Persuasion VS Manipulation: Why We Don’t Trust Slick-Talkers - Jay Heinrichs

Dad Saves America · Nov 21, 2025 · 2h 5m

I sat down with Jay Heinrichs, best-selling author of Thank You for Arguing, to explore the lost art of rhetoric and why Americans should relearn these skills. Most of us have forgotten how to persuade one another, and in an algorithmically optimized social media era, we’re increasingly vulnerable to constant manipulation. We dig into how, from Gavin Newsom to Donald Trump, our politicians use rhetorical tactics to greater and lesser effect. The ancient Greeks treated argument as a civic virtue—a tool for building relationships and solving problems. In the modern era, where political tribes…