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Mitchell Cavaliere Pols 101-002 Professor Pamela Duncan 11/14/2017 Paper #2 In CNN’s article, “The big thing Trump gets wrong about his taxes and the 2016 election” on April 17, 2017. Chris Cillizza analyzes a Donald Trump tweet and administration comments to highlight a logical fallacy. To start off the article, Cillizza includes what President Trump tweeted this past Easter, “I did what what was an almost impossible thing to do for a Republican-easily won the Electoral College! Now tax returns are brought up again?” He also includes Kellyanne Conway’s reiteration of that point. Chris uses that tweet and her comment to explain Trump logic; encountering “extreme difficulties” throughout the quest of achieving the Presidency makes the question of his tax returns irrelevant because the issue was raised before the election so if enough people cared enough about his tax returns then he would not have won. The author goes into more depth of the Trump administration’s point of view in how they went as far as saying that not being open with his financial records helped him win. Then the author argues that his tweet is a logical fallacy because in the bigger picture, our president is using the sole fact that he became president to justify questionable moves. To develop his argument, he draws a comparison to sports by giving an example of a baseball game tied between two teams in the top of the 9th. The home team pitcher gives up a solo homerun to put the away team on top by one. Furthermore, the home team hits a three run homerun to win the game. Therefore the home team wins giving the pitcher who gave up the home run the win on his record although he

gave up a run which would have caused his team to lose otherwise. The author clarifies that under Trump logic, due to the home team winning, the pitcher who put his team into a losing position and had nothing to do with the offense scoring, should not be questioned or evaluated and thought of as why the team won. Furthermore the author gives support to that an overwhelming majority disapprove of Trump being the first president to not release his tax returns but saw other issues as higher priority by citing supporting evidence from a poll, “In fact, in a Washington Post-ABC News poll taken shortly before Trump was inaugurated, 74% of people said they thought Trump should release his taxes -- including 49% of those who voted for him” (Cillizza). The author concludes that Donald Trump’s tweet is a logical fallacy and he needs to re evaluate his actions. That logical fallacy is what is known as an irrelevant conclusion. One good move defines an irrelevant conclusion as “an argument which purports to prove one thing instead proves a different conclusion that shows that the conclusion proved by the author is not the conclusion that the author set out to prove” (Onegoodmove.org). The wrong conclusion in Trump’s tweet that Chris highlights is the justification of the President refusing to disclose his financial dealings by the argument that if that action is such a controversy then it would have caused Hillary to be the President. The author explains that the election process is a cycle which each individual action by either candidate affects the candidates approval rating an amount that is directly correlated with how many votes they get. The poll cited in the author’s analysis shows that Trump’s decision to not release was an overwhelming unpopular move. That brings us to the author’s main points of the article: Trump’s tweet is an irrelevant conclusion because there are many issues and actions that occurred over the election cycle and the more issues and actions there are, the less weight

each issue carries making one thing alone impossible to get someone elected or not elected President and by clarifying that the action of not releasing his tax returns hurt not helped his chances for the Presidency. In “Justice Roberts said political science is ‘sociological gobbledygook.’ Here’s why he said it, and why he’s mistaken.” published by the Washington Post on October 4, 2017. Philip Rocco analyzes Chief Justice Roberts's rhetoric on the proposal of a quantitative measure to be used by the Court to see whether a redistricting plan benefits one party too heavily. Rocco begins his analysis by explaining how Gill v. Whitford was a political redistricting case about partisan gerrymandering in Wisconsin being reviewed by the supreme court. Then the author states how Justice Roberts's dismisses the validity of political science quantitative research that was proposal of a solution to stop gerrymandering in his comment referring to it as “sociological gobbledygook”(Rocco). Rocco defines political gerrymandering as, “legislators draw district lines to entrench their power and weaken that of their opponents”(Rocco). The author then states how the Supreme Court already reviewed whether the quantitative methods of research for redistricting is legitimate or not in the 2004 case of Vieth v. Jubelirer. Philip describes the outcome as not enough evidence to declare that gerrymandering is wrong which caused political scientists to research this area by finding cases of wrongful gerrymandering and stopping the parties ability to convert votes that came from gerrymandering into seats. The author elaborates on the increasing complexity and accuracy of quantitative methods since the supreme court outcome and reiterates the point that Justice Roberts’s is denying the legitimacy of a process that leads to facts. Rocco gives the example of how quantitative methods greatly benefits social science research and real life problems that, “Chief Justice Earl Warren relied heavily on social

