Since the election, friends of mine have shared sentiments like, “either you voted for Clinton or you voted for a racist.” Or, they draw a more provocative line, saying “either you stood against Trump or you are a racist.”
Whether these conversations take place in-person or on the rough seas of social media, they are volatile. Some object that the attitude expressed by the disjunctions presents a false choice. One way to argue that the disjunction is false is to point out that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were not the only two candidates for President on the ballot; one may have voted for Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, or anyone else by writing in a name.
Other ways to object are to deny that Trump is racist or to claim that Hillary is. Some object to the logic of the disjunction, saying that voting for Trump did not amount to an act of racism. And, having witnessed more than one of these conversations play out on Facebook, many others object to the personal address. That is, they don’t like the “you voted for a racist” any more than the “you are a racist.” Not surprisingly, one who objects to racism in principle does not like to be told that she is a racist or told that what she is doing is racist.
After a campaign in which Trump impugned the judgement of Mexicans, challenged the sitting President’s natural citizenship simply because of his race, and equated Muslims with terrorists, it is clear that racism and bigotry played a role in the recent Presidential election. Trump only half-heartedly condemned the KKK when they endorsed his campaign. And if he entertains people like Steve Bannon and Joe Arpaio while assembling the White House staff and cabinet, then it is reasonable to conclude that racism will play a role in his tenure as President.
In my Critical Thinking class, we recently covered the disjunctive syllogism. It is a method of argumentation that takes the following form: it is either the case that proposition A is true or proposition B is true; I know that A is false, so B must be true.
The disjunctive syllogism is the form of some of the most polarizing political rhetoric. “Love it or leave it.” “Either you support the President or you are unpatriotic.” “You stand for the national anthem or you disrespect military veterans.”
It is perhaps fitting that that the logical operator for a disjunction is referred to as a wedge and is most often represented in typeface as a lowercase v. In class, we practice writing the forms of arguments, and the form of the disjunctive syllogism shows its wedge. A v B; ~A; Therefore, B. If Trump’s campaign rhetoric set a divisive wedge in our national politics, then his election pounded that wedge into place.
But not all disjunctive syllogisms are false choices. From my third-floor classroom, I used the following example. To get to class today, my students took either the stairs or the elevator. Today, the stairwell was closed for painting. So, I can reasonably deduce that my students used the elevator.
That is, if the disjunction captures the full range of possibilities, then the disjunction holds.
The rising number of hate crimes portend the continuing struggle in the days ahead. There is no inoculation against the plague of racism. The only means of resistance are active and regular.
It is difficult to capture what motivates voters at the polls, but for any Trump supporter who thinks that voting is a race-neutral activity, try on the following disjunctive syllogism. It may not make you feel any better about your vote, but this one captures the possibilities we face in our everyday interactions.
Either you stand against racism, or you enable it.
