Helwig, Greereddy, Trujillo 1

Michael Helwig, Rohit Geereddy, Cynthia Trujillo

Peter A. Blair

UWRT 1104-031

18 March 2019

Fallacies, and how the President uses them

President Trump announced that he was running for president in 2016. Trump was the

Republican nominee in the 2016 elections, he won most of the states in his primaries, caucuses,

and delegates at the 2016 Republican National Convention. He announced that he was running on

June 16, 2015 in front of Trump Towers in New York City. He delivered his Inaugural address

speech on January 20, 2017 at the capitol building in Washington D.C. From the very

beginning of his speech, he had a dramatic entrance that matched his writing style. He used

glittering phrases and gave false information, but somehow made it all work. His speech was

full of fallacies as he was trying to win people's votes. Trump wanted to convey the message that

the other presidents didn’t make America better in any way and that he was ready to change

America. President Trump tried to use fallacies to pull in voters during his speech.

The most common fallacy he used was glittering generalities. According to the

Glossary of Grammatical and Rhetorical Terms, a glittering generality is “ is a vague word or

phrase used to evoke positive feelings rather than to convey information. Also called a

glowing generality, an empty vessel, a virtue word, or a loaded word.” Glittering generalities

have no significant meaning, yet appeal to one's beliefs. Trump's presidential slogan “Make

America Great Again” can even be counted as a glittering generality. For whom are we

making it great for? And how are we making it great? The phrase somehow has credibility,

but no concrete meaning behind it. Trump uses this ongoing theme of making America better
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throughout his entire speech. For example when he said, “We the citizens of America are

now joined in a great national effort to rebuild our country and restore its promise for all of

our people.” This may sound good to us, but his words are meant to appeal to emotion.

Another one of President Trump’s favorite fallacies to use in Begging the Question.

Begging the Question is when “No support is provided by the arguer. The claim is simply restated,

over and over again, in one form or another.” as defined by Nancy Wood in Essentials of

Argument(Wood). President Trump’s Announcement Speech is filled with examples of him

providing no support for the arguments he makes. “Our Country is in serious trouble. We don’t

have victorious anymore. We used to have victores, but we don’t have them”(Trump). He uses the

phrase our country is in serious trouble to instantly grab the listeners attention and then tries and

fails to give a reason by saying that we don’t have victories anymore. Then after that phrase he

tries to give a reason to why we don't have victory’s anymore and just reinstates that we don’t have

victories anymore instead of giving a statistics or facts on the matter. Another example of Begging

the Question can be found in this quote “I beat China all the time. All the time”(Trump). He uses

the first phrase to make himself sound more powerful, defeating China is no small feat. In his next

sentence you are expecting him to explain how he defeated china, but are left with him just telling

you that he does it all the time. President Trump also uses begging the question to throw

punches at Obama “But he wasn’t a cheerleader. He’s actually a negative force. He’s been a

negative force. He wasn’t a cheerleader; he was the opposite”(Trump). Trump avoids to give

any specific details about why Obama was a negative force. A Vice article about what

Obama accomplished in office has a different view on the matter stating “The Affordable

Care Act was hardly Obama’s only accomplishment. He passed stimulus bill that included

major reforms to the nation’s education system, big spending on clean energy, and significant
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expansion of antipoverty programs”(Matthews). Matthews gives reason why Obama was a

consequential president countering Trump’s claim that Obama was a negative force.

President Trump is also a big fan of Red Herrings in his Announcement speech. A Read

Herring “provides irrelevant and misleading support that pulls the audience away from the real

argument” as defined by Nancy Wood(Wood). “So the total is $8,737,540,000” President Trump

says this after listing off all his assets(Trump). A article written Nash Jenkins disputes his net

worth, “according to a new appraisal by Bloomberg. It currently sits at $2.8 billion, down

$100 million from last year” this is evidence of trump lying about his wealth to try to get

more votes. This is a clear example of a Red Herring he using this huge sum of money as a

distraction from the question, why would you make a good president? “I’m using my own money.

I’m not using the lobbyists donors. I don’t care. I’m really rich” again he uses money to make

himself sound better(Trump). He uses Red Herrings allow him to avoid talking about himself, and

the reasons why he would make for a good presidential candidate. “We have to repeal Obamacare,

and it can be— and— and it can be replaced with something much better for everybody” This is

an example of him using Obamacare to avoid talking about his own ideas, he says that Obamacare

is bad and must be repealed. This is a distraction from having to make your own system and

explaining why it is better than the opposition. Trump enjoys switching subjects instantly for

no apparent reason other then diversion “We spent $2 trillion in Iraq, $2 trillion. We lost

thousands of lives, thousands in Iraq. We have wounded soldiers, who I love”(Trump). Here

Trump goes from talking about money spent to lives lost in Iraq for no real reason without

elaborating on the money at all. Instead of reinforcing why he is talking about money spend

on Iraq he uses a red herring to talk about lives lost and get more attention.
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President Trump has been very successful in his political career because of how well he

uses false logic to device his audience. According to Daniel R. Stardel, writer of Psychology

Today, “committing logical fallacies can sometimes make a speaker more persuasive, especially

when the audience doesn’t catch it.” This is obviously something Donald Trump has become an

expert at. His style has allowed him to attract a certain type of audience. He mostly appeals

to the low information voters. The art of Propaganda Trump has mastered in his speeches

has allowed him to get very far.

Work Cited

Amadeo, Kimberly. “More Americans Immigrate to Mexico Than Vice Versa.” The Balance

Small Business, The Balance, 22 Jan. 2019,

www.thebalance.com/mexico-s-economy-facts-opportunites-challenges-3306351.

Jenkins, Nash. “Donald Trump's Net Worth Keeps Falling.” Time, Time, 31 May 2018,

time.com/5296830/donald-trump-net-worth-2018/.
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Matthews, Dylan. “Barack Obama Is Officially One of the Most Consequential Presidents in

American History.” Vox.com, Vox Media, 28 July 2017,

www.vox.com/2015/6/26/8849925/obama-obamacare-history-presidents.

Trump, Donald. “Donald Trump's Presidential Announcement Speech.” Time, Time, 16 June

2015, time.com/3923128/donald-trump-announcement-speech/.

Wood, Nancy. Essentials of Argument. Prentice Hall, 2005. Print.