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Demonizing I: Demonizing

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Many of Trump’s defenders have tried to demonize key witnesses in the impeachment hearings.  Demonizing is a rhetorical strategy that aims at casting the target as evil, corrupt, dangerous or threatening. Demonizing can also be used to fuel or intensify other fallacies. My aim is to provide a discussion of demonizing to help people recognize and, I hope, exorcise it.

By its very nature demonization is a deceitful strategy—one does not need to demonize those who are evil. The level of deception used to demonize does vary considerably. The least dishonest approach is selective demonizing. This method involves making true negative claims but is a dishonest strategy because it involves cherry picking negative aspects of a person or group and emphasizing them without context. For example, if a person is killed by the police those trying to defend the officer might assert that the person “was no angel” and focus intently on, for example, the fact they were once arrested for possession of marijuana. As another example, those trying to demonize a corporation might focus on one bad thing the company did. Selective demonizing grants its user the advantage of being able to claim that what they are saying is true—although they are engaged in deception by omission.

The problem with selective demonizing is that it ignores the full story of the person or group in favor of focusing on the negative, which is unfair. To use an analogy, it would be like a teacher selecting only your worst grades to determine your grade in a course. It is certainly fair to consider the negative aspects of a person or group, but they must be taken in context. The defense against selective demonizing is to consider the broader context.

Hyperbolic demonization involves a greater level of deceit than selective demonization, but still has some connection to truth. This is because it involves hyperbole, which is an extravagant overstatement or exaggeration. Hyperbole differs from an outright lie in that it does have a foundation in truth—but the house built on that foundation is a lie. This allows those using it to claim that what they are saying has some basis in fact. The problem is, obviously, that what they are saying is not true. For example, a person trying to demonize migrants might take the true claim that some migrants commit crimes and explode that into a hyperbolic demonization about how masses of migrants are coming to the United States to rape and murder. The defense against hyperbolic demonization is to learn the facts and resist being manipulated by the exaggeration.

Fictional demonization involves simply making up negative claims about a person or group. This is sometimes done more subtly with innuendo (a rhetorical device in which one suggests or implies something deprecatory) or by using a weasler (a rhetorical device in which one protects a claim by weakening it). For example, defenders of Trump tried to suggest that Lieutenant Colonel might be disloyal to the United States—perhaps even a spy or traitor. In other cases, the demonizing involves directly making false extreme negative claims about a person or group. For example, someone might demonize minorities by claiming that they are engaged in a white genocide.  The defense against fictional demonization is being critical of claims and only accepting them when they are backed by credible evidence—especially in cases involving strong emotional appeals.

While demonization is psychological effective, it has no logical weight. Also, by definition, it involves deception: selected truths, exaggeration or outright lies. As such, it is wise to be wary of demonization.  There is also the moral concern that demonization is typically employed in the service of evil ends. After all, the good do not need to demonize the evil. In the upcoming essays I will look at some fallacies associated with demonization.

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Two Sides Problems: Impeachment Defense

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As this is being written, Nancy Pelosi is leading the House Democrats down the path to impeaching president Trump. The Republicans have rushed or reluctantly shuffled to defend him. There are two main focuses for their defense: substance and process.

The substance defense is (or was) a rolling defense. The first line was to deny anything had happened, which ceased to be an option when the text of the call was released, and officials started admitting the facts in public. The second line is to deny that there was anything wrong with what was done. This defense has proven problematic, so the focus has been on the process defense.

The process defense, obviously enough, involves attacking the process used by the Democrats in the house. One argument is that the process is unconstitutional and unlawful and hence Trump should not be impeached. The obvious flaw with this argument is that impeachment is constitutional and lawful as per Article II, Section 4: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” The constitution also specifies that the House has the sole power to impeach. Since this defense is directly contradicted by readily accessible facts, any power it has must be psychological—people will feel that it is good because it is a defense made by their side. Naturally, to think that it is defective because it is made by the other side would be an error—though the argument is defective.

Another defense is to attack the specifics of the process followed by the Democrats. Some of these are attempts to apply the standards of a criminal trial (facing the accuser and so on) to the impeachment process. This might be part of a intentional strategy to confuse the public (impeachment is not a criminal trial conducted by the judiciary and does not follow the same rules) or simple ignorance about how the process works. This sort of defense has no merit and draws all its influence from psychology.

