As the child of two defense attorneys, I was introduced to the idea of logical fallacies fairly early in my life. My parents dissected our arguments for sleepovers, cable and bedtimes with the precision expected from two successful civil and criminal litigators.
Try using the bandwagon approach on a lawyer: “Everyone else’s parents are letting them wear jean miniskirts to the 8th grade mixer tomorrow. Why can’t I?”
My invocation of the judgment of my peers’ parents didn’t work: my mother would never cave to arguments based on the logic of the general population. Another fan favorite, the ad hominem fallacy, involves attacking someone personally for the beliefs they hold, citing their personal circumstances or allegiances as reasons for discrediting them. When my brother and I argue about the importance, or lack thereof, of the rebranding of Starbucks cups, and he claims I’ve “changed” in college and become more liberal and unreasonable, he is committing a logical fallacy. (And I get to PUBLICLY SHAME him for his incorrect logic. I use my power as a columnist so well.)
In the context of the current election, when avid anti-Donald Trump Facebook activists post rants describing Trump’s supporters as “disgusting” or “illogical,” as many did, understandably, after his most recent round of verbal idiocy, they are committing logical fallacies.
These kind of personal attacks — demonizing or patronizing the people you disagree with, instead of critiquing their specific arguments or beliefs — deepen the already yawning, terrifying chasm that separates Trump and Hillary Clinton supporters.
Does anyone really believe that their strident indictment of Trump supporters as “stupid” is going to sway the vote of coal miners in West Virginia, or convince “Crooked Hillary” believers of her innocence? Saying that you disagree strongly with someone is logical; saying that someone is disgusting because you disagree with them is illogical.
We cannot afford to further polarize voters through the use of incorrect and assumptive statements.
A Trump supporter recently explained to me that he wasn’t scared of Trump’s vitriolic rhetoric. He didn’t believe that Trump’s self-professed personality and beliefs were all that important, because he wouldn’t be able to enact a majority of his proposed plans. As someone who believes, deeply and unequivocally, that words matter, this stance — that Trump’s rhetoric was unimportant, as long as his actions were dubiously feasible — scared me more than many of Trump’s own objectively terrifying ideas.
The words we choose to use, our motivations for choosing them and our intent in using them matter. In an election where the importance and repercussions of language seem shockingly up for debate, Americans must lead by example in their usage of poignant, pointed and logical language, employing rhetoric that will persuade and unite an otherwise fragmented nation.
