30 Aug Argument from Popularity – FT#7
Show Notes
Trump likes to talk about ‘many people’ doing, thinking or saying something, to give the impression that whatever they are doing, thinking or saying is correct. In doing so, he is arguing from the popularity of an idea, rather than using evidence to show the idea is true. This is an extremely common fallacy. After all, if a lot of people believe something, it must be true, right?
Despite the (ironic) popularity of this fallacy, it’s quite easy to refute. The fact that billions of people believe Jesus was the son of God is a compelling argument until someone points out that billions of other people believe Jesus wasn’t the son of God.
Trump
We started out with Trump talking about voter fraud:
We followed that with Trump taking a straw poll on global warming:
And finally we talked about this tweet:
Many people have said I’m the world’s greatest writer of 140 character sentences.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 21, 2014
Mark’s British Politics Corner
Mark talked about these three clips of Michael Gove’s Brexit-related debate with Faisal Islam:
Fallacy in the Wild (Sting: Born to be Wild by Steppenwolf)
In the Fallacy in the Wild we looked at this print ad for Hillary Clinton:
Then we talked about this clip from The O’Reilly Factor :
Fake News
Here are the statements from this week’s Fake News game, which Mark hosted, and our guests Caplin and Massiah answered:
- (about Boris Johnson) I think he thinks I’m doing a great job. I am doing a great job, that I can tell you — just in case you haven’t noticed. But Boris Johnson, I think would be a great Prime Minister.
- (about Theresa May) They asked me why we held hands. What can I say? I’m a gentleman. She appreciated that. We got on great. An incredible woman — beautiful woman inside and out I have great respect for her, and all women.
- (about Putin) If I had a relationship with Putin — I don’t know him, I’ve met him twice, maybe three times, two-and-a-half times.
Click below for the answer
Our guests got it right this week, so Mark somehow still lost, and remains on 0%
Singing is not a logical fallacy
Mark interviewed Caplin and Massiah about their new anti-Trump song called “All You”. Here’s the official video:
The stories we really didn’t have time to talk about (and in a fun twist, every single one of these stories happened on Tuesday August 21st):
- Michael Cohen pled guilty to eight counts, including tax and bank fraud, and campaign finance violations, “in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office… for the principal purpose of influencing the election”. Gee, I wonder which candidate he could be talking about.
- Having told Chuck Todd last week that “Truth isn’t truth”, Rudy Giuliani turned his gaslight up to 11, telling Reuters “There is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the President in the government’s charges against Mr. Cohen.” also saying “I think the president is absolutely in the clear. The Cohen thing is over.” He was later heard to say “Adam Sandler is the best actor of all time and Big Macs are health food”
- Within minutes of the Cohen plea, Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort was found guilty of eight counts of tax and bank fraud. Which is not completely shocking, since part of his defence was – and this is an actual quote – “Nobody intending to violate the law would leave the evidence around for his accountant to find it.” I think that’s called the ‘Basic Instinct defence’.
- Although Cohen’s plea deal didn’t include cooperating with prosecutors, his lawyer, Lanny Davis, said “Mr. Cohen has knowledge on certain subjects that should be of interest to the special counsel and is more than happy to tell the special counsel all that he knows.” that’s some kinda non-cooperation!
- According to the UN’s nuclear watchdog, there is no indication that North Korea has halted or dismantled any nuclear activities since Kim Jong Un met with Trump and specifically didn’t agree to do that. I’m shocked that this didn’t go how Trump planned. Shocked.
- A Trump advisor has been linked to white supremacist Peter Brimelow. No, not the speechwriter who was fired earlier this month for his links to the noted racist – this time we’re talking about Larry Kudlow, who invited Brimelow to his birthday party. Apparently he didn’t want to, but his Mum made him invite everyone in his class so that nobody felt left out.
- One of Trump’s earliest supporters in Congress has been indicted on federal charges. No, not Chris Collins, who was charged with insider trading earlier this month – this time we’re talking about California Congressman Duncan Hunter, who, along with his wife Margaret, stands accused of using a quarter of a million dollars of campaign funds for personal expenses. Hunter must have been taking lessons from Ben Carson, because in an interview with Fox News on Thursday, Hunter blamed the whole thing on his wife.
- A new rule from the EPA called The Affordable Clean Energy Rule could cause up to 1400 premature deaths per year due to relaxed emission standards. That’s according to the EPA’s own impact analysis. The rule replaces stricter Obama era guidelines which the EPA says would have prevented up to 3600 annual premature deaths. So the government knows their policies will kill you, but they’re fine with that. Because fuck you, that’s why.
If you wanted to buy a T-shirt featuring this fallacy, you could click here. No pressure
And if you have some money left over after that, Jim’s book, 2000 Mules and One Big Lie: A Stubborn Conspiracy Theory is available now.
