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Doctors told Pelosi of concern for Trump’s mental health, ex-speaker says in book
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2024
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OK, so there are two options there.
One, is you listen to doctors about Trump being unfit but not about Pelosi being too old.
Two is you listen to doctors about Trump being unfit AND about Pelosi being too old.
In both of those scenarios you listen to doctors about Trump being unfit. So it's your prerogative to extend that to Pelosi or not, which I don't particularly care about, but that doesn't change the point about Trump.
Still not how logic or reality work.
My wife studied psychology in college and has tried numerous times to explain "confirmation bias" to me in a way that I could come up with a conceivable example.
I think this is a good example of confirmation bias
It's not confirmation bias, it's a rudimentary undersanding of how political messaging works.
That's a really confusing response. Rudimentary understandings of political messaging have nothing to do with logical fallacies or biases.
Let's first get this out of the way: I don't think I've heard any credible doctors say that Pelosi is showing signs of concerning cognitive decline. Highly respected and trusted doctors have said that and more about Trump, on the other hand.
In no way are any of my statements intended to support Trump. I'll take Pelosi's insider-trading any day over Trump's attempts to incite a civil war for personal gain.
Getting back to the argument at hand, let's break things down into less loaded terms:
A is a trusted and respected source of information whose opinion must be taken into account. A says that B and C are problematic and should be replaced.
Factoring in what A has said, B and C have both been similarly weighed down by A's analysis and both should be equally considered for replacement.
Now, let's consider other factors. After careful observation, you've noticed that B has crapped itself and is on fire. C, on the other hand, appears to be fine.
When considering which to replace between B and C, the obvious answer is B and B absolutely should be thrown out and used as an example to avoid anything like B ever happening again. After this careful consideration, then you can factor in A's opinion on C and decide if A's opinion is concerning enough to follow.
What you've suggested though is that because B is covered in shit and on fire, that A's opinion of B must be taken seriously and any opinions of A's about C carry less weight. You're letting B's shit-n-fire status influence A's validity.
You can't do that, though. Well, you can, but your arguments won't be taken seriously and any influence you hoped to have in swaying people's opinions will actually serve counter to your intents.
So, while I don't agree with @givesomefucks@lemmy.world's "no u" sort of statement and worry about it eroding very serious concerns people should have about Trump, I have to say that you're not helping. Your conclusion is correct: Trump is a shit-covered flaming sack of senility. But your argument of "A's equal opinions of B and C can be disregarded for C because B is bad" provides ammo to those would claim, "don't listen to @MudMan@fedia.io, they use illogical and bad-faith arguments."
So, if doctors who are medically motivated, not politically, are saying that they're concerned about Trump and Pelosi, then you have to treat these concerns the same.
You can either
By trying to have your cake and eat it too, you're revealing your unreliability and biases. Not only that, but your willingness to accept arguments against Trump and then disregard the same arguments against Pelosi, I believe you're falling into the trappings of confirmation bias. If you want to disprove those arguments against Pelosi by showing that no credible news source has been approached by doctors who have argued anything about her except to disprove the edited "drunk Pelosi" video, then that's a great way to accept medical opinions and bolster arguments about political messaging.
But by saying "it's your prerogative to extend that [medical opinion] to Pelosi or not, which I don't particularly care about" on the foundation of a "rudimentary understanding of how political messaging works," you are using your logic to shit the sheets while we're all in bed together.
Clean up your arguments before you cause more damage.
I am not even dignifying that with the one line of engagement I gave to the previous one. Talk about not understanding messaging.
To clarify, I think anyone over 80 (even Bernie) is too old to hold important political office.
What I'm saying is when Pelosi says trump is too old, it means as much to the average person as if Trump says Pelosi is too old.
Anyone under 70 is free to shout it from the mountain tops. And even Jimmy Carter since he's not holding office.
Do you not understand why Pelosi saying this won't change a single person's mind?
The only people who tolerate hypocrisy, are voting trump.
Pelosi saying this wouldn't change anybody's mind if she was a teenager. Constant reinforcement from multiple sources and repeated reasons for the narrative to be present in media may change the perception over time.
The headline is the goal here. The headline exists, the goal is accomplished. Now you need a few hundred headlines like that one from different sources based on different causes.
Just to be absolutely clear, Pelosi was a major player in doing this exact thing to Biden. It was less than two weeks ago. We need to start having some object persistence at some point.
You're thinking of "change someone's mind" like, convince them to change their vote.
I'm talking "change someone's mind" as in getting someone to vote who currently thinks both sides are the same.
Look at Kamala, she's pretty much saying the same stuff Biden was saying about trump. But because she's a functional adult it means more and people are jumping out of the woodworks to endorse her...
That's a huge example of how the person saying something matters.
It certainly is a huge example of how the person running matters, and of how this stuff is, unfortunately, a matter of perception.
Which is to say, there is now a big incentive for all dems to keep hammering on the obvious point that Trump was a barely functioning idiot at his best and now he's an old barely functioning idiot. The age of the person saying it only matters if you're going to get in an argument about it, but if Pelosi's book can get this into a headline, it's certainly a valid hit on that front.
Because, again, if you're a normie willing to vote democrat that is driven by image, not policy, it is way more relevant to get the message on as many places and as frequently as possible, nuance be damned.
And if you're not, and you want to argue on the merits of the argument and not do armchair political strategy on the Internet, the fact that Trump is entirely unfit for the job is obvious in any case.
But of the people who haven't decided to vote, how many would hear of this?
How many are reading political articles but can't decide who to vote for?
This ain't outreach, it's inreach. Which isn't even a word, because it's a pointless endeavor
It's The Guardian. It's sitting right there on the cover of the US edition right below their live politics ticker currently titled "Trump criticized by Republicans and Democrats after questioning Harris’s racial identity – live".
I'm gonna guess tons of people saw that headline, read it, and that was the last piece of engagement they had with this.
Which is why you need one of these up on major newspapers every day.
You think the majority of Americans who aren't already voting read Newspapers everyday?
Specifically a British one?
I'm not going to spend anymore time explaining this, it's clearly not working.
That pice is actually not in the UK edition. The Guardian publishes a specific edition for the US, hence the American spelling on that one. My understanding is they have some reach, apparently. You made me look it up, their advertising brochure has them being about half the size of the Washington Post in the US.
Not that it matters for the issue at hand, but it's an interesting factoid.