2016 Presidential Debate Between Trump and Clinton

According to Richard Nordquist, a logical fallacy is "...an error in reasoning that renders an argument invalid." Logical fallacies are the things that are wrong with an argument essentially. They often follow illogical paths, that distort the subject, take the argument away from the topic at hand and try to divert the audience's attention on something else, so to stop them from thinking about something else. There are two types of logical fallacies: formal and informal. Formal logical fallacies are concerned with the deductive branch of reasoning. Following that path, informal logical fallacies are therefore then concerned with inductive reasoning. Though informal logical fallacies are concerned with inductive reasoning, they can also apply to deductive reasoning sometimes.

The video that I am analysing consists of highlights from the presidential debate that happened in 2016 between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. I chose to analyse this video because when Trump first reached this stage, nobody thought that he would make it as far as he did, using the methods he did. And so it was at this time, that Trump was at an all-time high, and many of the arguments that he made were very controversial. I also feel that many of the arguments that he made, relied on using logical fallacies. Then again, it wasn't just Trump who was using logical fallacies, Clinton was using them too in order to return Trump's attacks.

When the campaigning for the 2016 election was still happening, both sides held stark views in comparison to each other. If one side believed firmly in one side of an argument, the other would take the other side. An example of this would be their views on healthcare. Hillary Clinton wanted to keep Obamacare and perhaps expand on it, whereas Trump got rid of it and is trying to replace it with a different system. Another example would be the 'birther' lie. This was where Trump repeatedly told people, came out in the media and said several times and nurtured this idea even though it had been shut down several times by numerous fact-checkers that former President Obama was perhaps not born in America. That he instead had a fake birth certificate which allowed him to enjoy the benefits he got from being an American citizen. Eventually, Trump put this lie to bed himself, and then accused Clinton of inventing it in the first place, which she denied.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBhrSdjePkk

Trump - "No wonder you've been fighting ISIS your whole adult life" = 0:56

In this case, when Trump says something like that, he wants to draw the audience's attention to Hillary Clinton. He wants to show them just how bad this person is at dealing with the problem 'ISIS'. Now while the original question was nowhere near anything such as, 'how do you think Clinton's handling of the situation has been so far?', but Trump throws that in any way, just to create a false character of Clinton for the audience. And so, looking that way, it is clear that the logical fallacy in Trump's argument here is Ad Hominem.

Ad Hominem is defined as "...when, instead of addressing someone's argument or position, you irrelevantly attack the person or some aspect of the person who is making the argument." (ad hominem, Texas State) This essentially means that rather than answer the question, or addressing the issue at hand, the person will attack someone else based on their character or some aspect of them, just to make your point. Now, this doesn't make the point, but in a crowd's situation, as it is in this case, this is a very useful attack. Because that way you are changing the perception of the public of the other person.

Trump - "...first of all I got to watch in preparing for this, some of your debates against Barack Obama you treated him with terrible disrespect and I watched the way you talk now about how lovely everything is and how wonderful are, [it] doesn't work that way..." = 02:29

As I talked about the 'birther' lie before, this response is regarding that. The mediator asked Clinton to first talk about it, and after she did the above was part of Trump's response. Essentially he again tried to divert the audience's attention, and again tried to discredit her with some evidence that apparently only he has. So in this case, it would be safe to say that this was another case of Ad Hominem. This is because Trump is arguing at a part of Clinton's character rather than answering the argument itself.

Trump - "...Hillary has experience, but she has bad experience...: = 04:05

Hasty generalisation is defined as "...when we make a generalisation on the basis of insufficient evidence." (Unwarranted generalisation, Texas State) Essentially talking about how people make assumptions, or in this case 'generalisation' based on not enough information.

This response is in regards to a comment that Trump had made about Clinton. He had stated that Clinton did not have a "Presidential look". When asked about it, he changed it to stamina. Clinton responded to it by talking about how she has travelled to a big number of countries, how she has helped parties agree to deals and how she has stood before a congressional committee for eleven hours. Trump responded to this with the above following. Now I believe this is Hasty generalisation because here Trump isn't even giving examples of why the experience she has is bad, He is just saying that all the experience she has in terms of politics is bad, and is once again trying to attack her credibility, trying to show the people how a person who has bad experience is worse than one with no experience at all. Thus for these reasons, I believe that the logical fallacy in Trump's argument here is hasty generalisation.

Bibliography

"Ad Hominem." Texas State, www.txstate.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definitions/Ad-Hominem.html.

Accessed 28 Oct. 2019.

Nordquist, Richard. "What is a Logical Fallacy?" ThoughtCo., DotDash, 25 July 2019,

www.thoughtco.com/what-is-logical-fallacy-1691259. Accessed 28 Oct. 2019.

Pope, Steve. Supporters of Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump listen to the first of

three presidential debates, on September 26, 2016 at the Trump headquarters in Urbandale, Iowa.

People across the country tuned in as Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump and

Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton participated in their first debate. Detroit Free Press, 27

Sept. 2016, www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/stephen-henderson/2016/09/27/

presidential-candidates-lies/91150762/. Accessed 28 Oct. 2019.

"Presidential debate highlights: Clinton and Trump trade blows – video." YouTube, uploaded by

Guardian News, 27 Sept. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBhrSdjePkk. Accessed 28 Oct. 2019.

"Unwarranted Generalization." Texas State, www.txstate.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definitions/

Unwarranted-Generalization.html. Accessed 28 Oct. 2019.