Donald Trump: Emperor Non Sequitur

In the Presidential Race, Donald Trump has said a plethora of logical fallacies. In the 2nd Republican debate, the moderator brought up a quote Donald Trump said about Carly Fiorina in an interview for Rolling Stone. In reference to Fiorina Trump said, “look at that face, would anyone vote for that, can you imagine that, the face of our next President.”

Donald Trump executed a very nice, yet very hurtful, non sequitur. Trump insinuated that because Fiorina is “unattractive,” she would make a bad president. This faulty cause and effect relationship is what makes an argument a non sequitur. A candidate's appearance has absolutely nothing to do with how good of a president they would be. Those two things are entirely unrelated and Donald Trump’s connection is completely unjustified. Trump tried to defend himself by saying he was talking about Fiorina's "persona." His defense was a little too late and because everyone knows what he actually meant. This insult just adds to the variety of insults and illogical arguments Donald Trump has made over the course of Campaign 2016.

Carly Fiorina's Pro-Life Ad

The Republican Primary Debate recently aired, featuring eleven of the Republican Presidential candidates. In the debate, during the topic of abortion, Carly Fiorina, a pro-life supporter, mentions a video of a live aborted fetus moving its legs. After the debate, Fiorina was attacked by many, stating that the video she mentioned is "nonexistent" and "bogus". Fiorina promptly responds to these attacks with her ad, the "Character of Our Nation."  http://pcl.stanford.edu/campaigns/2016/rep/

Carly Fiorina's endorsement is an intense and powerful piece of advertisement that features the graphic footage of the aborted fetus she describes during the debate. The video is disturbing; however it works to Fiorina's advantage. She uses pathos as a way to appeal to the audience's emotion of disgust and horror. Although I believe that women should have the option of an abortion, the ad is shocking and makes me look at abortion in a different light. Fiorina combines the video with clips of her view on the issue from the Republican Primary Debate. Fiorina's body language and words in the chosen clips are bold, presenting her authoritative side. Ethos is displayed throughout the whole ad. The advertisement itself appeals to ethos as it shows Fiorina's credibility for commenting on the abortion video during the debate. She directly targets President Obama and Hillary Clinton, "I dare Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to watch these video tapes", further establishing her audacity and stand behind the matter.

Carly Fiorina closes out the ad by declaring, "This [the abortion video] is about the character of our nation, and if we will not stand up and force President Obama to veto this bill, shame on us." Fiorina's argument and advertisement is bold and convincing.

The Elusive Carly Fiorina

Toward the beginning of the GOP debate last Saturday, Carly Fiorina was asked about whether or not she would be "comfortable with Donald Trump's finger on the nuclear codes". After she was asked this, she broke down an earlier part of the question where they called out her statement on Trump being an "entertainer", rather than the actual question at hand.
           She used this opportunity to put a nice example of logos on the table, as she said that the "judgement and temperament of every single one of us is revealed over time" in response to the bringing up of another earlier statement of hers saying that Trump's temperament is off. By doing this, she's trying to bring down the viewers' views on how effective Trump would be in office and, in turn, raising their view of hers. This is a genius way of doing so, and I've gotta commend her for figuring that out.