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A recent Donald Trump tweet made me think of longtime Fargo North and MSUM English teacher Joan Humphrey, a gifted and hardworking instructor who taught logic as an indispensable tool for making good argument. I couldn't help but smile thinking of the examples she could draw from Trump's many logically flawed tweets and statements.
Here's the Trump tweet that brought her to mind: "Many people are saying that the Iranians killed the scientist who helped the U.S. because of Hillary Clinton's hacked emails."
Call this logical fallacy "argument from doubtful or unidentified authority." Trump doesn't tell us who the "many people" are. (What are their credentials?) He uses the vague term "many people" because he has no bona fide sources for peddling this particular innuendo. His purpose is to start a damaging rumor while pretending he isn't the one starting it. If he's asked who said it, he stays vague because he knows his statement has no validity. He might say, "I don't know if it's true. I'm just telling you what a lot of people are saying." His real purpose is to get the media to report his phony rumor, force it into the news cycle, and put his opponent on the defensive for something made up out of whole cloth.
Here's another Trump tweet from last winter. "It's snowing and freezing in NYC. What the hell ever happened to global warming?"
This tweet encompasses more than one logical fallacy. The primary fallacy is oversimplification," in other words, giving "neat and easy explanations for large and complicated phenomena." But the tweet also takes a leap in reasoning that can't be substantiated. Put another way, if a New York City cold spell in winter means there's no global warming, does a heat wave in summer mean global warming is upon us? Logically, the conclusion does not follow. It is a "non sequitur."
Last year Trump tweeted: "If Hillary can't satisfy her husband, what makes her think she can satisfy America?"
Again, this tweet includes more than one logical fallacy. The first is Trump's favorite, which is attacking a person's character rather than a person's argument. The logical fallacy is called "argument ad hominem" (from the Latin, "to the man"). In fact, Trump is a master at this logical fallacy. Think back to "lying Ted Cruz," "little Marco Rubio," "low-energy Jeb Bush." In his attacks on women, he adds sexism to the mix. Thus, there was his Carly Fiorina attack with "that face" and his infamous attack on Fox newsperson Megyn Kelly as a "bimbo" and "blood coming out of her wherever."
His personal attack on Hillary Clinton in the tweet above relies on the old sexist meme that men don't stray unless their wives fail to "satisfy" them, implying it's a fatal character flaw. Another logical fallacy in the tweet is a "false analogy." Trump equates the leadership qualities Americans seek in presidential candidates with sexual satisfaction sought by husbands, a comparison that does not rise above just plain weird.
A YouTube video done by a group called Teach Argument showed that the first three minutes of Trump's campaign announcement speech included 15 logical fallacies. Fifteen. In three minutes. Surely that makes Donald Trump the king of logical fallacies—a title that's probably OK with Trump. Illogical argument works for him and, no question, he wants to be king.
Writing and speaking coherently begin with critical thinking, and critical thinking requires logic. Of course, to understand logic, students must understand logical fallacies. Sobering but true, the success of a democracy depends upon students growing up as citizens able to recognize the difference between manipulative, phony arguments and valid arguments. This election year is a case in point.
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