When it comes to persuasion, logic is one of the weaker tools. This is because the end of logic is truth, not making people believe something—that is the end of persuasion. While the land of logic is a foreign realm to Trump, he seems to have an instinct for using fallacies and rhetoric to persuade people. This has served him well—rhetoric makes the masses clap, logic makes them nap.
While Trump enjoys the classic fallacies, such as the scare tactic and the general ad hominen attack, he recently made use of a subclass of the ad hominem known to some as the “ergo decedo” (“therefore leave”) and called by Copi the “traitorous critic fallacy.” Since there is no international bureau of fallacy naming, I will call it the “leave it” fallacy.
The Leave It fallacy is a type of ad hominem because it involves rejecting a person’s claim because the “evidence” against a person’s claim is an irrelevant attack on the person. There are two things that distinguish the Leave It fallacy. First, the person is attacked because they are being critical of something. This attack typically takes the form of asserting that the critic is motivated by a secret association or agreement with a disliked group. Second, rather than refuting the criticism, the attacker only tells the target to “leave.” As such, the fallacy has the following general form:
Premise 1. Person A makes critical claim X about Y.
Premise 2. Person B attacks A (usually for an alleged association/agreement with a disliked group G) and says that if A does not like X about Y, then they should leave Y (usually for G).
Conclusion: Therefore, X is false.
This argument is a fallacy because simply attacking a person and telling them to leave does not prove that their criticism is false. The fallacy draws much of its psychological power from the cognitive bias of groupthink (the tendency to try to minimize conflict and form a consensus by suppressing dissent and avoiding outside influences) and the ingroup bias (the tendency to see one’s own group as superior and outsiders as inferior). Someone who is critical of a group can easily be cast as a threat and hence people in that group can be motivated to reject that criticism out of anger and dislike. These biases do not, of course, have any logical weight.
The defense against this fallacy is to try to reason through any negative feelings one might have and ask if any relevant refutation of the criticism has been offered. If it has not, then the “argument” gives no reason to reject that criticism. This does not mean that the criticism is therefore true—it just means the fallacy does not provide any reason to reject it.
Care should be taken to not confuse the Leave It fallacy with the False Dilemma “love it or leave it.” The idea in this false dilemma is that one has just two options: to love something (typically a country) utterly and never criticize it or leave it. There are obviously many other options. The difference between the two is that the Leave It fallacy involves using an attack on the person to “argue” that their criticism is false while the False Dilemma “love it or leave it” is intended to silence criticism by wrongly asserting that one has only the two choices. It can often be hard to distinguish the two because people often combine them and those attempting these fallacies often do not know what they are doing themselves. Now back to Trump.
Trump recently attacked Democratic Congresswomen with this fallacy, “arguing” that their criticisms of America are wrong “because” they are “from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world” and they should go back to these countries. Trump’s “logic” seems to be this:
Premise 1: The Democratic Congresswomen criticized the United States.
Premise 2: The women are from “from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world” and they should go back where they came from.
Conclusion: The Democratic Congresswomen criticisms are not true.
Presented in this manner, the fallacy is even more evident: there is no connection between the premises and the conclusion; Trump is merely attacking the Congresswomen and telling them to leave. While having nothing to do with the fallacy, it is worth noting that all four of the Congresswomen Trump attacks are American citizens and three of them were born in the United States. Some might thus say that Trump is not wrong when he says that they come from a country with a government that is “a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world”—that is, the Trump administration.
In closing, it must be noted that the fact that Trump’s attack on the Congresswomen was fallacious does not prove that their critical claims about the United States are true—that does not follow. Their claims must stand or fall on their own merits.
The fallacy here is that there is any logic in any of this. Trump was not responding to anything remotely resembling valid criticism; he was responding to a constant harangue by these four women, women who present one false narrative after another and, when challenged, hide behind accusations of racism themselves. They have begun to spin these lies within their own party, to the frustration of Nancy Pelosi – whose own criticism of their rhetoric and unending tirade has resulted in an accusation of racism that she herself has to deal with.
Trump was not constructing a neat set of premises and conclusions as you’d like to pretend,
“Premise 1: The Democratic Congresswomen criticized the United States.
Premise 2: The women are from “from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world” and they should go back where they came from.
Conclusion: The Democratic Congresswomen criticisms are not true.”
