Endorsing Trump: Ben Carson’s Fallacious Reasoning

Ben Carson shocked many of his supporters when he endorsed
Donald Trump for president. The guy who was running a campaign on ethics and
morality stabbed his admirers in the back. But don’t worry, he had reasons.

Though Carson seemed like a nice guy, I never thought much
of his candidacy because he didn’t demonstrate that he was prepared for the
demands of the presidency. He sounded naïve, and he often got his historical
facts wrong. Now with his endorsement of Donald Trump, I can add poor reasoning
skills to my list of criticisms. He’s probably a good doctor, but he’s proven
himself to be a political simpleton. Let me analyze three of Carson’s
fallacious reasons for supporting Trump.

The first reason for supporting Trump: Carson said that “the
people have spoken” and that if we ignore their voice we imperil our nation. He
warned Republicans that if we do not unify behind Trump then our party will be
ripped apart. America’s in a dangerous place because political operatives are
trying to thwart the will of the people.

Have “the people spoken”? Decidedly not. Trump has gained a
plurality of the votes cast in primaries up to this point, but that doesn’t
mean that Republicans have embraced him. Carson should note that votes cast for
“not Trump” candidates are actually the majority of votes cast. In a normal
election cycle with a normal candidate, one could make the case that Trump’s
plurality should give him the edge, but this isn’t a normal primary and Trump
is not a normal candidate. A crowded Republican field made Trump’s plurality
possible because voters split over who should represent the party. One would
expect the front-runner to gain in the polls as candidates dropped out of the
race, but that hasn’t happened for Trump. Actually we’ve seen the reverse.
Every time a candidate drops out, the other “non Trump” candidates get bumps.
RealClearPolitics polls show that Trump’s support has remained in the mid
thirties over the last three months in spite of the fact that eight candidates
have left the race. Over the same time frame Cruz, Rubio, and Kasich have seen
gains–substantial gains in the cases of Rubio and Kasich.

Trump is such a polarizing figure that it is a mistake for
Carson to give his plurality much weight. The “non Trump” voters are a voting
block. As candidates leave the race, their supporters coalesce around someone
else who isn’t Trump. If a voter hasn’t been seduced to the Trump-side yet, it
probably isn’t going to happen. Trump has enjoyed a consistent plurality, but
there’s good reason to think that the majority of the people have spoken with
their votes against Trump as representing the Republican Party in the general
election.

The people haven’t “spoken” as Carson suggests, but even if
they have, who cares? Dr. Carson, if all your friends jump off a bridge, are
you going to do it too? It’s fallacious to think that the people are always
right.

Trump’s a demagogue, and Republicans haven’t traditionally
embraced demagogues–leaders who just tell the people whatever they want to
hear. Leaders are leaders if they do exactly what a plurality of voters want
them to. They’re slaves to popular opinion.

In America we use some modified democratic processes to
select the leaders who will run our country, but conservatives should be wary
of the idea of vox populi vox Dei.

Leaders should lead, not follow the latest poll, and in the
past Republicans have attempted to nominate men of vision and character. Sometimes
the whims of the crowd are wrong, and sometimes a leader needs to tell the
people that their fears are unjustified. Leaders do what they think is best for
the country within the confines of the law, but demagogues do what a plurality
of voters wish so they can garner applause and stay in power.

If Carson were right–which he’s not–and “the people have
spoken,” that doesn’t mean that the people are right. Donald Trump is not a man
of vision and character. He’s a short-sighted, self-interested demagogue who
has demonstrated a lack of morality in both his business dealings and personal
life. He might be rich, he might be entertaining, but he’d be a disaster as
president.

The second reason for supporting Trump: Carson thinks that
Trump can “break the stranglehold of special interest groups and the political
class.” Carson parrots the line that Trump isn’t in the pockets of lobbyists
because he’s supposedly self-funding his campaign. Therefore, Trump can be
trusted to speak the truth. This claim, like most things Trump says, is a half
truth at best. Most of the money spent by Trump’s campaign has merely been
loaned to the campaign by Trump. Trump has the option to reverse course, take
huge donations, and pay himself back at any time. He could have given the money
to his campaign outright, but he didn’t. However, even if Trump didn’t spend a
cent of anyone else’s money (which he already has), it’s a logical fallacy to
claim that Trump speaks the truth because he’s not in the pockets of special
interests. A candidate can tell lies or be wrong whether or not he takes big
donations.

Not taking money from special interests is actually a form
of anti-intellectualism. Essentially Trump is saying that he’s not going to align
himself with anyone who’s an expert on policy. Trump and Carson present special
interest groups as a bad thing, but these are the people who spend their lives
promoting a cause. Some of these causes are quite noble. Whether one agrees
with a lobbyist or not, chances are they know a lot more about their issue than
the average voter. Demagogues, like Trump, try to exploit the fear that someone
somewhere might be smarter than you.

The issue isn’t whether or not a candidate takes money from
special interests. It’s which special interests give money to a candidate. Not
all special interests are alike. Does a candidate take money from Planned
Parenthood? What about SEIU? If so, that tells us something important about
that candidate. On the other hand, if a candidate is in the pockets of pro-life
groups or organizations devoted to fiscal responsibility, is that such a bad
thing? Perhaps voters should be wary of a candidate who doesn’t take money from
lobbyists. How can we know what the candidate stands for? One reason why Trump isn’t
getting cash from big-money donors is that they’re not offering. Conservative
groups aren’t dumping cash into the Trump campaign because Trump doesn’t align
with traditional conservative values on economic policy or on social issues.

Instead of buying into the fallacious rhetoric of Carson and
other Trump endorsers, voters ought to think about which special interests align
with their values and then support the candidates that those lobbyists support.

The third reason for supporting Trump: Carson tells us that
we need to unite the party to defeat Hillary Clinton. Carson isn’t alone in
saying that defeating Hillary in November is the most important thing, but
Carson went so far as to say that Hillary was only two steps removed from the
Devil himself. Carson asks if America can afford to be led by someone in league
with Satan.

This beat-Hillary-at-all-costs rhetoric disturbs me. A
Democratic victory in November would not be the worst possible thing to happen
to this country. It would be much worse if the conservative movement abandoned
its principles to win a single election. What would we then be left with?

We tell our children, “Winning isn’t everything.” We also
tell them, “It’s not whether you win or lose; it’s how you play the game.” We
try to cultivate in our children a sense of fair play and integrity. We
recognize that even in war there are some things that just shouldn’t be done.
Americans believe in principles, and conservative Americans cherish certain
core values and believe in traditions that are worth preserving.

And now it seems that Ben Carson wants us to throw it all
away.

Would another Clinton presidency be worse than losing the
soul of the conservative movement? I think not. Perhaps losing the 2016
election would actually be a boon to conservatism. After all, everyone knows
that we learn more in defeat than we do in victory. Perhaps over the next eight
years conservatives could develop a thoughtful and persuasive alternative to
the insanity that currently passes for American political discourse.

I’d like for a conservative to win the presidency in 2016,
but Trump is not a conservative, no matter what Carson says. He’s not a
conservative in either in the fiscal or social sense of the word. If my choice
ends up being between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, I will not vote for
either. I’m not an idealist who must vote for the perfect candidate. I’ve voted
for people whom I have been less than happy about supporting, but sometimes my
conscience forbids me to vote for certain candidates. To go against conscience
is neither right nor safe.

I’m sure Ben Carson is a nice man, but he has fallen for
Trump’s empty sales pitch, and he offers us fallacious reasons to do the same. When
people try to stop Trump, it does not thwart the political process; it’s part
of our political process. Trump’s lack of money from special interest groups
will not ensure good decision making; in fact, it could hurt it. And President
Hillary Clinton wouldn’t be the worst thing this country has experienced. It
would be much worse if Americans consigned their values to the dustbin because
they hope for some short-term political gain.

Collin Garbarino is an assistant professor of history at Houston Baptist University. He enjoys discussing church history, mystery novels, and Louisiana culture. His favorite conversation partners are his wife and four children