Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Donald Trump's Obsession with Ad Hominem

Donald Trump, Republican presidential candidate, is a very controversial character in America. While he does have some support from American citizens, it is safe to say a lot of citizens do not feel safe under his leadership as president. Donald Trump, not only know for attacking certain minority groups, is also known for personally attacking his opponents. Donald Trump is an advocate user of the Ad Hominem logical fallacy, as a way to supposedly gain support from voters.

An Ad Hominen is a logical fallacy that means "to the man" in Latin. It means that when you disagree with a statement from someone else, instead of addressing points of the argument you personally attack the person.

In one example, Donald Trump calls Charles Krauthammer a loser and a joke. Here, Donald Trump doesn't address any political issues but instead calls Krauthammer a loser for having nothing done. This is ineffective because this claim is too broad of Trump and has nothing to do with any political argument, just a cheap way for Trump to fish for votes.  

In another example, Donald Trump, who gets stumped on a foreign policy question, lashes out at Hugh Hewitt, calling him a "third rate radio announcer." Here, since Donald Trump was at a loss of words, he chose to attack someone else to make himself seem better.


3 comments:

  1. Like your blog post talked about, it looks like Trump has attacked a lot of reporters/radio announcers with logical fallacies. Another example could be when he attacked Megyn Kelly before the Republican debate in Iowa and then refused to go.

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  2. I also liked how you used a lot of examples. I think it's really important to point on when candidates don't answer important questions and instead try to tear down others. Especially when they just call them idiots instead of bringing up actual things that they've done.

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  3. I also liked how you used a lot of examples. I think it's really important to point on when candidates don't answer important questions and instead try to tear down others. Especially when they just call them idiots instead of bringing up actual things that they've done.

    ReplyDelete