Anyone who has followed the border crisis since the Obama administration knows that the ad hominem accusations these women are directing at Trump as though everything was “just fine” before that racist bigot came along knows that this has been a growing crisis made far worse by political infighting and a willingness to ignore or exaggerate, depending on where one’s loyalties lie.
One does not need syllogisms to know that the crisis at the border is about as far from “concentration camp” comparisons as it can be – there is no forced labor, there are no gas chambers, there are no raids on towns and forced removal on packed trains – and yet this is the narrative these women are presenting. Here is the logic actually used by Ilhan Omar:
““One of our members said to me, if there were dogs in those cages, every single member of Congress would vote to make sure that all of these cages didn’t exist any longer. We live in a society and govern in a body that might value the life of a dog more than they value the life of a child who might not look like theirs,” she said.”
Is this the kind of logical conclusion that is to be believed? I suppose it’s true that if there were dogs in the cages, Congress might vote to make sure that the cages didn’t exist any longer – but she fails to mention that if homes aren’t found for these dogs after a nominal effort, they’d be euthanized. I don’t doubt that if she could get away with it, she’d try to convince us that that’s Trump’s ultimate goal. I’m sure many of her followers believe that anyway.
This is a crisis not of racism, not of purposeful mistreatment, but rather of overcrowding, a lack of resources, a bureaucratic inability to see it coming, and infighting that would block the very resources that stand to mitigate the problem entirely. And which four members of Congress, for reasons of pure politics, voted against the emergency funding bill?
The tweet that Trump wrote was an incredibly stupid thing to do. He played right into their own racist hands, and it has immediately been cherry-picked, re-contextualized and splattered all over the headlines. We stupid citizens aren’t capable of reading the entire tweets along with their context and the events leading up to it – so it is headlined as “Trump’s Racist Tweet”. He had to have seen that coming – but as many columnists continue to opine, he just can’t help himself.
It is never a good idea to murder your enemy when they’re in the middle of committing suicide.
That said, his comment was far from a jingoist “America – love it or leave it”. It was the culmination of frustration at the constant, unending accusations of racism by avowed racists and anti-semites themselves; it was an explosion of rage directed at an ongoing tirade comprised of criticism, accusation, lies and negative hyperbole without even a hint of a solution. It was ill advised, it was emotional, it was a juvenile response to four women who were in the process of self-destruction and of taking the Democrat party along with them – and in a few short sentences he completely exonerated them and turned the accusations back on himself. But it wasn’t racist.
These four women are not interested in fixing the problems of America, they are only interested in tearing it down. And, for Ilhan Omar, this begins with the Jews. Calling the situation at the border “concentration camps” reminiscent of the Holocaust must fill her with wishful thinking. And before you start calling me a racist, her antisemitism is a matter of record. Not by those stupid “Benjamin” comments she made, but by her actively raising money for CAIR, which has been proven to be a formal branch of Hamas – whose declared, written mission is the extermination of the Jews and the destruction of Israel. And somehow, in the bizarre world we live in, none of that matters, none of it is even considered – and the slightest hint of criticism of her (even by the leader of her own party) is defined as a racist attack.
The tweet that Trump wrote was an incredibly stupid thing to do. He played right into their own racist hands, and it has immediately been cherry-picked, re-contextualized and splattered all over the headlines. We stupid citizens aren’t capable of reading the entire tweets along with their context and the events leading up to it – so it is headlined as “Trump’s Racist Tweet”. He had to have seen that coming – but as many columnists continue to opine, he just can’t help himself.
Agree with everything except this. In fact, very much disagree with this. As you yourself said, “That said, his comment was far from a jingoist “America – love it or leave it”. It is only stupid and “plays into their own racist hands” if you are willing to accept their ground rules and their playing field. Trump does not do this. The following explains much better than I could. The window needs to move and it’s not going to move without a good bit of forceful language.
http://www.bookwormroom.com/2019/07/14/trump-is-not-a-racist-hes-pushing-the-overton-window-to-normal/
This is an interesting point. I’m not sure exactly where I land; I’m still giving it a lot of thought. From a purely political standpoint, at least in the short term, Trump definitely handed the Democrats a bow-tied gift with his comments, despite the heavy editing, rewording and headlines. This enabled them to pivot from their self-destructive tack on Pelosi & others, chipping away at the Democrat citadel of “Party Loyalty”, and reinforce the parapet, refocusing on Trump with full party support.
