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Declarative, Declaration

noun

realm: Political

A means of argument based on authoritarian presentation of information, ideas or statements in which an untrue, distorted, incomplete or exaggerated statement is proffered as being equivalent or bearing fidelity-to-fact.

Foundations

Plays upon ignorance.

Substitutes assertiveness for credibility.

Commonly used to misdirect attention from what is real and toward what is illusion or untrue.

Examples

• Folks, the most insidious part of this whole health care scheme is that all of these vast medical expenditures will become nothing more than government budget items. We individuals will no longer exist. The relationship between a government and citizen will change forever. [ Rush Limbaugh ]
• A weak currency is the sign of a weak economy, and a weak economy leads to a weak nation. [ Ross Perot ]
  
• The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, the public debt should be reduced and the arrogance of public officials should be controlled. [ Ross Perot ]
  
• I’m the commander — see, I don’t need to explain — I do not need to explain why I say things. That’s the interesting thing about being president. [ George W. Bush ]
• You need to know that a member of Congress who refuses to allow the minimum wage to come up for a vote made more money during last year’s one-month government shutdown than a minimum wage worker makes in an entire year. [ Bill Clinton ]
• The point is that there is tremendous hypocrisy among the Christian right. And I think that Christian voters should start looking at global warming and extreme poverty as a religious issue that speaks to the culture of life. [ Al Franken ]
• It’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations. [ Barack Obama ]