science research by Kenneth Clark to refute the Plessy v. Ferguson doctrine of “separate but equal”(Rocco). The author goes onto explain how one of the most famous and controversial of it’s time court case was overturned relying heavily on the same methods that the Chief Justice is claiming to be nonsense. Philip Rocco explains how Chief Justice Roberts’s was mistaken when he called political science quantitative research “sociological gobbledygook”(Rocco). Chief Justice Robert’s justification for saying quantitative research is “sociological gobbledygook”(Rocco) is categorized as “you can’t prove a negative”. “You can’t prove a negative” falls under the logical fallacy argument from ignorance. According to fallacyfiles, the definition of argument from ignorance is “an appeal to ignorance is an argument for a conclusion based on a lack of evidence. There are two forms of the argument: affirmative, which is the conclusion is true because there is no evidence against and negative which is the conclusion is false because there is no evidence for it”(fallacyfiles). What Justice Roberts’s said is negative argument from ignorance because he is saying political science quantitative research does not actually represent or show you anything. Most social science experiments test to see whether something affects something else. The Center for Innovation in Research Training Grand Canyon University defines quantitative methods as, “Quantitative methods are used to examine the relationship between variables with the primary goal being to analyze and represent that relationship mathematically through statistical analysis. This is the type of research approach most commonly used in scientific research problems”(CIRTGCU). Quantitative research leads to facts, not opinions. That is where Chief Justice Roberts’s is wrong in what he said and why it is a logical fallacy.

In “How to Win the Battle of the Sexes Over Pay (Hint: It Isn’t Simple.)” published by the New York Times on November 10, 2017. Claudia Goldin states her outline for how to fix the gender gap in America. The author begins the article by giving a famous example of gender discrimination in employment: Billie Jean King won the United States Open singles tennis title in 1972 and received an award of $10,000 while Ilie Năstase, the male United States Open singles winner, won $25,000. Goldin states how although not as bad as 45 years ago, different treatment because of your gender and how much you make are still real examples of gender discrimination in America. The author continues to develop the point that the worst of gender inequality occurs in the workplace by giving the fact that, “women in 2016 earned 81 cents for each dollar earned by men, both working full-time”(Goldin). Furthermore, Claudia begins to develop a main point of the outline; there is ignorance to the origins of gender equality and what can be done to improve. The author clarifies how the issue is complex because of how many aspects such as the level of education, the area of the country, the time in their work life, and family. She then states how the main problems of the issue are “workplaces that pay more per hour to those who work longer and more uncertain hours, and households in which women have assumed disproportionately large responsibilities”(Goldin). That brings the author to her conclusion in that society will have to change in some ways to fix the problem of gender inequality. Gender issues have been around in America since our country started. Dating back to the constitution, the word “Man” is only used instead of person or Women. Up until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, women had little to no rights (Duncan). The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color,

religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement (Duncan). After that, women’s rights definitely improved all the way up until today there are still issues in gender equality. The main problems as stated in Goldin’s article is the workplace discrimination. The gender gap has yet to be completely filled and the worst is the dollar to dollar comparison from a man to a woman for the same job. Furthermore, sexual harassment has been becoming an increasing problem which affects Women a lot more proportionally than Men. With activists like Goldin and feminist groups, women will keep working on achieving full gender equality.              

    Works Cited: “CenterforInnovationinResearchandTeaching.”ResearchReady:QuantitativeResearchCenter forInnovationinResearchandTeaching,GrandCanyonUniversity, cirt.gcu.edu/research/developmentresources/research_ready/quantresearch.  Cillizza,Chris.“TheBigThingTrumpGetsWrongaboutHisTaxesandthe2016Election.”CNN, CableNewsNetwork,17Apr.2017, www.cnn.com/2017/04/17/politics/donaldtrumptaxes/index.html.  Downes,Stephen.“IrrelevantConclusions.”TheLogicalFallacies:IrrelevantConclusion(Ignoratio Elenchi),FallacyFiles,onegoodmove.org/fallacy/irrelev.htm.  Goldin,Claudia.“HowtoWintheBattleoftheSexesOverPay(Hint:ItIsn’tSimple.).”TheNewYork Times,TheNewYorkTimes,10Nov.2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/11/10/business/howtowinthebattleofthesexesoverpay.html?module= ArrowsNav&contentCollection=Business%2BDay&action=keypress®ion=FixedLeft&pgtype=article.  Rocco,Philip.“Analysis|JusticeRobertsSaidPoliticalScienceIs‘SociologicalGobbledygook.’ Here’sWhyHeSaidIt,andWhyHe’sMistaken.”TheWashingtonPost,WPCompany,4Oct.2017, www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkeycage/wp/2017/10/04/justicerobertssaidpoliticalscienceis

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