Sometime in the 1950s, former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gave a speech denouncing the crimes of his predecessor Joseph Stalin. During the speech, a heckler interrupted Khrushchev and asked why he did not stop Stalin. Khrushchev did not see the heckler, and asked “Who said that?” When no one responded, Khrushchev replied, “Now you know why I didn’t stop him.”
Khrushchev did not use rhetoric and rationality argue his position. All he had to do was replicate the visceral feeling of fear in the mind of his heckler. That was more convincing than any argument he could have made.