With regard to the Overton window – this, too, is clear – but I don’t know if I’d call it “Brilliant” on Trump’s part – maybe just “old-school”. Someone has to stand up to this ridiculous trend; maybe he sees himself as the only one who has the power to do so.
Donald Trump has a very consistent history of publicly criticizing anyone and everyone who disagrees with him, regardless of race, national origin, gender, or political affiliation. This is and always has been a constant for him. He has come out against James Comey, Nancy Pelosi, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, and many, many others of all stripe – yet if he responds to the criticism of a person of color, he is labeled a racist. And the tweets that he sent are defined by the media and the government as de facto racist –
“What do you think of the president’s racist tweets?”
When the members of “the Squad” are challenged on their statements, this is the go-to accusation. When Pelosi criticizes them, she is “singling out women of color”, and is therefore a racist. When Trump says they are anti-American, he is a racist. There is no intellectual debate about their ideology, because any such debate is immediately and summarily dismissed as “racist”. Why?
Because of the Overton window. People are afraid. People know that if anything they say can possibly be called out as “racist” (regardless of any inherent truth or lack thereof), they can be publicly shamed, humiliated – they can lose their jobs and have their families and reputations destroyed. They can even be the victims of physical violence.
As an example of how quickly that window has shifted – it was less than four years ago that anyone who called the president of the United States a “racist” was a racist himself. Now it is the opposite – anyone who doesn’t call the president a racist is thus tagged.
Hence a Congress that is gripped with fear about voting the “wrong way” on a measure to condemn Trump.
The original author of the quote that WTP provided has offered an update that gives a fair amount of context to Trump’s statement (which, I will reiterate, was taken in pieces and out of context. He did not say, simply, “Go back to where you came from”. He said, “Go back to your country of origin, fix the problems there, then COME BACK AND SHOW US HOW IT’S DONE”)
The question is about national loyalty – being hyper-critical of the US while offering no concrete solutions, and showing loyalty to their country of origin. Yes, yes, I know – Rashida Tlaib was born in the US – but when she celebrated her election to Congress, she wrapped herself in a Palestinian flag!
Ilhan Omar, the only one who was not born here, spent the last week of her campaign addressing fundraising events for CAIR, which was started by members of the Muslim Brotherhood as a PR and fundraising arm of Hamas. Omar defends her loyalty to Hamas and Hezbullah – how? By accusing anyone who asks her about it of being a racist. “It’s probably the head scarf” she tweets.
AOC, of course, touts her Puerto Rican heritage; wears it as a badge of honor on her sleeve – but where is her criticism of the corruption in that government?
In this world of identity politics, all four of these women outwardly exhibit pride in their origins, identify with their nationalities, use and even exploit their heritage to their advantage, yet direct all of their vituperation towards Trump and the US.
Puerto Rico received more disaster relief aid from the US than any other state in the union, of which over $15 million was directed to unqualified friends of government officials; top government officials have been indicted on charges of using their positions “to benefit and enrich themselves through fraud and the theft of government funds.”
To add to this, hundreds of pages of text messages and chats between Ricardo Rosello (the governor of Puerto Rico) and his top advisors and aids – texts that are rife with homophobic and mysogynistic statements.
When Trump suggested that the government of Puerto Rico was mishandling US relief dollars, he was denounced in a firestorm of media outrage.
And where does AOC stand on this ? Silent. I think that if she is going to use her heritage to her advantage as she does in this world of “identity politics”, she ought to show at least a little concern for the origin of that identity. Instead, she votes against an emergency relief bill for border facilities because she doesn’t want to give the money to Trump because she doesn’t trust him. And does she react at all to the homophobic and misogynist attitudes of the governor there? (Crickets).
Trump’s comments were not some random racist comments about people of color. In every case, each one of these women has exhibited pride and loyalty to those origins – exploiting their heritage as part of their identity – and at the same time ignoring deep, seemingly insurmountable problems in their countries of origin – problems of government corruption, human rights, economic inequality, gender bias and abuse, racism, anti-Americanism, proliferation of gangs, murders, and far worse. And at the same time, leveling harsh, often unfounded, usually exaggerated, and sometimes made-up criticism of this country.
