Anyone watching the impeachment hearings has to notice that the Republicans shout. A lot. So do Fox News pundits. So did Kavanaugh. Had Christine Ford shouted, she would have been dismissed as irrational. Hillary Clinton got through extraordinary grilling without shouting; Obama never shouted. Shouting is the exclusive right of the Right.
How the GOP Loyalist media handles shouting is probably the single best example of how indefensibly irrational their rhetoric is. It isn’t rational; it’s just factional. Exactly the same behavior is condemned if out-group members engage in it, but admired if it’s GOP Loyalists.
It’s because the GOP Loyalist media is a media of fear, a media that promotes fear of immigrants, of Muslims, of Democrats. It’s all fear-mongering all the time. GOP Loyalists are so terrified that they can’t even be brave enough to take seriously any criticisms of their positions. People who sincerely believe that they’re right aren’t afraid of seeking out the best arguments saying we’re wrong. We believe that either we can take those arguments seriously and see they’re wrong, or modify our positions.
People who are too afraid to take seriously other arguments are secretly aware that their beliefs are too fragile to withstand reasonable interrogation.
People too afraid to listen to other points of view think they aren’t afraid since they’re standing strong and fierce and they’re shouting a lot. They’re like people standing in a dark bedroom with a shotgun pointed at the underside of the bed shouting about the hobgoblins they believe are under there. That’s what a coward does. A brave person would get a flashlight and look.
A coward blusters, shouts, and threatens violence against hobgoblins, and against anyone who gets a flashlight.
If the Republicans had good arguments against impeachment, they’d make them. They wouldn’t need to shout.