Persuasive

Persuasive Sample 2

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English Composition I                                                                        

Persuasive Essay

23 November 2015

Mr. Trump’s Fallacy

            During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump verbally attacked his competitors on very personal levels . Donald Trump committed the ad hominem logical fallacy when he stated Carly Fiorina should not be president because of the fact that she is a woman and because of her past failed business endeavors. Donald Trump also committed the same fallacy when he used the personal fact that Dr. Carson had a pathological disease in the past as a reason Dr. Carson should not be president.  

            Carly Fiorina is a candidate for the Republican presidential campaign. She is also the only woman running on the Republican side. Donald Trump used the personal fact that she is a woman against her. He said, “Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?! I mean, she’s a woman.” He attacked her for something she cannot change. She is a woman, and yet she desires to become president to help the nation in any way she is capable of. The ad hominem fallacy is used  here when Trump claimed she is not capable of becoming president because she is a woman. The personal fact that she is a woman should not be a determining factor to keep her back from holding the presidency. 

            In addition, Donald Trump attacked Carly Fiorina in her personal business endeavors as well. Speaking of Fiorina, Trump said, "Her business career was a disaster and nobody wants to say it." Mr. Trump also spoke of Fiorina’s past business failures as a good reason why he wouldn’t trust her to run any of his businesses. While speaking about Fiorina during the second GOP debate, Mr. Trump said, “When Carly says the revenues went up, that's because she bought Compaq, it was a terrible deal, and it really led to the destruction of the company. Now one other company before that was Lucent. Carly was at Lucent before that. And Lucent turned out to be a catastrophe also. So I only say this. She can't run any of my companies. That I can tell you.” Mr. Trump used the ad hominem fallacy again here when he applied Fiorina’s personal failed business deals to the fact that Fiorina should not be trusted.

            Finally, Donald Trump used the ad hominem fallacy toward Dr. Ben Carson. Dr. Carson is also a candidate for the Republican presidential campaign. Donald Trump went on a tiresome rant about Dr. Ben Carson during a speech he made in Iowa not long ago. In Mr. Trump’s speech, he compared Dr. Ben Carson’s past issues with violence (which Dr. Carson points out in his book as a pathological disease) to a child molester. Trump said, “If you are pathological, there is no cure for that, folks. If you’re a child molester, a sick puppy, you’re a child molester, there’s no cure for that.” Mr. Trump also personally attacked Dr. Carson on how he nearly hit his mother in the head with a hammer when he was a teenager. “I don’t want somebody who went after his mother with a hammer,” Mr. Trump stated. Trump’s application of the ad hominem fallacy aimed at Dr. Carson was meant to thwart his presidential run.

            In conclusion, Donald Trump issued the ad hominem fallacy a number of times, and he does not appear to be slowing any time soon. His attacks on Dr. Carson and Carly Fiorina do not, unfortunately, provide credibility to Trump’s campaign. In other words, in an attempt to discredit some of the candidates, Trump actually decreased his own credibility because the ad hominem fallacy does not connection ideas in an adequate, logical manner to draw related conclusions. Let’s hope other candidates do not employ the same tactics on Trump and discredit his presidential run for unfair reasons because voters are sure to hear about it!

 This sentence is a good foundation for the introduction, but it is not a complete introduction. Try to use at least five strong sentences. Review the following source for introduction writing: http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb/intros.html.

 Be sure the thesis is a single statement in short essays, which are all those in this course. Creating a single statement thesis often requires condensing and combining ideas in order to focus on body paragraph key terms (subtopics) versus lengthy explanations about each idea, which should yield an ideal thesis statement: clear, specific, and straightforward. You don't want to lose the reader when he or she reads the thesis because it is unnecessarily wordy.

 Strive to use the active voice over the passive voice. First try to identify the verb. Does the subject who/that is acting out the verb come before the verb? If not, you may need to change to the active voice. For instance, "The fish was caught by the seagull" should be in active voice: "The seagull caught the fish."

 

The passive voice also often fails to reference the subject, which leads to broad claims, and, remember, your claims should be as specific as possible. See below:

 

Passive: “The law should be passed.”

Active: “The US government should pass the law.”

 

Please study http://www.towson.edu/ows/activepass.htm and https://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/passive-voice/.

 

Apply throughout the essay.

 Good discussions that help explain how the paragraph’s ideas support the thesis. All body paragraphs should include these connections discussions to explain the link between the paragraph’s subtopic and the thesis claim.

Last modified: Wednesday, May 18, 2016, 11:19 AM