The right’s mirror arguments mirror leftist talking points to repel their force

Evidence

The more I listened to him, the more I began to feel that Bannon’s deepest skill is in constructing and expanding the various reflective surfaces in the Mirror World. And not just the dodgy coins but, much more dangerously, the mirror arguments and mirror political agenda carefully designed to repel arguments deployed by his adversaries. Some of this is standard political fare: Democrats talk about the Big Lie (the idea that Trump won the election); Bannon talks about the Big Steal (the idea that Biden stole it). Democrats talk about how Trump fomented the January 6 insurrection; Bannon says Democrats enabled rioters to burn down cities during the 2020 racial justice uprisings. Democrats are scandalized that Trump wouldn’t recognize the legitimate election results; Bannon is scandalized that Democrats never recognized Trump as a legitimate president. In the Mirror World, there is a copycat story and answer for everything, often with very similar key words. — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 381

Categorization

• DEFINE: Concretely defines the Mirror World’s mirror-argument mechanism with paired examples (Big Lie/Big Steal, Jan 6/2020 uprisings, election recognition).
• XREF: Connects to Hoffman’s ‘Mirror World’ concept and to the broader ‘diagonalism’ thesis of the book; also parallels the author’s own doubling device — mirroring as analytic instrument.