Why 2020 ‘Election Denialism’ Is Not Denialism at All: The Democrats’ election integrity arguments are built on a glaring logical fallacy

American Thinker ^ | 04/24/2024 | By Tom G.K. Swift

[SeekAndFind]

The penultimate stolen-election argument of Democrats is roughly as follows.

Premise 1: Trump says the 2020 election was stolen.

Premise 2: Trump’s testimony is untrustworthy.

Premise 3: It's unreasonable to accept testimony that’s untrustworthy.

Conclusion: It’s unreasonable to believe that the 2020 election was stolen.

The conclusion doesn’t quite follow, because even if Trump’s testimony were untrustworthy, Dave’s testimony might be trustworthy, even though Dave is another “election denier.” (It’s a sign of Trump Derangement Syndrome that Democrats totally believe arguments like this.) Anyway, this penultimate Democrat argument leads right on to their ultimate argument, in which the conclusion of the first argument becomes a premise.

Premise 1: It’s unreasonable to believe that the 2020 election was stolen. Premise 2: The unreasonableness of a belief is an indication of the presumptive falsity of the belief.

Conclusion: The 2020 election presumptively was not stolen.

For Democrats and other anti-Trump types, this is the considered (although generally implicit) view, with “presumptively” as a qualifier because that’s what strictly follows from the second premise, and also because it’s necessitated by the woefully inadequate election fraud investigations of the government. The latter alone makes it impossible to justify the stronger claim that the election wasn’t stolen, period.

This argument is, however, little more than a magic trick. Logically, it’s a fallacy.

The informal logical fallacy here is that of begging the question. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy explains that this is where a “circular argument has been used to disguise or cover up a failure to fulfill a burden of proof.” Such a failure occurs when “the conclusion that was supposed to be proved is presumed within the premises to be granted by the respondent of the argument.” (The respondent is the person to whom the argument is addressed.)

[SeekAndFind]

Plainly, the special counsel, Jack Smith, is on perilous logical ground in his election case indictments. The premise that it’s unreasonable to believe that the 2020 election was stolen takes for granted that the election presumptively was not stolen, instead of proving it by properly fulfilling the burden of proof. Smith, as an avid proponent of the Democrats’ ultimate argument, is trying to force us to accede to his conclusion (“Don’t be a dummy who thinks the election was stolen”) without making it seem as though he is doing anything argumentatively improper.

The fallacy essentially involves using a sophistical tactic to shut off criticism about the conclusion of the argument — namely, that the 2020 election is to be presumed not to have been stolen. The unreasonableness postulate — Premise 1, in the ultimate argument — effectively blocks the demand to find independent evidence. The matter has been decided; to talk of a stolen 2020 election is election denialism. Or so we are supposed to believe, and without any further discussion.

[Verginius Rufus]

Who’s Dave? Dave’s not here.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: Who’s Dave? Dave’s not here.

Dave represents millions of “election deniers”

[packagingguy]

Trump is being tried right now for, among other things, interfering with the 2016 election by supposedly falsifying business records linking him to Stormy Daniels.

So on one hand, one can interfere with elections, on the other hand elections are secure and interference is impossible.

Which one is it?

[TheConservator]

I used to believe in the legitimacy of elections because all loyal Americans respected the sanctity of elections.

What’s changed is that I no longer consider the overwhelming majority of the left loyal Americans.

[logi_cal869]

Gotta be David Pecker.

Re "Dave's testimony" being 'trustworthy' to dem (il)logical arguments:

David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, testified about how his newspaper may have influenced the 2016 presidential election by stifling news that was detrimental to the candidate.

Tabloid Publisher David Pecker Testifies He Helped Bury Stories Alleging Trump’s Sexual Misdemeanors

[T. Rustin Noone]

There is another argument to be made that does not require a
syllogistic understanding of logic.

If I have to accept the result of the 2020 election as being
free and fair, what do I have to ignore or deny?

I would have to ignore the fact that Biden campaigned from his basement.

I would have to deny the differential in enthusiasm between Trump and Biden:
Trump attracted 1.25 million to his rallies
Biden attracted 2500

I would have to deny the evidence of my own eyes that revealed
that virtually simultaneously at 3:00AM in Arizona, Georgia,
Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, ballot counting stopped
for two hours with Trump ahead in each of these states. When
it resumed, Biden was comfortably ahead.

And on and on and on ...

[Fledermaus]

They will do and say anything to cover up the big steal.

[Fledermaus]

Dont....answer...the....phone

I got it!

[Fledermaus]

And that a nation that votes at around 60% turnout all of a sudden became 85% plus.

That Biden got more votes in areas, big time, than Obama.

[CMailBag]

The Democraps have been denying every election where is Republican is elected since Nixon in 1968...

[Fledermaus]

So true. Probably even Eisenhower in 52.

They went further than denying in 1860.

[Political Junkie Too]

Thanks. I was going to say that, but you said it better than I would have.

-PJ

[Fledermaus]

👍

[Verginius Rufus]

Suppressing knowledge of Hunter’s laptop and its contents in 2020 was OK, though, even though Biden would have lost bigly if the public had been informed.

[MikelTackNailer]

The lie is reinforced everywhere the leftist media dictates the overall premise.

Just yesterday I was looking up "Libs of Tik Tok" on Wikipedia to confirm they were a right-wing group against the LGBT agenda and found the following:

"Raichik (founder of the site) downplayed the severity of COVID-19, promoted the dis-proven conspiracy theory that the 2020 United States presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump through election fraud."

They're purposely using Goebbels' tactic of repeating a lie often enough to have the majority eventually take it as truth.

[logi_cal869]

Likewise.

And, to the best of my knowledge, no court has yet permitted the long list of collective evidence of 2020 election fraud to be presented.

[otness_e]

Agreed, though the funny thing is, Goebbels wasn’t even the first to coin that phrase. Vladimir Lenin apparently coined the phrase well before him. And there’s evidence that it came straight from the likes of Voltaire and his ilk.

[MikelTackNailer]

I suspect it goes back to pre-history.

"Og tell tribe over and over Lug's mate a slut. Tribe laugh at Lug. Lug got mad then sad, jumped off mammoth cliff. Now Og have Lug's mate AND stuff for Og!"