The news media covers a wide range of topics. They all cover current events, whether they are political or economic. Today’s political news is full of fallacies. The strawman fallacy, the bandwagon belief etc. are all fallacies. It is not intentional to use fallacies, but they can be useful when someone has an argument and needs help convincing others.
In 2016, Donald Trump gave a speech while campaigning to be president. In his remarks, he makes use of the bandwagon-fallacy. It is a logical argument that is built on faulty reasoning. The President says: “Wow. That’s quite a crowd, thousands.” It’s hard to say if President Trump was greeted by thousands. It is possible that he was a good candidate if so many people came to hear him speak. This is because not anyone will come to listen to a speaker talk about what they think and how to change certain situations. The vast majority of the people in attendance were there to show their support for his candidacy. Donald Trump repeated the fallacy during his speech. He uses the strawman fallacy. The strawman fallsacy is the misrepresentation or oversimplification of the opponent’s argument in order to defeat them easily. President Trump asked “When can we beat Mexico? This makes the argument much easier because he says we will defeat Mexico, and that only by building a fence can we do so. Mexico is made to look weak by this. Mexico can’t defend themselves against what Trump is saying or planning to do.
Hillary Clinton ran for president in 2016 and gave her foreign-policy speech aimed at Donald Trump. In her remarks, Hillary Clinton uses the wishful believing fallacy. This is where you imagine something unlikely like a future situation or an event. Clinton states “I will put America’s Security at the core of my election campaign”. Hillary Clinton is aware that Americans don’t elect just any president. It is a subject that she can’t accept, because this is a real-life situation. If you were really interested in becoming the President of America, you wouldn’t comment on something that is not possible.
Hillary Clinton continued to fallaciously use the same argument in her speech. The second fallacy she used was an appeal to terror. This fallacy is when someone creates an idea through fear. Hillary Clinton said, “We will not allow Donald Trump to gamble with America. He has stated that many countries should possess nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia included.” Hillary Clinton used Trump to incite fear and encourage her audience to vote for Hillary Clinton. It made people believe that Trump could do anything. Clinton made him a scary man to get people’s votes.
Fallacies can be found in many different contexts. Often people don’t realize they are doing it. Fallacies are often used in a variety of ways to achieve political goals. Many fallacies exist. There are many fallacies. Fallacies can be used in many other situations to support or discredit a topic. It can be used in a variety of ways.
