The Straw Man in Trump 2.0 Has Taken Front and Center
If you want the wrongfully-arrested El Salvadoran freed from prison, then you support vicious crime.
“If the Supreme Court tells me, I will obey. I respect the Supreme Court.”
You might think these words are mine, but they aren’t — I don’t respect the Supreme Court. I used to, but since this current period of right-wing activism, commencing with the Citizens’ decision, began the Court has facilitated what we have become today.
The above words were spoken by Donald Trump. In one of his more gracious moments, probably after having moved his bowels, he offered to the drooling media that he is bound by the decisions of the Supreme Court. If you were paying close attention, though, Trump seems to have muttered just below his breath, at the level a dog whistle vibrates through the air. Move your ear closer to the screen. “Unless.”
Did you hear that?
“Unless.”
There it is again.
“I will respect the Supreme Court unless…”
It is this small word, a conjunction, that threatens to, once and for all, bring the whole house of cards tumbling down on itself.
The Trump administration refuses to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia despite admitting its error. How does it justify the refusal?
“We are working to free America from the violent crime that illegal immigrants commit against American citizens. Democrats want to bring these killers back to the country. They want to welcome terrorists into the country. Do you want terrorists living next door to you?”
Of course not, right? But there is a chance that you can live next door to a drug-dealing, human-trafficker. The Trump administration pressured Romania to let Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan return to the United States. Convicted of rape and threatening to kill the women he was trafficking, Trump thinks it is better to have these kinds of people in our communities than a hard-working father of three who is a sheetrocker apprentice. Kilmar Garcia left El Salvador when he was 16 because of the choice put before him: Join the local gang and kill and steal, or run. He ran to the U.S.
“President Trump is removing these terrorists, and all of these sick people want to bring them back.”
Republicans and Trump fascism apologists everywhere are avoiding answering questions about the reality of the destruction caused by DOGE and ICE. When asked by a reporter about the chaos overtaking the formerly well-functioning Social Security administration and how people can’t reach anyone to ask questions about their benefits, Howard Lutnick, Trump’s gluttonous and corrupt commerce secretary, said that “anyone calling the Social Security administration was a fraudster. We are weeding out fraud.” His suggestion was that the Democrats want the fraud to persist.
Trump and his administration’s minions are everywhere, avoiding answering the questions of the media by turning everything on its head. Thanks to friendly places like Fox, questions of Trump’s creeping authoritarianism are raised by the Fox hosts. Some of the egregiousness of the current administration’s crimes against the Constitution is so obvious that Fox is obligated to address it.
After a Trump official gives a straw man answer to the questions, the Fox host answers with smiles and moans of relief, “Ah, that’s what I thought. So, all is not as bad as it seemed, but President Trump is just keeping us safe.”
To refresh you on what a straw man fallacy is:
A straw man fallacy is the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be “attacking a straw man (Wikipedia)”.
Putin mastered the use of the straw man argument in Russia. It is the kind of reasoning that cannot be overcome by rational explanations or merely pointing one toward the truth. The straw man is made all-powerful when the people to whom it is being offered as proof of moral rectitude, regard the messenger of the explanation as infallible and, in Trump’s situation, Christ-like. There is little we can do to combat the straw man.
“The tariffs will wreck the economy and lead to inflation.”
“Wait, so you are okay that Europe and China have been stealing millions of jobs from the U.S. for the past 40 years?”
No.
So, then we need the tariffs, and President Trump is doing the right thing — some short-term pain for long-term gain.
The straw man is all-knowing and can always lead the ignorant to the “truth.”
Get my New Book.