In the current episode, the Democrats face the impossible task of crafting rules that the Republicans will accept—for there are no such rules (unless they guarantee that Trump is not impeached). As such, the Republicans can always complain that the process is unfair, because their position seems to be that any process would be unfair. This is not based in good reasons, but a matter of wanting their side to win.

Another defense has been to use ad hominem attacks. The main talking point seems, bizarrely enough, to accuse the Democrats of using a “Soviet-Style impeachment process.” This attack took me back to my younger days, when the Soviet Union existed and Russia was seen as an enemy. The fact that the Soviet Union does not exist does not undermine the “argument”, but the power of this attack is psychological. After all, the Soviets did not remove leaders through an impeachment process. This could also be taken as drawing an analogy between how the Soviet Union was run and the way the Democrats are acting—but this analogy breaks down rapidly. Those using this analogy do not carefully go through the points of similarity and offer arguments as to why these are bad, they merely offer an ad hominem comparison. It is also odd for the Republicans to bring up the Soviet Union so much, given the Russian issues faced by Trump.

It is certainly reasonable for Trump’s defenders to argue that there are unfair, immoral or problematic aspects to the process—but these need to be grounded in facts rather than mere rhetoric or factual errors (or lies). There is a general problem with trying to argue about the process—it is not specified in the constitution. When Bill Clinton was impeached, the Republicans created the process (and the Democrats complained—since their side was under attack). The Republicans were obviously fine with that approach when they were on the side trying to impeach the president. What has changed is, of course, that they are now playing defense. A seemingly sensible solution would be for congress to work out a set of rules when there is not an impeachment in progress and to agree to follow them the next time an impeachment arises. This is unlikely, since each side wants to craft the rules to its advantage the next time it happens. So when the Republicans try to impeach a Democrat, I will most likely be able to reuse most of this essay.  

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Two Sides Problems: Heroes & Villains

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After the White House released a damning transcript of Trump’s conversation with the leader of Ukraine and Trump and his fellows essentially confessed on television to their misdeeds, Trump’s defenders continue to rally around him. A key part of his early defense was claiming the whistle blower did not directly hear the conversation, therefore their assertions are but hearsay. This defense has been torpedoed as first-hand witnesses have begun testifying. One of these is Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman.

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Given what the transcript already reveals, it is hardly surprising that Vindman’s testimony would be damaging to Trump. In response, Trump’s defenders have rushed to discredit Vindman. Addressing the credibility of a witness is a legitimate tactic, provided that the assessment is on relevant grounds. These include such factors as the witness’ knowledge and objectivity. In the case of Vindman, his expertise is not in question, so the focus is on his objectivity.  

It is at this point that a Two Sides Problem arises. Trump’s defenders are one side, his foes on the other side. In this situation, the manifestation of the problem is that Trump’s side is concerned with winning; that is defending Trump regardless of what he has done. These defenders will certainly paint their opponents with the same brush, seeing them as concerned only with defeating Trump by any means necessary.

When people focus solely on winning, they are not following on any principle beyond victory for their side. Because of this, they are often willing to use whatever means will help them achieve this goal. Considerations of truth, morality, and justice often seem to have no weight. People caught up in this Two Sides situation also accept claims offered by their side and reject those presented by the other side simply because of their origin rather than their merit.

 Naturally, a utilitarian moral argument could be used to try to justify this approach—the good generated by the Trump presidency warrants all means to keep him in office. Or the evil generated by the Trump presidency warrants any means to remove him from office.

It is worth noting that to simply assume that because there are two sides that both must automatically fall into this Two Sides trap would be an error. People can resist the psychological and pragmatic appeal of sticking to their side in the face of the truth and goodness. Also, it would be an error to infer that because there are two sides with a stake in the matter, that they must be equally bad or in error. One side can be better, although both could be bad.

In this case, Trump’s defenders seem to be the worse side—the facts, law and morality are against them. Naturally, a clever Trump defender will assert that I must be a victim of the Two Sides problem and infer that I am therefore wrong. This logic would look like this:

Premise 1. Person A says X.

