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Notes -
The Nick Fuentes interview with Piers Morgan was a good demonstration of how boomers do not understand Gen Z rhetorical tactics at all. One example is the “agree-and-amplify” strategy.
This strategy came from The Red Pill/PUA community. The idea is that girls will try to throw you off your game by making some unfounded criticism, to test how secure/powerful you are as a man. It’s called a “shit test.”
The “agree-and-amplify” strategy says the best approach is to do exact that. Example: Girl says “Wow that’s a big truck, are compensating for something?”
Loser response (no getting laid): “No, my penis is slightly above average! I just like trucks!”
Agree-and-amplify: “Hahah yeah, micropene. 1 inch. It’ll have you screaming tho.”
The latter projects confidence, she knows your joking of if she believes you, you can neg her about it. She made it sexual and gave you an opening. Etc. All in good fun.
Fuentes did the same thing repeatedly, and Morgan just does not grasp it at all.
For example, paraphrasing:
Morgan: “Are you racist?”
Loser response: No, I have friends who are black! I just think [crime statistics]!
Morgan: Sounds like you’re racist.
Game, set, march. Better is the Fuentes agree-and-amplify:
Fuentes : “Haha yeah. I don’t want any black people around”
Morgan: [clutches pearls]
Fuentes: I have black friends though. They are also concerned about [crime statistics]
Morgan: But you said you were racist!
It makes it feel like Morgan is not in on the joke. It denies his moral frame that any hint of racism = bad. He needs to come up with a more concrete argument. When he instead tries fails to re-establish the frame through repetition, it doesn’t land.
I was reminded in a way of the classic Charlie Kirk owning libs on campus. The key is that the libs did not really come into the bait understanding Kirk’s beliefs or tactics, but Kirk understood theirs inside and out. This let Kirk win easily every time.
Morgan is a wiley veteran and won some parts of the interview. But overall he did not know how to handle Nick’s tactics at all.
In the end, it is turning into a debacle for Piers Morgan. As the dust settles, he comes across as the evil defender of a decrepit regime going after some dude’s dad. He was forced to pretend to not understand basic statistics, causing him to appear either stupid or malicious, depending on your gullibility. In many ways, he was the perfect heel employing dirty tactics to get an edge.
And to make matters worse, his decision to focus on the Catholic Nick’s virginity has backfired horribly, with everyone learning about his wife cheating on him with everyone from internet randos to the literal pool boy. How true are these accusations? I honestly don’t know, but they are already cemented into the hivemind’s collective beliefs.
I could really never stand the rambling nature of Nick’s show and never watched more than five minutes, but I agree with most of what he said on Tucker and Piers. On my scorecard, total groyper victory. Curious if others agree.
Its not just tactics that Fuentes won on. He won by focusing on topics that he is strongest on and emphasizing facts that support his position. I only have watched the first 20 minutes or so, but the Chicago Mag Mile shooting anecdote + black crime statistics combo that Fuentes pulled out as a response to Piers accusing him of being racist and accusing his dad of being racist was both rhetorically skilled, and appeals to people's common sense. What he does is paint a picture of black youth as out of control, shows an example, then gives backup stats.
This is not just tactics, its just how actual debates are supposed to work. Fuentes has the upper hand, and Piers thinks he has an upper hand, but is actually bluffing (he just doesn't know it). Fuentes has facts and anecdotes that are proximate in time; Piers has what he thinks is a super power word "racist", and the former disarms the latter easily when the former is allowed to speak at all. This is why the left hates Joe Rogan, despite him being on the left, and hates "platforming" on podcasts and podcast-like content, and desperately clings to things like 4 v 1 "moderated" CNN panels where everyone is allowed 30 seconds and the "neutral" host gets the last word. The modern leftist intellectual doesn't have any knowledge about why they think what they think. This wasn't some Harvard professor dressing down a freshman, or even a Steven Crowder embarrassing a campus kid, it was one media figure against another, and the leftist media figure was given a significant handicap, its his own show, he picks the topics, he plays whatever clip he wants, and he's just flailing.
This isn't an isolated incident, its a common occurrence. A realization I frequently share is that, if modern progressives were swapped with 1850s/60s abolitionists, we'd still have slavery today. In fact, they might have made the people of the 1860s pass a second constitutional amendment wherein anyone advocating for abolitionist views without deportation of freed slaves a capital offense. That is simply how bad the arguments around race are coming from that side.
I suppose you meant to write 'advantage' instead of 'handicap'?
Being given a handicap is the same thing as being given an advantage. It might be some British vs. American peculiarity, but I'm pretty sure it's valid.
In a betting parlance I'd agree that 'Giving the Dallas Cowboys a 4-point handicap' implies +4 and therefore an advantage but I've prettymuch never run into giving a handicap in a positive framing outside of that.
It's also used in chess. "X gave Y a knight handicap" means that X, being the stronger player, agreed to play against Y without a knight to even the odds.
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