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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.