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robdanisch.bsky.social
Professor of Rhetoric and Communication, University of Waterloo, lover of democracy and profanity
190 posts 117 followers 257 following
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i absolutely believe this is where we are headed. this has always been the playbook. sartre wrote in 1945 that they delight in their own bad faith. in 2017, andrew anglin made it the official editorial policy for his nazi blog. it’s always “just a joke,” but the punchline is actual violence.

submitted 12 hours ago • 23 comments

Remember the paranoid style involves obsessively accumulating evidence

submitted 13 hours ago • 0 comments

The rhetorical effects of proliferation and what/how proliferation accumulates matters more than accuracy in our media ecosystem

submitted 13 hours ago • 0 comments

“What is this evidence of?” has become an extraordinarily complex question these days. We take one bit of evidence and it’s used to drive wildly different conclusions. I don’t think that’s just because of bad faith.

submitted 13 hours ago • 0 comments

This was infuriating to listen to. There is nothing "hidden" about any of this. Most of it is just basic insights from thefield of communication studies. What is remarkable is that a Harvard "behaviour scientist" can just blithely ignore hiddenbrain.org/podcast/the-...

submitted 14 hours ago • 1 comment

This is terrible. AI sucks at teaching writing and teachers that rely on it are ignoring the most vital and complicated parts of their job which will only hurt students www.usatoday.com/story/news/e...

submitted 16 hours ago • 0 comments

One of the astonishing things about the right is how awful their use and understanding of evidence is. They reason by association and the associations are wild leaps.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

This is excellent: The Comfort of Sleepwalkers www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-comfor...

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Hope is at the heart of democratic life; it animates the democratic project. Fear is the heart of fascism and fear drives fascist politics.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Yes!

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

This is a very good, crystal clear account of the unfolding crisis. Ontario universities and colleges are being destroyed. How Ontario Sleepwalked into a Crisis in Higher Education - thelocal.to/ontario-post...

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

This is nuts, but violent rhetoric begets violence. I cannot believe more people aren't clearly saying that the chaos of the first few weeks are steering us straight to violence.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Why not a single article in the Globe and Mail or Toronto Star arguing that California and New York should be the 11th and 12th province and join Canada?

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Over 650 political scientists who have dedicated our lives to the study of democracy & government, have signed this letter enumerating our deep concerns about this administration’s actions that undermine the Constitution and the rule of law. Please share. urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=htt...

submitted 4 days ago • 25 comments

And if anyone wants the academic version of this argument on a larger scale: newbooksnetwork.com/rhetorical-d...

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

To those who think Trump is leaving in 4 years, why? He's telling you in as many words he won't. He's there for life. Prepare for this.

submitted 3 days ago • 169 comments

Again, I don't understand why Fortune 500 & Wall Street CEOs are silent about this. "They want low taxes" & "they're in the tank for Trump" are not convincing explanations. Or, if they are, then they're idiots & we never should have treated them as savvy business genius Masters Of The Universe.

submitted 3 days ago • 71 comments

Last year, we published a paper showing that AI models can "debunk" conspiracy theories via personalized conversations. That paper raised a major question: WHY are the human<>AI convos so effective? In a new working paper, we have some answers. TLDR: facts osf.io/preprints/ps...

submitted 4 days ago • 17 comments

I think it’s important to think of Trump as a propaganda machine - someone that just circulates and amplifies propaganda not someone that communicates to inform or persuade or connect with other humans. He’s just a propaganda circulator.

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

Trump is just a propaganda machine. He may be the greatest propaganda machine ever built

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

I've written a number of op-eds and pieces for The Conversation and other outlets. I just wrote one on persuasion - how politicians on the left can actually win elections. The stuff in there is based on evidence from rhetorical studies, pyschology, communication, and

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

U.S. media: Interviewing retired Democrats about whether taking over Canada would help them electorally Canadian media: Interviewing retired counterinsurgency advisors on what a campaign of resistance against an armed invasion would look like

submitted 4 days ago • 17 comments

Yes, why isn’t this so obvious to everyone? White nationalist dudes are so hysterically emotional, it’s alarming.

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Yes, lot's of good stuff here, but sadly given the state of leadership at most universities this just seems impossible.

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

We need more of this, but maybe it's too late: www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/dem...

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

theconversation.com/how-to-win-a...

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

In the coming weeks, a lot of slow-on-the uptake folks are going to begin belatedly realizing Trump is both an inept moron and a dangerous autocrat. Our great civic challenge in these trying times will be calmly welcoming them aboard instead of primal-screaming in their faces.

submitted 17 days ago • 415 comments

Facebook, instagram, and X are propaganda machines not town squares.

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Hey Federal Liberal Party - here’s your slogan: Make Canada Less American

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Yes, this is true, some of us have been saying it for a few years now

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Strategy is using what you have to get what you want. It’s not lamenting what you don’t have to keep the status quo.

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

I miss the old America, you know the one that resisted tyrants and autocrats.

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

The troubling thing about the Dems right now is that trump’s weakness is his impulsiveness and reactiveness but they won’t exploit that. Weird.

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Ideally education and intelligence should produce habits of character and habits of seeing complexity and responding with moderation. You know the habits necessary for democratic life.

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

At this moment, authoritarian rhetoric is better at using the available media of communication than democratic rhetorics. If that problem isn't solved soon, then mode democratic backsliding will happen.

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

It’s definitely time for two new political parties in the US.

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

I think that the best messaging for the Dems right now is just to repeat over and over: He is stealing from you.

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Yes! This:

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Yes, this is absolutely correct:

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

What these nihilistic vandals are doing to dismantle science & medicine—generations of expertise & public service & life improving benefits—is cultural revolution level national self harm. No foreign foe could inflict such brutal damage & senseless suffering on US so fast & effectively & unresisted.

submitted 8 days ago • 510 comments