I think the information age has introduced a lot of people to the public square who've no idea what rhetoric is.
“People like you are still living in what we call the reality-based community. You believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality. That’s not the way the world really works anymore. We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you are studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors, and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” [1][2]
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community
2: https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/faith-certainty-...