Premise 2. Person A is on the other side (not mine).

Conclusion: X is false.

This is simply a variant of an ad hominem and thus a fallacy. What would be needed is more than pointing out I am on the non-Trump side; evidence is needed to show that I am wrong.

As would be expected in a Two Sides situation like this, there has been a concerted effort to try to demonize those who are testifying.  Trump’s Defenders been advancing the narrative that Vindman might have been secretly working for Ukrainian interests at the expense of the United States. One piece of “evidence” being offered is the assertion that Vindman is from Ukraine and this is supposed to affect his loyalty. The historical fact is that Vindman’s family was forced to flee the Soviet Union, which seems an unlikely basis for an alleged loyalty to Ukraine. This accusation of dual loyalty is also especially insulting because Vindman is Jewish and this is a stock tool of anti-Semitism. They are trying to cast Vindman as a villain. Those who disagree with Trump, while right to defend Vindman using good methods need to beware of falling into the hero trap—believing that someone who advances your side must thus be right and good. This does not follow and is a positive ad hominem fallacy.

Trump’s defenders have been working this talking point asserting that Vindman has an “affinity for the Ukraine.” Sean Duffy presented this in a rather odd argument. Duffy tried to smear Vindman by asserting that he had an affinity for Ukraine and hence would put the defense of Ukraine ahead of the defense of the United States. When challenged on this point, Duffy referenced his own Irish heritage and asserted that he had an affinity for Ireland. Interviewer John Berman drew the obvious inference from what Duffy said, inquiring if he would pick Irish defense over U.S. defense.

While Duffy is correct that many Americans with foreign heritage have an affinity for these countries, it is quite a leap from that to the notion that most would prioritize these countries over the United States. If Duffy were right that Americans with foreign heritage (which would include Trump’s wife and children) should be regarded as likely traitors, then it would follow that nearly all Americans are likely to be traitors. To his credit, Duffy seemed to be making that very point about himself.

Accepting that America is a nation of traitors seems to be a high price to pay to discredit Vindman. But when victory for one’s side is all that matters, there seem to be few limits on the means employed. Fortunately, Duffy is relying on an inductive generalization from a sample of one (himself) to make this point. Since the strength of an inductive generalization depends on the size and representativeness of the sample, Duffy’s argument here is extremely weak. Even if he harbors treasonous thoughts in favor of Ireland over the United States, it hardly follows that others do.

Duffy could also be seen as making an argument by analogy. He seemed to be asserting that he would pick Ireland over the United States because of his Irish heritage and inferring from this that Vindman would do the same for his country of origin. Being an argument by analogy, this would be assessed in terms of the similarity between the two men. Vindman is a Lieutenant Colonel who received a Purple Heart in combat and has served his country well. Duffy’s claim to fame is his time served on MTV’s The Real World and Real World/Road Rules Challenge. As such, the two men are not that alike, and it would be a poor argument to draw an inference about Vindman’s loyalty to America from Duffy’s apparent profession of a lack of loyalty.

It must be noted that it is legitimate to consider the objectivity of a witness. If there was actual evidence that Vindman was biased or had dual loyalty, then this would undermine his credibility. But the attacks against him simply assert that because he has a foreign origin, he must be biased or have a dual loyalty. As noted above, this attack would discredit almost all Americans if it worked. As such, until evidence that specifically shows that Vindman is biased or has dual loyalty, then these attacks are baseless.

These attacks against Vindman show how those trapped in the Two Sides Problem can quickly cast those they present as heroes as villains whenever the need suits them—that is, when they believe doing so will help their side win. Republicans and Trump are happy to exploit the troops and rush to use them for political purposes (such as in Trump’s attacks on Colin Kaepernick), but when a soldier shows true patriotism by doing what is right and putting country over Trump, then Trump and many Republicans rush to cast him as a villain.

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Two Sides Problem: Erosion of Norms

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Humans have a natural tendency to divide each other into “us” and “them”, which provides the foundation for the two sides problems. If one side has a power advantage over the other and elects not to be overly constrained by law or morality, this can be very bad for the weaker side. Paradigm examples include American slave owners and their slaves, Nazis and their victims, and Stalinists and their victims.  If the two sides are roughly equal in power and are willing to abide by certain limits, this division can provide benefits to both—or at least to the elites of each group.

