On Thursday, Barack Obama returned to the political fray with a speech at the University of Illinois. It was unmistakably a campaign speech, perhaps the most partisan speech he’s ever given.

Ben Shapiro didn’t like it. The popular conservative pundit posted an article denouncing Obama’s address, accusing the former president of abdicating his responsibility for the troubled state of American politics. This is from the first paragraph:

The central lie of the speech is that time began on November 8, 2016 — that the collapse of America’s social fabric and civic institutions had nothing to do with Barack Obama. The reality of the situation, of course, is that Trump is a symptom…

The problem with calling this “the central lie” is Obama said the exact opposite:

It did not start with Donald Trump. He is a symptom, not the cause. He’s just capitalizing on resentments that politicians have been fanning for years.

Obama blames Republicans, Shapiro blames Obama, but they agree Trump is a symptom, not the cause.

So why did Shapiro begin his article with such a blatant inaccuracy?

The answer sheds light on a bigger question: What happened to the Republican party?

Obama’s Wingman

I don’t know whether Shapiro’s error stems from accidental oversight or deliberate misrepresentation, but neither is good. Both disregard a core principle of good faith argument: Present opposing positions fairly.

Perhaps you think Obama argues in bad faith. That’s not a defense of someone else doing it — two wrongs don’t make a right — but it could have made for an interesting critique of Obama’s speech.

Shapiro doesn’t do that. Instead of trying to disprove Obama’s claims about Republican extremism, he attacks Obama.

The style is striking. Shapiro’s criticism of the former president isn’t so much an argument as a list — a litany of supposed misdeeds, presented without explanation.

For example, reacting to Obama’s attack on “appealing to tribe, appealing to fear, pitting one group against another,” Shapiro incredulously writes:

This from the president who tut-tutted actual riots, who suggested without evidence that police departments across America were systemically racist, who declared that a slain black teenager could have been his son, who deployed his vice president to say that Mitt Romney wanted to put black people “back in chains.”

As a political junkie, I’m familiar with all four of these arguments. But it’s probably not clear to most people how every one proves Obama a hypocrite. For example, what’s wrong with Obama saying a slain black teenager could have been his son?

It’s not that every criticism Shapiro levels is wrong — it’s that he doesn’t make an argument. He presumes his audience is already familiar with these cases, and already thinks they’re evidence against Obama.

To understand the “slain black teenager” point, you have to know Shapiro is referring to Trayvon Martin, and have to be familiar enough with that case — which is now six and a half years old — to know why Shapiro thinks Obama was wrong to say Martin could’ve been his son.

Many of Shapiro’s points are even less accessible. For example:

Obama states in this speech that we should not “pressure the attorney general”; but Eric Holder called himself Obama’s “wingman.”

And…?

It’s not clear how Holder using a casual term indicating close support is equivalent to Trump publicly denigrating Attorney General Jeff Sessions and demanding that Sessions prosecute Trump’s political enemies.

Maybe I’m missing something, and Obama pressured Holder like Trump is pressuring Sessions. But Shapiro doesn’t elaborate. There’s no explanation; no supportive evidence. Not even any links.

Perhaps Shapiro’s regular listeners/readers know why “wingman” matters. But how many others do?

And that’s my point. Shapiro’s critique of Obama is not persuasive argument. It’s preaching to the choir.

Debate Me!

Millions of Americans want political commentary from someone who agrees with them. Who shares their values, reflects their anger, mongers their grievances. Who makes them feel morally and intellectually superior. They read/watch/listen to be reinforced, not challenged, ideally picking up some good one-liners to throw at opponents.

There’s fame and fortune in political choir-preaching if you’re good at it. And Shapiro is.

(See also: Maddow, Rachel).

But as performative choir-preaching has increasingly dominated political communication — in part thanks the perpetual gotcha competition of political Twitter — politics increasingly resembles a debate, rather than a dialogue.

Unlike dialogues, debates have winners and losers. They seek victory for a predetermined position, rather than Truth. Debates between incompatible ideas can have value, especially for an audience looking to pick a side. But they’re inherently anti-compromise. Taken too far, that zero-sum mentality turns democratic politics into cold civil war.

Shapiro’s critique of Obama’s speech often resembles a debating technique known as a Gish Gallop, which aims to overwhelm opponents with a rapid barrage of questionable points. When it works, opponents get bogged down disputing every little inaccuracy, losing their main thread.

Here’s an example. Disputing Obama’s accusation that Trump is “undermining our alliances, cozying up to Russia,” Shapiro writes Obama is:

the president who destroyed an alliance with Israel on behalf of kowtowing to Iran, who handed over Syria to Putin, who insulted Mitt Romney’s anti-Russian foreign policy as the policy of the 1980s, who pledged Putin’s agents “flexibility” in return for kind treatment for the 2012 election, who undercut the defense capabilities of Eastern European nations so as to ensure a “reset” with Putin.

That’s five foreign policy criticisms, none explained.

One is valid. In 2012, Obama mocked Romney’s concerns about Russia. It looks bad in hindsight.

