Argue the Point, Not the Person is Killing Democracy

The greatest trick the devil ever played on the world was convincing it that ad hominem attacks were always bad. And that trick is killing our democracy.

Donald Trump has invaded the District of Columbia. He is lying about crime in the city to justify forcing troops onto the city streets and is now stating outright that he intends to do the same in other Democratic run cities, using the same lies about crime. This is after the GOP has made a sport out of insulting cities and urban Americans for, well, probably as close to as long as I have been alive. And yet, the media and a significant portion of the opposition party still take the justifications at face value. Why?

“Argue the point, not the person” is a significant part of why.

There are a lot of reasons our press, opposition party, and centers of research are handling the reality of the modern GOP poorly, but one of them is the institutional bias toward taking arguments seriously. This comes, in part, from a rejection of the idea that anyone should have their ideas privileged, that the best refutation of an idea is the one that argues against its strongest form. Some of this comes from a noble reason, but it is completely misguided in this age.

Experts do deserve more respect in their fields than lay people. I am not qualified to make medical decisions, so when medical professionals tell me that the COVID vaccines are generally safe, those arguments should be privileged over mine. Is it possible I am right? In this case, no, but let us say sure for the sake of argument. Since I have no scientific background, like the vast majority of MAHA advocates, I should have to produce significant, verifiable evidence. I should not have my views presented as plausible or equal to those of experts just because I am on the other side of the issue. When my views do appear, it should be crystal clear that I have no evidence backing them. It is entirely appropriate to point out that I am full of shit. More than that, it is a requirement.

Similarly, Donald Trump is a known liar. His use of false statistics should be enough for reporters to call his reasons pre-textual. But he has a history of fraud in business, of lying about political matters, and of professing admiration for dictators and their actions. It is insane that Democratic consultants and prestige editors and columnists suggest that the Democrats should focus on the issue of crime in this situation. It is insane that people treat Trump’s justifications as believable when they clearly are lies. Trump is lying in order to justify his attempt to impose his will on parts of the country that stand up to him.

These good faith attempts to deal with the world do come from decent places. Experts are not always right. “You are a poopyhead” is not really an argument, even if you are in fact a poopyhead. But we have taken these principles too far. No, experts are not always right, but that does not mean that their critics are either. Pretending that reporting the controversy is reporting has led us to a world where cancer curing vaccines are pulled because people are allowed to believe that mRNA technology is harmful. Treating the justifications of a liar as reasonable has led to troops on American streets with almost no elite pushback.

Not everyone argues in good faith. Ad hominem attacks, pointing out that someone is a liar and therefore their arguments should be examined for ulterior motives are not worth taking at face value, is good. Insisting that people who would overturn the scientific consensus justify their arguments instead of just presenting them as equivalent, is good. By removing these simple heuristics form our toolbox, we allow people acting in bad faith free reign to poison the discussions. We have retreated from these principles for perhaps good motives, but we have allowed the desire to be fair to tip us into facilitating bad people making bad arguments in order to do bad things.

We do not have to take people acting in bad faith at their word. We do not have to pretend that every argument is the equal of every other. We do not have to treat nonsense as if it was a logical, coherent position. We can look at liars and fools, and know that they are liars and fools, and use that knowledge to help judge their arguments. We can defend ourselves from bullshit and the bullshitters. We must, if we want our democracy to recover.