Everybody writes about President Trump. Especially Trump.
Rhetoric Referee: Mastering the debate game
American political campaigns have devolved into a great, nationwide reality game show whose two-year seasons seem endless. The winner of the last presidential election was, in fact, the celebrity host and producer of a popular elimination reality game show. Donald Trump knows how to play the game to win. Now …
Rhetoric referee: Heads I win, tails I win
This is an example of a false choice. It assumes there are only two possible outcomes — in this case, either don’t release the report or release the report in its entirety.
Rhetoric Referee: The Curious Kavanaugh Case
To wrap up the last two postings, the controversy over the nomination of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court provided high political drama just weeks before the mid-term elections. Americans generally don’t understand judicial theory and philosophy, but they do understand politics, at least as far as …
Rhetoric Referee: The Straw Man
American political discussions violate many rules of logic and debate, but one of the most outrageous, easiest to spot, and hardest to parry is the Straw Man argument. Usually this takes the form of one side oversimplifying and distorting a point the other side has made, asserting that this …