Al Franken shows how it's done

Open questions and persistence can shut down right wing talking points

How to hit back

Ever since Biden went into full Dark Branden mode in Philadelphia, Democrats have done more than take unanswered abuse from MAGA Fascists. And recently, Al Franken provided us a master class in pushing back on right wing propaganda. Watch the clip below to see a master in action. Then we’ll discuss how he did it.

laura mooney @lmresists

Dems THIS is how you deal with Republican lies. 👏 👏 @alfranken

So let’s break it down

He puts the ball in their court

Liberals spend too much time explaining things to people who don’t care, and far too little time making those people justify their own faulty beliefs. Franken knows better. He doesn’t explain why Stewart is wrong. He lets her show us herself.

He uses open questions.

An open question starts with "who, what, when or how" When Stewart says that it’s normal for the party out of power to block nomination of a president’s SCOTUS pick. Franken demands “when did it happen before?” The question is in no way rhetorical. It has a clear, factual answer, but not one that support’s Stewart’s talking points.

This mirrors the "yes/and" technique of improv comedy that Franken would have learned in his Second City and SNL days. It’s how good improv comics create comedy routines out of audience suggestions. They select the suggestion most likely to lead to an absurd conclusion, then encourage their partner in the improv to build on its absurdity. This works great for creating comedy when both people know they're being ridiculous and are playing that fact for laughs.

But when you're faced with someone being absurd with a straight face, as Alice Stewart is here, you amplify the absurdity and then turn around and ask them to explain it. Suddenly, they’re not making a charge against you. They’re defending their own unsupported talking points. And when they have to do that, they’re no longer in the dominant position.

When she doesn’t give a satisfactory answer, he repeats the question

Bad faith people will usually seek to dodge open questions that they can’t answer. They will throw countless distractions in your path, trying to get you to talk about something—anything else. Don’t take the bait.

You can do this too

When liberals see someone push back effectively against the right wing, they tend to say, “let’s get them on [name of show]” when what they really should be saying is, “I could do that too.” The right wing is effective in flooding the zone with disinformation because its partisans have practiced making their style of argument. Now it’s our turn to do it ourselves.