When people are divided into us and them, the usual course is for the us group to see itself as good and superior to the them group. This helps cement group identity and serves various psychological needs. In times of identity stress or fear, people in the us group quickly accept the demonization of the them group.

The American political system is a Two Sides system of the more equal sort and one of increasing demonization. While the Republicans have gained the upper hand in many states through being better at gerrymandering and voter suppression than the Democrats, the two parties are still roughly on par. While this does have some negative consequences for the party elites, it also confers many important advantages. On the minus side, a politician from one party is unlikely to win over voters from the other party, unless they can create another us-them paradigm. This is something Trump managed to do. While doing this initially caused some splits in the Republican party, most Republicans quickly accepted the situation and Trump’s embrace. As such, almost all Republicans are on Trump’s side. On the positive side, the us-them situation means that the party elite can use the various cognitive biases, rhetorical devices and fallacies that are fueled by the Two Sides Problems. Another advantage is that the party elite can expect that their misdeeds will often be defended by fellow party members—even when these misdeeds are a clear violation of professed principles. This is because group identity and political advantage are accepted as more important than almost any professed principle—although some people do have limits even within the upper reaches of the parties.

One unfortunate consequence of this aspect of the Two Sides Problems is that an American elite can commit misdeeds that damage the norms of the country and still count on their fellows to defend them. One excellent example of this occurred when NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro interviewed Indiana Rep. Jim Banks about Trump’s decision to pull U.S. troops out of northern Syria. In a rare break with Trump, some Republicans were quite critical of his action. This is, in part, because Trump’s base tends to not care about foreign policy, but it is also a case in which Democrats and Republicans form an us group against another them group.

Prior to the interview it had been announced that Trump would be committing a crime and violating the emoluments clause by hosting the G-7 at one of his Florida resorts. Garcia-Navarro asked:

When we look at something like this – the president’s resort – for many people, it speaks to sort of a larger issue with this president about him blowing through every acceptable norm of behavior. And so I wonder for you, what happens when you want to object to something a Democratic leader does someday? Don’t you worry that this sets a precedent that will make that very difficult?

Banks replied, as politicians are wont to, by using a Red Herring. He switched the issue and avoided the questions: “Again, the president decided to retreat from the position of holding it at his property. And I appreciate that the president made that decision. Whether that sets any norm moving forward, it shows that the president is taking the advice of his advisers to do so. And I appreciate that type of leadership.” Garcia-Navarro’s question about Trump’s plan to profit from the G-7 and inquiry about future consequences shifted Banks back into the two sides mode involving Republicans and Democrats rather than the two sides of Americans and foreign foes.

Garcia-Navarro raises excellent questions that should be asked whenever Democrats or Republicans refuse to act against one of their own party members when they are clearly doing wrong. This matter splits into a logical part, a practical part, and a moral part. I will address the practical part because that is the easiest.

Obviously enough if a Democratic president commits misdeeds in the future, then the Republicans will rush to criticize them—even if they rolled over like chubby puppies when Trump did the exact same thing. This is because doing so will be advantageous—it will hurt the Democrats and they know that only a few people, like NPR reporters and philosopher professors, care at all about consistency. If anyone brings up how they rolled over for Trump, they will deny it—and then John Oliver will do a show juxtaposing Republican chubby puppies for Trump turning into rabid pit bulls when President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pushes to hold the G-7 at her vegan-hipster coffee bar (co-owned with vice-president Corey Booker). The simple matter is the political elite and their followers do not really care about principles; it is all about their side winning and the other side losing. Witness how the Republicans were so focused on the deficit and the Constitution when Obama was president; now they are happy to hemorrhage money and rarely talk about the Constitution.

