights” -> “He’s a racist” -> “He’s a nazi” -> He’s literally hitler” === None of this works to convince anyone that disagrees with you. In fact, it’s going the opposite way — disagreers may engage with the first claim. They’re gonna just ignore the latter 2 claims and assume you’ve lost your mind.

There’s a mistake theory vs conflict theory aspect to this one, but even in a conflict theory world, this is an ineffective way of fighting.