Author’s note: This is the analysis of one round of the 2024 Presidential debate between Biden and Trump. It is linked from a more comprehensive article.
Question: (To Biden) What do you say to black voters who are disappointed that you haven’t made more progress?
(BIDEN says he doesn’t blame them and that inflation has hurt them, but he thens champions his tax credit and loan forgiveness programs that have helped offset the cost of inflation. He also touted the increase in black-owned business during his term, and his efforts to reduce the child-care)
TRUMP: And he caused the inflation. He’s blaming inflation. And he’s right, it’s been very bad. He caused the inflation and it’s killing black families and Hispanic families and just about everybody. It’s killing people. They can’t buy groceries anymore. They can’t.
You look at the cost of food where it’s doubled and tripled and quadrupled. They can’t live. They’re not living anymore. He caused this inflation.
I gave him a country with no, essentially no inflation. It was perfect. It was so good. All he had to do is leave it alone. He destroyed it with his green new scam and all of the other – all this money that’s being thrown out the window.
Non responsive even in rebuttal. The question is the disparity between black families and white families. Yes, Biden talks about offsetting the cost of inflation, but Trump doesn’t even answer that. He triggers off the word inflation.
This is called the straw man fallacy, or claiming your opponent made a claim they didn’t make, so you can knock it down. Biden doesn’t blame inflation. He admits it’s hurt black families and discusses how he’s offset rising costs, regardless of what caused them.
It’s a repeat argument. We’ve heard this before when he doesn’t want to answer the question.
Lie 1: There is no link between inflation and deaths in communities of color. Rising costs force families to buy less nutritious food, and loss of nutrition probably causes declines in health, but that’s a quantum leap to killing people.
Lie 2: Food inflation hasn’t “doubled and tripled and quadrupled.” At its peak, the cost of food rose by 25%. That’s still a lot, but a quarter of Trump’s most modest claim.
Ad hominem. He slips in another red herring, “green new scam” without even explaining what he means. But the word “scam” makes the statement pejorative.
“Money thrown out the window” is a vague assertion, implying the administration wasted money, but never explains what money or how they wasted it. People differ over the value of budget expenditures. Some might argue Trump charging the Secret Service inflated prices to stay at Mar-A-Lago because he wanted to golf was a waste of money.
He caused inflation. As sure as you’re sitting there, the fact is that his big kill on the black people is the millions of people that he’s allowed to come in through the border. They’re taking black jobs now and it could be 18. It could be 19 and even 20 million people. They’re taking black jobs and they’re taking Hispanic jobs and you haven’t seen it yet, but you’re going to see something that’s going to be the worst in our history.
This is another lie. Economists suggest there’s little correlationbetween immigration and employment in black communities. Lower black employment rates are more likely caused by racial discrimination, lack of access to education, and disproportionate imprisonment of Blacks.
The number 18-20 million jobs lost would be a gross exaggeration even if he established a correlation. When you consider that black employees constitute 13 percent of a workforce of 168 million, 20 million would be almost the entire black workforce.
Hyperbole
Still non-responsive.
Begs the question. None of these address the disparity between black and white families. The question is not about black joblessness, but income disparity.