motte and bailey doctrine

 

Wall Street Apes

@WallStreetApes

This is EXACTLY what’s happening “The political left mastered an old mass manipulation strategy that lets them push any claim, no matter how radical, wrong, or stupid, into the mainstream without ever having to defend it. And once you know it, you'll see it everywhere, even in daily arguments It's called the motte and bailey doctrine - The bailey is the radical, extreme version of a claim - The motte is the small defensible tower next to it, the mild version of the claim In the public's mind, the 2 are never actually separated. They live together as one position. So when someone attacks the bailey, the radical version, the motte gets defended instead, the reasonable version. And because the public sees the motte and bailey as the same claim, successfully defending the motte automatically validates the bailey, too. Attacking the radical position now looks identical to attacking the reasonable one, which makes the radical position untouchable by association” “This is how the Overton Window is moved, through hundreds of small, unwinnable fights over the motte, each one quietly making the bailey a little more acceptable, a little more mainstream, until what used to be radical is just the new normal. And from there, real political power follows” Let me give you a real world easy to understand example of this, Let’s take the Left’s plan to Defund the Police - The Bailey, the radical claim: Democrats say they want to cut or abolish police departments. Reduce their funding so severely that traditional policing becomes impossible - The Motte, the mild, defensible version: Democrats say “We just want to reallocate some money to mental health services, social workers, and community programs so the police don’t have to handle everything.” Here’s how it works, When critics attack the radical version saying something like “You want to abolish the police and leave cities less safe”, the defenders immediately switch to the mild version “No one is saying abolish the police, we just want better resources for communities” But in reality, they plan us to abolish the police The Left uses this tactic ALL THE TIME