There are several non-fallacious reasons to emphasize Trump’s status as a convicted felon:
For anybody who’s learning about it for the first time and hasn’t followed every detail of the trial, it shows that a new category of people have reviewed the evidence and arguments in detail and decided he is guilty: a jury. That was far from a foregone conclusion.
For those who have heard of the trial outcome, propagating new information through a person’s belief structure and social network requires repetition and emphasis—just hearing the words ‘Trump: convicted felon’ one time isn’t enough.
It points out a deep contradiction with the family values and law and order rhetoric Republicans have traditionally used to further their political goals.
Calling MLK a ‘criminal’ doesn’t evoke the same whiff of hypocrisy and contradiction, because civil rights activists have rarely if ever based their moral argument on ‘law and order’ rhetoric. Indeed, most Black Americans agree “the criminal justice system was designed to hold Black people back.” Pointing out MLK was a criminal, given the nature of the “crime,” just lends further support to their argument.
I think this post might be a good illustration of the sticker shortcut fallacy I’m describing. Instead of directly describing the information you want to impart, you’re instead relying upon the label dredging up enough ‘good enough’ connotations attached to it.
I think it’s non-fallacious to use language as a shorthand, the same way we say “do you want to play baseball?” rather than “do you want to play a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding?”
What information, specifically, do you believe “Trump: convicted felon” conveys except that “a jury reviewed evidence and were convinced that Trump committed a particular offense categorized under New York state law as a felony”? I mean this question very narrowly.
On this point, I concede your argument. To the extent anyone is operating at the “sticker” level (e.g. we don’t support law-breakers) then pointing out that their preferred candidate is a law-breaker is indeed a valid rebuttal. But if it’s deployed outside that narrow purpose, then it becomes fallacious.
I think this post might be a good illustration of the sticker shortcut fallacy I’m describing. Instead of directly describing the information you want to impart, you’re instead relying upon the label dredging up enough ‘good enough’ connotations attached to it.
I disagree. The label ‘dredges up’ (implies) a sound argument. One syllogism that might be implied by “Trump: convicted felon” is something like this:
A person who has been convicted of a felony is unfit to serve as president.
Donald Trump has been convicted of felony in the Stormy Daniels case.
Therefore, Donald Trump is unfit to serve as president.
This is a valid syllogism, though you may reject the premise. I don’t think it qualifies as deceptively bad. It could be false but popular, but that has to be argued.
I’m sorry, but this is exactly the fallacy I’m describing in my post. Sometimes the innocent is convicted, and sometimes the guilty is acquitted, which means the only thing that makes “convicted” true in all circumstances is “the legal system has deemed an individual guilty of the allegations”. Nothing more. Now, you may certainly make very plausible Bayesian predictions about the fact that someone has been convicted, but they will always be probabilistic rather than determinative.
Consider the hypothetical where Trump’s conviction gets overturned or vacated, maybe because of some procedural defect, what would change? For me, it wouldn’t change the fact that Trump constructed a convoluted scheme to pay hush money to a porn star he had an affair with in an attempt to hide this fact from the voting public. The only thing that would change from the conviction getting overturned is whether “the legal system has deemed an individual guilty of the allegations”.
I don’t believe that anyone actually holds the syllogism you describe, because a consistent application would mean that even folks like Nelson Mandela (convicted of sabotage and sentenced to life) would be unfit to serve as president. Instead, what I gather people are doing is some combination of the composition/division fallacies:
A (being convicted of a felony) implies B (being a bad person).
B (being a bad person) implies C (being unfit to be president).
Therefore, A (being convicted of a felony) implies C (being unfit to be president).
There are several non-fallacious reasons to emphasize Trump’s status as a convicted felon:
For anybody who’s learning about it for the first time and hasn’t followed every detail of the trial, it shows that a new category of people have reviewed the evidence and arguments in detail and decided he is guilty: a jury. That was far from a foregone conclusion.
For those who have heard of the trial outcome, propagating new information through a person’s belief structure and social network requires repetition and emphasis—just hearing the words ‘Trump: convicted felon’ one time isn’t enough.
It points out a deep contradiction with the family values and law and order rhetoric Republicans have traditionally used to further their political goals.
Calling MLK a ‘criminal’ doesn’t evoke the same whiff of hypocrisy and contradiction, because civil rights activists have rarely if ever based their moral argument on ‘law and order’ rhetoric. Indeed, most Black Americans agree “the criminal justice system was designed to hold Black people back.” Pointing out MLK was a criminal, given the nature of the “crime,” just lends further support to their argument.
I think this post might be a good illustration of the sticker shortcut fallacy I’m describing. Instead of directly describing the information you want to impart, you’re instead relying upon the label dredging up enough ‘good enough’ connotations attached to it.
I think it’s non-fallacious to use language as a shorthand, the same way we say “do you want to play baseball?” rather than “do you want to play a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding?”
What information, specifically, do you believe “Trump: convicted felon” conveys except that “a jury reviewed evidence and were convinced that Trump committed a particular offense categorized under New York state law as a felony”? I mean this question very narrowly.
On this point, I concede your argument. To the extent anyone is operating at the “sticker” level (e.g. we don’t support law-breakers) then pointing out that their preferred candidate is a law-breaker is indeed a valid rebuttal. But if it’s deployed outside that narrow purpose, then it becomes fallacious.
I disagree. The label ‘dredges up’ (implies) a sound argument. One syllogism that might be implied by “Trump: convicted felon” is something like this:
This is a valid syllogism, though you may reject the premise. I don’t think it qualifies as deceptively bad. It could be false but popular, but that has to be argued.
I’m sorry, but this is exactly the fallacy I’m describing in my post. Sometimes the innocent is convicted, and sometimes the guilty is acquitted, which means the only thing that makes “convicted” true in all circumstances is “the legal system has deemed an individual guilty of the allegations”. Nothing more. Now, you may certainly make very plausible Bayesian predictions about the fact that someone has been convicted, but they will always be probabilistic rather than determinative.
Consider the hypothetical where Trump’s conviction gets overturned or vacated, maybe because of some procedural defect, what would change? For me, it wouldn’t change the fact that Trump constructed a convoluted scheme to pay hush money to a porn star he had an affair with in an attempt to hide this fact from the voting public. The only thing that would change from the conviction getting overturned is whether “the legal system has deemed an individual guilty of the allegations”.
I don’t believe that anyone actually holds the syllogism you describe, because a consistent application would mean that even folks like Nelson Mandela (convicted of sabotage and sentenced to life) would be unfit to serve as president. Instead, what I gather people are doing is some combination of the composition/division fallacies: