All month on cspan we are featuring the winners of our studentcam documentary competition. Middle and High School Students created videos answering the question, what issue do you most want the 2020 president ial candidates to address . Our second place prize goes to ella grace rodriguez, a student at Winter Park High School in winter park, lorida logical fallacies in political discourse. Take a look at the following video clips. It is pretty clear. Exactly what you would expect from a thinskinned, racist bully. Biden not let hunter come. If you will not bring the whistleblower forward every republican in congress should take a walk and say this is a farce. The common denominator is not age, gender, race, or even political affiliation. In fact, you cant even see it. It is a hidden virus. Were all prone to infection. The diagnosis . Logical fallacies. Logical fallacies in politics are not something you can look up online and expect results. They are embedded in our everyday lives. Often we dont see the irrationality of certain arguments or why we see that argument illogical. A logical fallacy is a formative argument that is not based in fact and rather it is intended to persuade an individual while not necessarily in a factual basis. The arguments are everywhere often because they are simple, accessible, and memorable. People will hang on to Something Like a personal attack against someone else rather than a real, substantive deconstruction of someone elses argument. It often takes a lot of time fold, a load of work, and a lot f connecting points. When you have someone with a logical fallacy, they are catchy, they are flashy. Logical fallacies are dangerous in that way. Show full text show less text for the upcoming 2020 election, we want candidates to answer the who, what, when, where, and why questions of issues important to us like climate change, health care care, gun control, or cyber security. It is how the candidates address these issues that influence the credibility of the information presented. It can cause dangerous and inflammatory side effects. Someone listening to the argument that doesnt want to put in the work and time will think that the persons logical fallacy is more memorable, those will be the one that people say that person won the argument. It is someone with a temperament of donald trump is not in charge of the law of our country. He should be in jail. Those are the kinds of acts that do not do us as informed voters any good. The president ial candidates are aware the fact that people might be ignorant or the assumption that they might be ignorant and ry to lead them. It is hard to pinpoint with the one reason or how we can truly solve that. It is a really big issue that has to be tackled. While there are dozens of logical fallacies, the most popular one in politics is ad hominem, or attacking the man. That is an easy way to try to discredit everything the person is going to say the rest of the time you listen to them. Once you categorize someone, once you say that person is a racist, well, im not listening anymore because they are a horrible person. If i categorize you i can only see you. Using a logical fallacy is the same as a virus. It spreads. Facebook and twitter social media and 24 hour, the soundbites, the headlines, and unfortunately the more technological we get, the more advanced we get, the more singularly focused we are on ideas and dont have to engage in political dialogue. The ability to have a platform, you have the ability to use logical fallacies in order to make an argument. It makes me think of it quickly spreading and damaging in some way. I think that is the way the internet has allowed logical fallacies to infect our thought. Youre not going to learn any factual issues and debate. You are going to see characters being attacked, which is why no one watches them anymore. What you watch is the post commentary. The debate is the cornerstone of democracy. If people go to the polls and dont understand who they are voting for, that puts our entire political system at risk. I hope we can deconstruct these fallacies or educate people enough to understand how to be a more concerned consumer of nformation and a more informed voter. Take this as a reflection of my vision for 2020. His course with civility and honor, win by logic, not deception. There may be differences of opinions regarding debates in todays media landscape, one thing remains clear. It is up to us as the voters of tomorrow to determine who wins our vote, more so by reason than contamination. And voters, heres the vaccine, be informed and vigilant. You never know what could be lurking behind the podium. Who knows . It could be infected. You can watch each winning student cam entry online at studentcam. Org. Good evening on this wednesday april 8. Ahead on our primetime edition of washington journal, we will be taking an in depth look at the search for a vaccine