I do not think it is unreasonable to ask these women to look back at the heritage of which each of them is so proud, and direct some of their energy toward leveraging American sentiment, American aid, and American exceptionalism toward helping them – instead of just tearing down this country. And when you see “Trump’s Racist Tweets” in the headlines, take the time to reread them and put them into context. Remember that he’s not saying “Get Out”. He’s saying “Go back – fix those problems in the countries of which you are so proud, and come back and show us how it’s done”.
But – it’s all political here. The truth is that they probably don’t care at all – they’re here now, and they see an avenue toward increasing their own wealth and power – and the avenue starts with the Overton window being exactly where it is.
The real sad truth is that the problems at the border were identified in advance, when there was time to do something about them. Yet nothing was done. Why? Politics. The “squad” is right – our government leaders don’t really care about these people in any kind of humanitarian sense – but at the top of that list are the members of “The Squad”. They would rather have the problem get worse – because the worse it gets, the more power they have and the stronger their arguments become in favor of impeaching Trump. And that’s what they really want.
And now they have seemingly parried his very legitimate criticism of them (and perhaps an attempt at moving the Overton Window back to show some kind of “real world”) into yet another accusation of racism. And the Democratic party is on board because of the politics – and members of the Republican party are on board out of fear.
America needs to stand up to this fear, as Trump has, and say “I am not going to be afraid anymore. I’m going to call it as I see it, and know that you will call me a racist, and soon it will be you who will be exposed.”
Some of us have the will, but there will be a lot of ruined lives in the process. And the fear is real.
When your opposition even admits they’ve been beat, perhaps they actually have been beat. And this by what was nearly universally regarded as a stupid move by POTUS by so many of those on the right, even luke-warm DJT supporters.
What we have here is a failure to communicate. The vast majority of Tump’s moves are dismissed, mocked, derided, and (often wrongly as in this case) condemned as being beyond the pale when assessed “in the moment”. Yet further down the road, as the story unfolds, he wins. He wins because fundamentally, he’s on the right path. He wins because increasingly the American public, or at least a significant chunk of it, is awakening to the BS that they have been fed by The Narrative that has been perpetuated by the news and entertainment media and academia. Nor is he distracted by the political narrative, a narrative that has become quite beholden to the “philosophies” of the Swamp’s power games. Power games that themselves have become so unmoored from reality that political amateurs like Trump can walk in, state the obvious, and bring the phony edifice down with a few simple tweets.
WASHINGTON — Fresh off of being sworn into the US House of Representatives, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a progressive from Michigan, told a group of supporters on Thursday night that House Democrats would “impeach the motherfucker,” though she did not name President Donald Trump.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/lissandravilla/rashida-tlaib-trump-impeachment-comments
Trump did not name her, either.
Also, I think it is VERY important that we document here SOMEWHERE the tweets that Trump actually tweeted instead of the repackaged lies that Mike echos here. It took some googling to find this (go figure) and had to finally go to Trumps actual Tweet page to get the full text of the several tweets. Here is what he ACTUALLY said:
Dammit…hit return too soon…continuing:
So to paraphrase this as “Love it or Leave It” is a flat out lie, not to mention that the whole point of the tweets and their greater context are far more broad and relevant than a rehash of a 1970’s Archie Bunker theme. Not that there’s anything wrong with that in a fuller discussion. But hey, who is interested in discussing philosophy? Certainly not the media, nor even the lying bastards who are paid to teach it.
Also, I do see where DH did quote a part of one of the tweets from the previous article that I posted, but I think the fuller set of tweets provides much better context. But of course the whole point of Mike’s post is, again, based on a characterization to the degree of being a flat out lie, that he then tries to pass off as a logical fallacy by Trump. Such is even somewhat questionable as a political screed, a polemic. But it’s a damn disgrace when presented in such a manner from a person in a position of trust.
And while Mike and his ilk mischaracterize what Trump really said as being damn near a deportation action, he and his ilk were quite silent when Nadler and the Democrats were making real serious efforts to deport an American for political reasons. I-i-it was T-t-t-trump who said love or leave it…my ass.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2019/07/18/that-time-house-democrats-demanded-to-see-former-trump-aides-immigration-papers-n2550285
Maybe if he had been married to his sister, that would have made it OK.
This isn’t philosophy, it’s polemics, sophistry, and extreme partisanship. Go ahead, refute that. Give it a shot. I am really curious as to what other argument there could possibly be.
You really nailed this one, sweetie. Hope that others will express their thoughts on this.