So the media shouldn't use the term "Convicted Felon" and should find a different tack...because this term doesn't work to persuade independent or moderate voters. I agree it doesn't work (nothing really does). Isn't there a larger question at play here? IS it there job to persuade voters, or is it there job to report news?
I'm mostly talking about commentators, not reporting. Of course reporters should report on the conviction. I'm talking about people--especially opinion writers like me--making arguments and using this as a rhetorical tactic. That's not what reporters do.
I get your point clearly, Bonnie. With a big smile, I think this piece you are acting the commentator. That is with a smile. I find now that Donald Trump has only changed in that he feels a "mandate" to fix the U.S. in 4 years. I now pray for him on two levels. First, that he come to a genuine faith in Jesus as His Savior, and second, that as he would grow in grace. If he so grows in grace he would commit himself to understand what his job really is and do it well. Our system has been faulty since 1787 and now the cracks are bigger and ugly. We have mask on law enforcement officers making arrests. Not everything is that ugly.
So, Ms. Kristian, you are arguing that we should bear false witness against our neighbors by lying by omission about this man, who would btw surely have been convicted of several much more serious felonies had some, ahem, unique applications of, well, our federal law code been employed on his behalf? Do this rather than continuing to hold Americans' (a very large percentage of said Americans being white evangelicals) feet to the fire to confront the implications of the hideous moral failure that they undertook by returning this criminal to the highest office in the land? On what biblical basis do you take this step?
Nope, I'm arguing that we should think about what kind of arguments might actually be effective in persuading people to stop supporting him, because the reality is that this one has been tried and found wholly wanting. I think persuasion is a good thing, and there is usually more than one way to communicate the truth, some better than others.
So the media shouldn't use the term "Convicted Felon" and should find a different tack...because this term doesn't work to persuade independent or moderate voters. I agree it doesn't work (nothing really does). Isn't there a larger question at play here? IS it there job to persuade voters, or is it there job to report news?
I'm mostly talking about commentators, not reporting. Of course reporters should report on the conviction. I'm talking about people--especially opinion writers like me--making arguments and using this as a rhetorical tactic. That's not what reporters do.
I get your point clearly, Bonnie. With a big smile, I think this piece you are acting the commentator. That is with a smile. I find now that Donald Trump has only changed in that he feels a "mandate" to fix the U.S. in 4 years. I now pray for him on two levels. First, that he come to a genuine faith in Jesus as His Savior, and second, that as he would grow in grace. If he so grows in grace he would commit himself to understand what his job really is and do it well. Our system has been faulty since 1787 and now the cracks are bigger and ugly. We have mask on law enforcement officers making arrests. Not everything is that ugly.
So, Ms. Kristian, you are arguing that we should bear false witness against our neighbors by lying by omission about this man, who would btw surely have been convicted of several much more serious felonies had some, ahem, unique applications of, well, our federal law code been employed on his behalf? Do this rather than continuing to hold Americans' (a very large percentage of said Americans being white evangelicals) feet to the fire to confront the implications of the hideous moral failure that they undertook by returning this criminal to the highest office in the land? On what biblical basis do you take this step?
Nope, I'm arguing that we should think about what kind of arguments might actually be effective in persuading people to stop supporting him, because the reality is that this one has been tried and found wholly wanting. I think persuasion is a good thing, and there is usually more than one way to communicate the truth, some better than others.