The three logical fallacies will be taken from the speech at Trump Tower from Republican Nominee Donald J. Trump in June 2015 to declare himself as a candidate for the position of President of the United States of America (Trump, 2015).
The first logical fallacy delivered in the speech was related to Trump claiming that his opponents declared themselves in the position of the President of US from rooms where Air conditioners were not working and these candidates are unsuitable to work as the executive head of the country and they would fail to defeat ISIS. This is clearly an appeal to personal attack (Teach Argument, 2016).
There is a clear lack of logic on the part of Trump as the statement does not stand true in terms of truth as declaring for the position of President from non-air conditioned rooms and relating it to inability to fight ISIS makes no sense at all. In terms of validity, the statement is as vague as possible and it seems more like an effort by Trump to insult his opponents. In terms of soundness, there is no way to prove the logic used by Trump in claiming the relationship between non-air conditioned rooms and war policy (DelReal, 2015).
The second logical fallacy made by Donald Trump was his claim that the US does not have victories anymore. Trump straight away points out that America used to have victories in the past, but the current leadership is incapable of winning anymore. This is clearly an appeal to fear (Teach Argument, 2016).
In terms of truth, the statement does not make sense as America has been winning in every way possible under the leadership of Barak Obama. In terms of validity, the statement needs to be fact checked as Trump fails to mention the areas where America has not been winning and his statement is completely vague without any sense attached to it. As far as being sound is concerned, the claim is a logical fallacy there is ground to prove that America has lost overall in the past few years as the country has managed to come out of recession and the economy has started to grow again.
The third logical fallacy is claiming that Mexico is not sending normal citizens as immigrants to America; rather they are sending drug peddlers, rapists, and criminals.
This statement is ridden with compositional fallacies as it clearly stereotypes Mexican immigrants as criminals. This claim is appeal to fear (Teach Argument, 2016).
On the basis of truth, the statement is a clever composition of words as outlines that Mexican citizens that are coming over to American to realize their dreams are bringing problems such as crime and stereotypes Mexican immigrants as criminals. The statement is completely false as it fails to identify that even Mexican immigrants are victims of crimes from Americans. The statement is completely invalid as it is composed in such a manner that despite saying that some Mexicans are good, the audience would remember only the hate spread against Mexican immigrants through unproductive stereotyping. On the basis of the soundness of the statement, it is nothing more than a hate speech that is used to divide the society and present Mexicans as the source of all problems (Weinstein, 2016).
Fallacies can easily enter someone’s correspondence and written works, unless they fact check every detail that they write and cite the source of information. Fallacies can be avoided while writing by understanding the point presented and identifying if there is another angle to view the same issue. Fallacies become common when people are simply using statements to appeal to their audience, rather than presenting facts from credible sources.
Initially, fallacies can become part of writing experience, but overtime by following a few standard principles of writing these mistakes can be avoided.
References
Teach Argument. (2016, 6 May). Analyzing Trump: 15 Logical Fallacies in 3 Minutes. Retrieved 20 August 2016 from, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2CxDu7jiyE
DelReal., J. A. (2015, 16 June). Donald Trump announces presidential bid. Retrieved 20 August 2016 from, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/06/16/donald-trump-to-announce-his-presidential-plans-today/
Trump., D. J. (2015, 16 June). Here’s Donald Trump’s Presidential Announcement Speech. Retrieved 20 August 2016 from, http://time.com/3923128/donald-trump-announcement-speech/
Weinstein., B. (2016, 8 March).How Trump and Friends Could Learn a Few Things From Mr. Spock. Retrieved 20 August 2016 from, http://fortune.com/2016/03/08/fallacious-arguments-logic-trump/
