From the article:
https://effectiviology.com/false-equivalence/
"False equivalence is a logical fallacy that occurs when someone incorrectly asserts that two or more things are equivalent, simply because they share some characteristics, despite the fact that there are also notable differences between them. For example, a false equivalence is saying that cats and dogs are the same animal, since they’re both mammals and have a tail. False equivalences...generally exaggerate similarities and ignore important differences...
The equivalence exaggerates the degree of similarity between the things being equated...The equivalence exaggerates the importance of the similarity between the things being equated...The equivalence ignores important differences between the things being equated...The equivalence ignores differences in orders of magnitude between the things being equated..."
Me:
"All politicians are shady (or corrupt or cynical or two-faced etc.)" is a very commonly referenced false equivalency.
Arguably most politicians are a bit shady or cynical but stopping there is not only lazy but generally inaccurate. Ronald Reagan did some shady stuff with Iran-Contra but it was not Watergate. Bill Clinton was fellated extramaritally (and lied about it) near the oval office but I would argue that was nowhere near as corrosive as the Russian related moves perpetrated by Trump as outlined in the Mueller report and other sources.
Many currently believe Trump is merely a partisan Potus. I would argue he is something worse, far worse. For example, many political appointees have baggage but few have as much or extreme as those Trump is trying to inject into our government (https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/22/politics/john-gibbs-opm-kfile/index.html).
The result is too often folks argue with the "yeah but" or perhaps "but waddabout" or "they all do it" whatever that might be. And that is as far as they go before feeling they have rebutted an argument and want to move on and accept the actions of their favorite politician. In the case of Trump, making appointments with personnel who lack qualifications, are more so than ever mostly not only partisan but about specific loyalty to Trump and frankly kinda or a lot kooky.
The article goes on to bring up the dreaded "false balance" starting with a great quote:
“If one person says that it’s raining and another person says that it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both. It’s your job to look out the window and find out which is true.”— Attributed to Journalism Studies lecturer Jonathan Foster
News talk is rife with false balance. Fox in particular loves it. Everyone knows Sean Hannity but perhaps folks are forgetting he started as half of the "Hannity and Colmes" duo. The late Alan Colmes seemed nice enough but he was a poodle to Hannity's alpha dog but it permitted Fox to tout their alleged "balance". Other networks do it CNN perhaps most famously. But a show that brings on credentialed proponent on one side and a kooky hack on the other achieves the daily double a false equivalence whilst pursuing false balance and that is why amongst many reasons these cheaply produced talking head shows are worse than worthless they are misleading.
I will end this post with these two grabs:
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