Sound-bite Politics

Now, I’m normally not someone who writes a lot about politics. But once in a while I just get so tired of the “rhetoric” that I have to blow off a little steam, if you know what I mean. And I try to not be partisan, because this “sound-bite, bumper-sticker, T-shirt” sort of sloganeering occurs on both sides of the aisle. Today, though, it happened to be Hillary Clinton (speaking in Unity, NH). It was on television, and as I passed through the room I heard her say, basically, “I’ve been involved in politics for four decades. And in that time we’ve elected ten presidents, and only three have been Democrats.” Accurate enough, but then comes the zinger! She said, “Imagine how much progress we haven’t made in all that time,” i.e., she implies, because a Republican president was elected seven times.

For crying out loud! Really? It’s hard to know where even to begin to describe how ludicrous the statement is. First of all, reality (and the progress we can make in the real world) is much more complex and multi-dimensional than whether a Republican or Democratic president is in office. This is just overwhelming oversimplification, besides being a form of the “complex question” kind of logical fallacy, tying together “progress” and the “Democratic party” as if the two must be accepted or rejected together. It’s an example of what’s called a “non sequitur,” i.e. something that just doesn’t follow. It “doesn’t follow” that just because Republican presidents were elected 70% of the time that less progress was made than if Democratic presidents had been elected. In fact, it’s something we can’t know, a “hypothesis contrary to fact,” as it’s called, an argument from something that didn’t happen, and the consequences of which are unknown and unmeasurable.

There’s certainly a lot more that could be said about this particular remark, and about political posturing in general. I only want to encourage you to think clearly about the issues, and not to be led around aimlessly by some rhetorician’s nose ring, influenced by things that may “sound good” but that are anything but “good and sound.”

Thank you for my few minutes on the soap box!!