In this episode of The Open Door, Jim Hanink, Mario Ramos-Reyes, and Joe Schriner discuss both the use and misuse of rhetoric, especially in politics. Our special guest, once more, will be Joe Shriner. He’s campaigning to be the American Solidarity Party’s 2020 candidate for POTUS.

Among the questions we explore are the following:

(1) How can you--or any public figure--effectively speak to very different audiences and in very different ways?
(2) How can you--or any public figure--tell the truth, and do so without spinning it?
(3) How can you--or any public figure--find forums which encourage frank and honest speech?
(4) St. Thomas Aquinas is fond of saying "whatever is received is received according to the mode (capacity) of the receiver." Is this maxim helpful in addressing items (1) through (3)?
(5) Why are debates in the Lincoln vs. Douglass style no longer feasible?
(6) BONUS! Plato dismisses rhetoric in the Gorgias as a form of...cosmetics. Aristotle, in contrast, sees a constructive role for it. Why the contrasting judgments? (September 6, 2019)