one of the most typical and yet bizarre flourishes of american political rhetoric runs like this: "instead of trying to help the middle class and restore the american dream, the republicans are trying to attack the attorney general." i expect there are artificial intelligence programs that could produce a more relevant, less mechanical response; the politicians saying this do not actually pass the turing test, literally: there is no reason to suppose they are not automata. first of all, you're just working in someone else's catch-phrase into every sentence, like a tic or a stutter. second, you're free-associating, like a surrealist poet; the apparent thought represented is not sequential, or represents a radically non-linear form of reasoning. it's as though i said: instead frolicking in a field of wildflowers, the republicans chose to attack abortion rights. it must be tough when your job literally requires you to manifest psychotic symptoms.