Gotcha

[scarlettina]

Last night on Facebook, I found myself entangled in a political “debate” with a Trump supporter. About halfway through the conversation, after I linked to articles that proved that Trump had called Mexicans rapists and saying that women should be punished for having abortions, my opponent said that I was engaging in “gotcha” tactics that had no

Comments

[mevennen]

Well, if a politician says something and doesn't mean it, you've got some options: he's lying, or he's saying it for effect. I don't think either is ideal.

I don't know why producing evidence is a 'gotcha' except that Trump's supporters don't seem to be living in the same rational world as the rest of us: I have one FB friend who is a Trumpite, and she posted a thing recently about the Queen refusing to meet Obama. This is demonstrably untrue - the Queen was always supposed to meet him, there's no way she's going to be rude to the President of the US. And I showed her an article which said all that, to which she replied 'Yes, I saw that, but I preferred the other article.'

You can't debate with someone who doesn't understand how reason works, and who thinks that rational argument is entirely subjective, because I think that's what's going on here.

[redaxe]

You're by far not the only one to encounter closed-minded Trump disciples saying that he doesn't mean what he says. Otherwise we wouldnt have this cartoon