Rhetorical Dilemma on Covid 19 Analysis

User Generated

Ebv07

Health Medical

Description

Select a current rhetorical dilemma from pop culture or current events. 

Write a 5-page research paper through which you apply critical reasoning to analyze and explain it. 

1or 3 fallacies that happened and how would you respond to it

Explanation & Answer:
5 pages
User generated content is uploaded by users for the purposes of learning and should be used following Studypool's honor code & terms of service.

Explanation & Answer

View attached explanation and answer. Let me know if you have any questions.

1

Rhetorical Dilemma on COVID-19

Name
Institution
Instructor
Course
Date

2
Rhetorical Dilemma on COVID-19
Since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (SARS-Cov-2), medical health
misinformation has exponentially grown, especially on the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and
the vaccines that were later introduced to combat the virus. It has become increasingly difficult
to assess and evaluate accurate health information considering that a lot of misinformation
spreads spontaneously via social media (van der Linden et al., 2020). Much misinformation
about COVID-19 is shared by friends, families, and people we love and can trust and is
emotionally charged, making it easy to believe without thinking much about it or examining the
facts. Essentially, evaluating information critically and validating it is crucial in making a
decision based on scientific information. During this COVID-19 pandemic, I have come across
false dilemma fallacy, casual fallacy, and slippery slope argument.
When the COVID-19 pandemic kicked in by the summer of 2020, the president, Donald
Trump, watered down its impacts terming it as just flu. By the end of the year, coronavirus had
infected over five million American individuals, and over 160 thousand people had died of the
virus. The US suffered more than other countries, with a death ratio of 42.8 deaths per 100,000
people and a case-fatality of 4.48% (Raymond, 2020). Even after the death rate rose to five times
more than the global value, President Donald Trump continued denying the weight of the virus
through his exaggeration, obfuscation, and fabrication tactics. He indeed encouraged COVID-19
misinformation and misleading claims, and many people became reluctant to respond to
coronavirus. President Trump used dilemmas constructions that significantly influenced how
Americans responded to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Most importantly, he took people's attention from serious issues affecting the country and
helped him dodge some topics of public interest. He saw economic growth as essential to his

3
political endeavor; hence he suppressed the support for health policies, including closing schools,
temporarily closing businesses, and suspending gatherings, sports, and religious gatherings. He
indeed made people believe that restrictions and commercial lockdowns were detrimental to
economic growth, which indeed is. Still, he encouraged people to continue with their operations
normally at the expense of losing their lives. Although COVID-19 restrictions affected the
economy adversely, they were crucial in managing the transmission of the virus and would have
seen a significantly lower number of deaths in the US.
President Donald Trump faced a rhetorical dilemma when the number of deaths soared
beyond his expectations. Pressure to close businesses from the states' governors and international
bodies intensified, forcing him to take decisive action. He declared a national emergency,
although he made attempts to favor economic advances, risking American citizens' lives. For
example, in March 2020, President Trump made a controversial twit on his Twitter handle, "We
cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself," moments after declaring that his priority
was to protect the lives of the Americans (Raymond, 2020). Indeed, he proceeded to press some
governors to end their stay-at-home policies that restricted gatherings citing that it would result
in volatile financial markets, weak consumer demands, high-unemployment rates, and disrupted
supply chains. He employed emotionally charged words to reinforce his solution of choice in
response to coronavirus. For example, in July 2020, President Donald Trump called upon
protesters in Virginia, Michigan, and Minnesota to "liberate" their states from quarantines and
lockdowns, arguing that 99% of coronavirus cases were "totally harmless" (Kessler, 2020). He
indeed downplayed the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic by informing his followers that
staying at home was likely to cause more deaths that would result from mental strain and
depression compared to deaths caused by a coronavirus.

4
Similarly, Trey Hollingsworth, a US Congressman, used the false dilemma fallacy in his
preference of running the economy to prevent the spread of coronavirus. He asserted that
reopening the economy was a lesser evil. In his statement, choosing between losing our ways of
life and the loss of life, losing our ways of life is a more severe option; hence, we had to choose
the latter. These political leaders played on people who were unaware of the severity of the
COVID-19 pandemic, calling upon them to risk their lives to save the economy. In this sense,
their information and call of action were misleading because increased interacti...


Anonymous
Very useful material for studying!

Studypool
4.7
Trustpilot
4.5
Sitejabber
4.4

Similar Content

Related Tags