The other four are, at the very least, debatable interpretations. For example, in Obama’s final year, he signed a $38 billion package of military aid for Israel, the largest in history. If that’s what destroying an alliance looks like, most allies would happily take it.

Nevertheless, many of Shapiro’s readers buy all five criticisms. They’re already familiar with these cases — at least the anti-Obama interpretations — and if they don’t know a particular case, they can gloss over it. They’ve already concluded Obama was wrong. And if Ben’s saying it, it’s probably a good point.

Anyone who dislikes Obama can read Shapiro’s piece and feel better — especially if they were experiencing some cognitive dissonance after seeing Obama’s public speaking juxtaposed with Trump’s. Reading the article, they get emotional solidarity.

And some talking points to own the libs.

Imaginary Obama

I suspect most of Shapiro’s readers don’t mind he began his critique of Obama’s speech egregiously misrepresenting Obama’s argument. It’s argumentative hyperbole, or aimed at what Obama really meant, or justified because Obama does it, or [insert excuse here]. Some would dispute that Shapiro misrepresented Obama at all, even when presented with contradictory quotes side-by-side.

That’s because they seek validation for anti-Obama convictions more than an open-minded exploration of ideas.

And that, I propose, helps answer “what happened to the Republican party?” How it went from Reagan’s “party of ideas” to Trump’s party of alternative facts. How it went from, as Max Boot put it, a “conservative party with a white-nationalist fringe” to a “white-nationalist party with a conservative fringe.” Or as I wrote previously, how conservative intellectuals lost control of conservatism.

Essentially, a bunch of Republicans started with the conclusion that Obama was terrible — a socialist, communist, un-American, left-wing ideologue trying to weaken the United States, perhaps due to “Kenyan, anti-colonial” sentiment— and worked backwards from there. When Obama governed as a left-leaning centrist, rather than revisit their original assessment of Worst President Ever, they bent reality.

My point is not that Obama’s above criticism — check out my articles on Syria — but that, objectively, he governed as a centrist, and a large subset of the Republican party refused to believe it.

Some examples:

In response to the financial crisis, a left-wing ideologue nationalizes (or at least breaks up) the big banks and brings charges against prominent bankers. Obama did neither.

A left-wing ideologue uses the financial crisis to ram through a gigantic, spending-only stimulus. The single largest item in Obama’s stimulus was tax cuts. And even with 56 Democrats and two friendly Independents in the Senate who could push a bill through with reconciliation, Obama reduced the stimulus below the level recommended by Paul Krugman and other liberal economists in pursuit of Republican votes. He got three.

A left-wing ideologue insists on single-payer healthcare, attacking health insurance companies as “enemies of the people.” Obama went with a variation on the plan Mitt Romney enacted in Massachusetts, maintaining a central role for private insurance companies, and dropped the public option in pursuit of Republican votes. He got none.

Upon taking office, a left-wing ideologue immediately closes the prison at Guantanamo Bay and ends the drone campaign. Obama kept the prison open (breaking a campaign promise), and ordered hundreds more drone strikes than George W. Bush.

And there’s no way a left-wing ideologue would argue, in multiple commencement addresses, that students shouldn’t shout down or dis-invite people they disagree with, but should let them speak and then “beat them on the battlefield of ideas.”

One easy way to tell Obama wasn’t a left-wing ideologue: Lefties think he was a bad president. Based on the above list and more, they consider him a grave disappointment. For example, progressive intellectual Cornel West, who enthusiastically supported Obama in 2007, declared him a failure in 2011, calling the president “the black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs” and the “head of the American killing machine.”

I don’t share West’s assessment, but at least it’s based on the real Barack Obama. West and his fellow progressives wanted a left-wing ideologue, and were unhappy when they didn’t get one.

Many conservatives — especially conservative media — wanted a left-wing ideologue as well. That’d be easier to attack, and validate their initial negative reactions to Obama. But when they didn’t get one, they just kept on acting as if they had.

From this unshakable belief in Obama’s radicalism sprung a slew of convictions. Perpetuated by Fox, talk radio, right-wing websites, some Republican politicians, and various online communities, an information bubble inflated. Inside, Barack Obama posed a dire threat to the nation.

Inside, a conspiracy theory about Obama’s birthplace could flourish.

By 2018, the bubble had consumed most of the right. Even those who know better — Romney, Ben Sasse, Chris Wallace, etc. — pay homage to the bubble’s convictions, lest they become anathema.

The alternative is #NeverTrump, and leads to a break with the Republican party. Evan McMullin, Steve Schmidt, Eliot Cohen, Tom Nichols, Jennifer Rubin, and more.

Ben Shapiro is a creature of the bubble. That’s why he begins his article by setting up an imaginary Obama. And it’s why he Gish Gallops through a litany of Obama’s offenses — some more accurate than others — without explaining them.

The bubble already knows. Its denizens already believe.

Someone interested in reasoned argument — in dialogue — would present Obama’s position fairly and explain why, even when given the benefit of the doubt, he’s still wrong.

Unfortunately, way too much of today’s right offers an emotional appeal to the bubble instead.