The Donald

After scrolling my twitter feed for just a few minutes, Donald Trump seems to be on a continual thread. Always in ridiculous fashion, he exclaims his opinions and thoughts to the world. In this specific tweet that I chose from the election period, he clearly uses the logical fallacy of Ad-Hominem to discredit his opponents. By personally attacking those that oppose Trump, rather than refuting their opinions or ideas, Trump successfully uses Ad-hominem. In 2016, Trump tweeted, “Wacky @NYTimesDowd, who hardly knows me, makes up things that I never said for her boring interviews and column. A neurotic dope!”

Trump is quick to criticize the reporter’s article or column by labeling it boring and proceeds to call her a neurotic dope. By personally attacking her, Trump releases the tension and attention from himself and transfers it to this reporter. Trump not only discredits the work of the author by labeling it not worth reading, but attacks her credibility by essentially calling her an idiot.

While Trump bashes this report and its author, he never includes anything about the contents of the actual work. The reader is left with no information on what the report was about or concerning. Instead, the reader receives negative feedback from a highly influential person and makes an assumption based off of their opinion.