10 Fallacies to Watch for in Trump's Second Term

Your guide to common (and uncommon) logical slip-ups.

Editor’s Note: Jeff Kruse is a Los Angeles-based writer who contributed to MAD Magazine for over 20 years. He doesn’t have social media and hopes he never has to.

To submit a short humor piece for publication in Chortle, send it to greg@chortle.blog!

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With the inauguration of another president, debates among family and co-workers are sure to erupt. Whether you're arguing about sports, religion, politics, or culture, you will inevitably find yourself faced with (or perpetrating) certain logical fallacies.

Here is a brief guide on what not to say. These and other arguments only serve to alienate you from people and ensure that they'll avoid you in the future...

Hmmm, on second thought, maybe you’ll want to use these after all.

TEN LOGICAL FALLACIES TO WATCH OUT FOR IN TRUMP’S SECOND TERM

1. APPEAL TO NON-SEQUITUR
A method by which the debater links two things that have nothing to do with one another, but sound, for the first few seconds, like there could be some logic.
EXAMPLE: "You live in a ZIP code ending in an even number, so what could you know about engine problems?"

2. APPEAL TO NON-ENTITY
The citing of a person or text that, if one wishes to be a stickler, doesn't exist.
EXAMPLE: "Aren't you forgetting what Lugubrious Maximus III had to say about the distribution of wealth back in 374 BCE?"

3. DISTRACTION & EGRESS
The distracting of one's conversational partner when one cannot answer a point, followed by simply running away.
EXAMPLE: "But you have to understand that the traditional role of women....hey, an ivory-billed woodpecker! I thought those things were extinct!" (commence running)

4. AD ZAPATEM
The delegitimizing of an opponent's argument based on his or her shoes.
EXAMPLE: "I'll grant that applying the Cartesian model has some validity, but how can I take you seriously when you’re wearing beige loafers?"

5. VERBAL CONSTRUCTION
The inventing of words to mask the lack of a legitimate point.
EXAMPLE: "Ah, but you still have yet to dezorkify my rentubulous bloppage. Perhaps you fell into the old trap of unblusking the quemplerge?"

6. RELIANCE ON CHANCE
The abandoning of logic to fate.
EXAMPLE: "We're never going to agree here, so let's try this: Heads, mankind has free will. Tails, everything is predestined by a Supreme Being."

7. CONCLUSION FROM ALTERED STATE
The use of "evidence" gained while under the influence of psychoactive drugs.
EXAMPLE: "But a world without war is possible, man, because the singing rainbow dolphin told me so—there she is now! Explain it, Lady Crystal!"

8. OBFUSCATION BY CLICHE
The substitution of buzzwords for an actual argument.
EXAMPLE: "Sorry not sorry, but at the end of the day, the new normal is what it is, and we’re all in this together in these uncertain times, so let's just dovetail the synergy, said no one ever."

9. SCRIPTUS CONFLATUS
The confusing of actual case law with television or film.
EXAMPLE: "I believe this point was settled in Season 4 of Law & Order: Criminal Intent."

10. RESORT TO THREAT
This one is self-explanatory.
EXAMPLE: "Nice little hypothesis you got here. Be a shame if something were to happen to it."

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