Liberals think of rhetoric as something you cut through to get to the substance. But in politics, rhetoric is the substance.

Politics is the art of persuading people. If you can't persuade them, you can't get anything done.

That doesn't mean you have to lie to them.

Yes, Donald Trump uses rhetoric, like all con artists. But so did Barack Obama, like Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, and Cicero did. All saw rhetoric as a tool for moral work.

You can speak poetically and still speak truth — deeper truth, if you do it well.

If liberals want to stop losing, they need to re-learn how.

Here's where to start.

Full transcription and links at dastardlycleverness.com.

Escape from the iron cage of alienation appears to be impossible: You'll never think of a way out, because it's thinking that locks you in.

Unless you discover a different way to think.

This episode: a dive inside the mind of a musician.

Every politician, or anyone trying to persuade anyone else of anything, faces two make-or-break moments: the moment before they say a word, and the moment they do.

We turn to that second moment here.

And to "Don't Mess With Texas." You probably know the slogan, but you may not know that it represents one of the most successful persuasion projects in history. There are many reasons for that, but among the most important is the power of one word.

Full transcript and links at Substack and DastardlyCleverness.com.