From a logical standpoint, the way the Republicans roll over like chubby puppies for Trump has no bearing on the merit of future criticisms they might advance against President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. To think otherwise would be to fall victim to an ad hominem fallacy. So, suppose that  a chubby puppy Republican goes full pit bull when President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tries to hold the G-7 at that vegan hipster coffee bar. They would be right that she would be in the wrong—even though they refused to criticize Trump on this matter. Their past actions and words have no bearing on the truth (or falsity) of his future criticisms of President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

From a moral standpoint, Garcia-Navarro is right to be concerned that tolerating bad behavior because your side is doing it will erode norms and prove harmful for the country. While the Republicans will certainly go back to their righteous stances when a Democrat is in office, their past tolerance of misdeeds will rob them of the moral authority to criticize Democrats. Democrats will be able to point, correctly, to Republican moral inconsistency and hypocrisy. While this will not impact the truth of Republican claims, they will be devoid of moral authority—they will be seen, rightly, as hypocrites who pretend to play at virtue when doing so is convenient. They will be the opposite of the boy who cried wolf; they said nothing too many times.

Democrats will, of course, tend to defend their fellows when they commit such misdeeds and they can engage in their own fallacious reasoning by dismissing Republican criticism because the Republicans defended Trump in his misdeeds. And with each cycle it will get worse—whoever is in power can say that the other side has no moral authority to be critical now since they tolerated such misdeeds when it was their guy.

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Is Trump a Tyrant? V: What Aboutism & the Two Sides Problem

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This essay concludes the series on Trump and Tyranny and does so with full confidence that no minds have been changed.  I will be discussing Whataboutism and the Two Sides Problem.

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The Soviets might not have invented Whataboutism, but they effectively weaponized it. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russians continued to use it effectively. Like other Russian tools, it has now become entrenched in American political discourse. While anyone can use it, it is a favorite of Fox News and Donald Trump. While Whataboutism has many forms, the most common versions used in the defense of Trump has the following general form.

1. Premise 1: Person A of affiliation 1 is accused of X by person B of Affiliation 2.

2. Premise 2: Person C of affiliation 2 is accused of X by person D of affiliation 1.

3. Conclusion: Therefore, A did not do X.

This is a fallacy because whether C did X is irrelevant to whether or not it is true that A did X.  One example of this is when Trump and his defenders bring up the alleged misdeeds of Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. The specific flawed logic can be seen as concluding that Trump did not do anything, because “what about Hillary’s emails?”

Alternatively, one could grudgingly admit that Trump did something that might seem wrong, then use Whataboutism to try to “prove” that it is not wrong:

1. Premise 1: Person A of affiliation 1 is accused of X by person B of Affiliation 2.

2. Premise 2: Person C of affiliation 2 is accused of X by person D of affiliation 1.

3. Conclusion: Therefore, it is not wrong that A did X.

Clearly, even if C did X it does not follow that A doing X was not wrong. As noted above, Trump and his defenders try to defend Trump by asserting that Democrats, especially Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, have done bad things. As a specific example, when pressed about Trump trying to exploit his office for personal gain, his defenders will say “what about Joe Biden?” and conclude that Trump did not do anything wrong. But this does not prove that—even if Joe and Hillary did terrible things, this does not prove that Trump did nothing wrong.

It must be noted that if two sides are being compared, it is obviously relevant to consider the flaws of both sides. For example, if the issue is whether to vote for candidate A or B, then it is reasonable to consider the flaws of both A and B in comparison. So, if Biden is up against Trump in 2020, one should consider the flaws of both men.

 However, the flaws of Biden do not show that Trump does not have flaws and vice versa. Also, if the issue being discussed is the bad action of Trump, then bringing up Biden’s allegedly bad action does nothing to mitigate the badness of Trump’s action. Unfortunately, Whataboutism is quite effective from a psychological standpoint, despite being logically vacuous. One reason for this is a general problem I have been considering which I call, for obvious reasons, the Two Sides Problem.

Put in broad terms, the Two Sides Problem is that the psychological impact of having two sides with strong emotional influence on their members has a huge impact on people’s willingness to accept empty rhetoric and fallacies that favor their side and harm the other side. As would be expected, this impact is routinely exploited, thus making the problem worse. While the Two Sides impact does affect all fallacies, it can throw gasoline on the illogical fires of many of them. Whataboutism is, quite obviously, one of these.

As noted above, Whataboutism is about defending one’s side by pointing out (or making up) bad things about the other side. This bad reasoning is powered by the target’s positive view of their side and their dislike of the other side. The most obvious effect is that a target accepts a fallacy as good reasoning because of how they feel about the sides. Another effect is that Whataboutism can cause an erosion of principle: For a person to defend bad behavior by “justifying” it with Whataboutisms (or other fallacies) they must be willing to tolerate that bad behavior on the part of their side. If a person has a principle that they stick to consistently, they would condemn bad behavior regardless of whether it was done by their side or the other side. For example, I condemn Trump’s children for cashing in on the family name to secure underserved positions and I condemn Hunter Biden for cashing in on the family name to secure a job he had not earned. I will not defend Hunter Biden by saying “what about the Trump children?” I will be writing more about the two sides problem in the future, but the series on Trump’s tyranny is concluded.

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Is Trump a Tyrant? IV: Red Herring & Two Bad

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As this was being written, it was announced that the G-7 summit would be held at Trump’s Miami golf resort. Once again, his defenders have been tasked with explaining why this obvious exploitation of his office and clear violation of the emoluments clause is actually perfectly normal and fine. This adds yet another example in support of the claim that Trump is a tyrant. Trump will simply enrich himself and his family at the expense of the public while providing nothing for the public good. This is a clear case of tyrannical behavior. Now back to the discussion of fallacious responses to the argument by definition that Trump is a tyrant.

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Since the Red Herring fallacy is so common, it is no surprise that Trump’s defenders press it into service. A Red Herring is a fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue. The basic idea is to “win” an argument by leading attention away from the argument and to another topic. This sort of “reasoning” has the following form:

1. Topic A is under discussion.

2. Topic B is introduced under the guise of being relevant to topic A (when topic B is not relevant to topic A).

3. Topic A is abandoned.

This sort of “reasoning” is fallacious because merely changing the topic of discussion hardly counts as an argument against a claim. This fallacy is often used in conjunction with the similar Two Bad fallacy. This fallacy has the following form:

1. Premises 1: A has done X, which is bad.

2.  Premise 2: A (or a defender of A) points out that B has also done X.

3. Conclusion: A doing X was not bad.

This reasoning is fallacious because the fact that someone else has done the same thing does not make it not bad. This fallacy is like Two Wrongs; in Two Wrongs the “reasoning” is that something wrong is not wrong if someone else would or has done it to you. The difference is that this fallacy does not require that the other person would or has done the action to you. It is also somewhat like Common Practice, which justifies something by asserting it is commonly done. The difference is that Two Bad does not involve saying that the practice is common, just that someone else did it as well.

So, how do Trump and Trump’s defenders use these fallacies to try to defend Trump? To illustrate, I will use the famous Obama Netflix example. Trump is understandably enraged at the Mueller Report—it details his many crimes and misdeeds while carefully asserting that a sitting president cannot be indicted. While the report had but little impact beyond enraging Trump, he has endeavored to distract attention from it to someone else—specifically he has called for an investigation of President Obama for his book deal and Netflix deal. Looked at as a Red Herring, this is simply an effort to switch the subject from Trump’s massive self-enriching corruption to Obama’s profiting from his time in office.

While it is true that Obama has profited nicely from the book deal and will presumably profit from his Netflix deal, these are irrelevant to the issue of whether Trump is engaged in corruptly enriching himself. Trump’s approach can also be seen as a False Equivalence as well: while Obama is profiting from his book deal and will profit from the Netflix deal, both of these are legal and within the moral norms (Bush also signed a book deal). More importantly, while Obama is profiting from being president, he is doing so while he is no longer in office. While there are moral concerns with exploiting past office in this manner, these concerns pale in comparison with corruption while in office. Hence, this is just another attempt at a False Equivalency.

Trump and his defenders can also be seen as attempting a Two Bad here as well; by pointing to Obama’s deals, Trump can try to assert that his financial exploitation of the office for his and his family’s enrichment is not bad. His “logic” would be that his deals are not bad because Obama also did deals that were bad. Even if Obama’s deals were morally wrong, it would obviously not follow that Trump’s corruption is not bad. As such, trying to defend Trump against a charge of tyranny by asserting that other people do bad things as well would commit either a Red Herring or a Two Bad (or both). Thus, this defense has no logical merit. This is not to deny that other people do bad things or assert that there is nothing wrong with people exploiting their office after they leave—but those are utterly different matters.

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