Can we please, everyone, start listening to and responding to the actual point of an argument, instead of resorting to personal attacks or attacks on the structure of the argument? Because those things don’t say anything about whether the actual point someone proposes is true or not. What matters is whether a statement is true or not, not who says it.
The occurrence of such rhetorics of attacks is of course happening on both sides of the political spectrum, but I cannot deny that it is a hallmark specifically of one end based on what I have witnessed.
I have a gathered a list of terms used in such attacks, and would have presented them below. But out of moderation, I decided to omit them.
Regardless of which side uses such attacks, it is not productive at all, and the opposite of healthy discussion and debate.
This is not to say that one can never use such words in an argument. There are exceptions of course.
One can for example joke about or mention personal characteristics if there actually is a pattern found between them and a certain rhetoric that such a person often says, and if it proves a point or an indication of something. But when stripped of all jest, it shouldn’t in itself disqualify the point that someone is trying to make or matter more than it. Nor should it define the core or entirety of someone’s being, which unfortunately too often happens.
Another exception is that some words are attacks in their very nature, while others can be purely descriptive, rather than accusative.
This is at least what I find to be true.
The Searcher Who Wants to Give 