Politicians use logical fallacies to persuade listeners during their speeches
Politicians use logical fallacies to persuade listeners during their speeches. For this assignment, watch a public speech by a politician (any politician will do) and take notes about any logical fallacies that they use during their speech. Write a paper that identifies five fallacies in their argument. Your paper should address the following:
Quote and correctly identify the type of fallacy used
Discuss why the argument is a fallacy and how it seeks to persuade listeners.
Reframe the fallacies using different terms to show why the argument does not make sense.
Discuss how and if the argument could be restated to avoid the fallacy. Once rephrased, is the argument still sound?
Sample Solution
When watching a public speech given by the President of the United States, Donald Trump, I noticed several logical fallacies throughout his address. To begin with, he often resorted to using ad hominem attacks against anyone who disagreed with him or questioned his decisions (Trump 2020). This type of fallacy involves attacking someone’s character or moral worth instead of addressing their argument and is intended to discredit them without actually providing evidence for why they are wrong (Stanford Encyclopedia Of Philosophy 2018). Furthermore, this tactic seeks to persuade listeners by painting any opposing views as illegitimate since those individuals are deemed untrustworthy or immoral.
In addition, another logical fallacy used during this speech was an appeal to emotion. For example, when discussing immigration policies he often painted illegal immigrants in a negative light by suggesting they were criminals and posed a danger to society even though there was no hard evidence supporting these claims (Trump 2020). By invoking fear amongst listeners – especially amongst those already holding anti-immigrant sentiment – it helps lend support for the policies being proposed rather than having arguments based on facts.
Another common fallacy used by President Trump is slippery slope arguments. This happens whenever he talks about topics such as gun control where he suggests that imposing certain restrictions will lead down a path towards complete disarmament despite there being little proof supporting this claim (Trump 2020). By creating false scenarios designed create panic in listeners it serves as an effective way to sway opinions without reasoning from actual data.
Finally, President Trump often uses whataboutery which occurs whenever he deflects criticism away from himself onto other politicians instead of directly addressing the issue at hand (Trump 2020) This form of logical fallacy attempts divert attention away from whatever topic is being discussed so people focus on something unrelated. As such it allows him avoid having defend his own actions while simultaneously putting others politicians in bad light.
Overall then, listening through President Trump\’s speeches reveals many examples of logical fallacies ranging from ad hominem attacks appeals emotions all way whataboutery . Since these techniques rely on manipulation rather than factual information it becomes important aware how rhetoric can be used mislead audiences into accepting ideas uncritically.
