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By Branda Gorgies
Images: Creative Commons via Bing
July 15, 2023 (San Diego) – 
Whenever a major political event occurs, misinformation becomes rampant. With the upcoming presidential nominee election, false information can be spread to influence public opinion from various people, organizations, and even foreign governments.
To be a well-informed voter, it’s necessary to protect against this misinformation. While reputable news organizations including East County Magazine strive to report factual and unbiased information, not all publications will–let alone social media memes that may go viral without links to verify sources.
This article brings to light some tactics that might appear in future elections or issue discussions to ensure that people vote with only the truth in mind.
Personal Attacks: Ad Hominem
An Ad Hominem, literally translated as “to the person,” is when someone attacks their opponent’s character or personal qualities rather than their intellect. Simply put, it’s insulting the person instead of acknowledging their argument. This is common with many social media apps. In politics, we’ve seen it with both sides calling the other “radical,” “unAmerican,” and such. It’s also used to discredit journalists who report accurate but unflattering facts that politicians label as “fake news”.
Strawman
A strawman fallacy is when someone misrepresents their opponent’s argument to seem weaker than it is so that they can counter it. An example would be some of those who deny climate change, which includes extreme storms and cooling as well as record-breaking heat. While scientists can offer up complex, research-backed reasoning as to why climate change is real and impactful, some might simplify that, define climate change as the world simply “heating up” and then try to discredit that while ignoring the cause of climate change overall.
For instance, the climate change deniers might argue that global warming is cyclical while ignoring the fact that unprecedented release of carbon dioxide in a form only created by burning fossil fuels has only occurred since the start of the industrial revolution, and that extreme heat records are now being broken at a record pace around the world.
False Dilemma
Also known as an either-or fallacy, this is when someone presents a situation and only offers two options when, in reality, there are plenty more. This fallacy involves a very black-and-white way of thinking. An example is climate doomism, an extreme take in the discussion of climate change.
Climate doomism promotes the idea that the world is ending because of climate change and there is no fixing it. It involves heavy fear-mongering, so people are presented with ideas such as “go vegan or you’re killing the planet,” or “switch to 100% renewable energy or the planet dies.” While veganism and renewable energy have their benefits, the issue isn’t as simple as “do this or feed into climate change.”
Red Herring
A red herring argument is used to distract from the actual topic at hand. Politicians commonly use this fallacy when they want to avoid stating their views on a controversial topic. People also use the red herring in gun control debates. People will often bring up the mental health or characteristics of the shooter to steer away from the core of the issues of gun proliferation and the rise in mass shootings since the lifting of the federal assault weapons ban. While mental health can be part of gun control, it’s only a fragment of the gun control issue.
Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc
This phrase translates to “after this, therefore because of this.” The fallacy claims that since this event happened before that event, this event caused that event.
For example, the economy grew in 2021. President Joe Biden also assumed office in 2021. Based on these two pieces of information, it would be illogical to claim that the economy grew that year due to something President Biden implemented simply because he was in office when it happened. This doesn’t mean it’s entirely untrue, but further information would have to be provided to prove that President Biden influenced 2021 growth. By contrast, it would be more accurate to credit policies implemented by the Biden administration with the strong job growth in 2023.
Similarly, one can’t blame President Donald Trump for all of the COVID-19 deaths, because the global pandemic began during his tenure. His administration did develop a vaccine and take key steps to protect public health, though it’s fair to debate whether additional actions such as masking requirements or mandatory vaccines, however controversial, might have saved more lives.
Slippery Slope
The slippery slope fallacy is the claim that one action will lead to another bigger, more extreme action. Slippery slopes are used to exaggerate the consequences of an action to scare people away from it.
A slippery slope fallacy example is that teaching sex education will lead to more teenagers having sex, and in turn, more teenage pregnancies and “kids having kids.” In fact, the opposite has been found; where abstinence-only sex education was taught in schools, teen pregnancies have generally risen.
Another example is the claim that universal healthcare leads to communism or socialism. While some socialist countries do have universal healthcare, so do many countries that are neither socialist nor communist.
While people can argue for or against every stance mentioned in this article, it’s important to do so accurately and logically. Knowing how to spot misinformation and logical fallacies helps protect against them and protect the truth.
Definitions:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ad%20hominem https://www.txst.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definitions/Straw-Person.html
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/red%20herring
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/post%20hoc%2C%20ergo%20propter%20hoc
https://www.txst.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definitions/False-Dilemma.html
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