Denning criticizes Trump's "drill, baby, drill" line

Analyzing the article

straw man
ad hominem

Our Analysis: 2 Fallacies


In between winning the Republican Iowa caucuses and then flying to New York for his latest court trial, former President Donald Trump found a few moments to weigh in on energy policy:

We're going to 1 drill, baby, drill right away.

2 That it still springs so readily to the lips of the presumptive GOP nominee

perhaps says something about those lips…

…Drill, baby, drill?

Come on.

US oil and gas production have never been higher.

The big change under Biden concerns clean technology and, in particular, building the capacity to produce zero-carbon energy and the supply chain behind that...

Investment in cleantech has, on an annualized basis, roughly doubled.

This is nothing short of transformational.

The thing about "drill, baby, drill" isn't just that it's out of date; it was always political drivel.



1. Straw Man The author seems to be simplifying the Republican position on energy policy with the phrase "drill, baby, drill" and then arguing against that simplified position. This is a straw man fallacy insofar as the energy policy of Republicans, including Trump, includes several other components besides just the expansion of drilling. Some additional elements that Trump has talked about include deregulation of the energy sector, advocacy of "clean coal" (using technology to capture emissions of coal plants), and investment in energy infrastructure (such as the Keystone pipeline). Regardless of whether or not this is a good energy policy, there is more to it than just "drill, baby, drill."


2. Ad Hominem The phrase "That it still springs so readily to the lips of the presumptive GOP nominee perhaps says something about those lips" could be seen as a mild ad hominem attack, as it focuses on the presumed GOP nominee rather than addressing the substance of his energy policy.




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Note that there being one or more apparent fallacies in the arguments presented in this article does not mean that every argument the arguer made was fallacious, nor does it mean there are not other arguments in existence for the same or similar position that are logically valid. Also note that checking for fallacies is not the same as verification of the premises the arguer starts from, such as facts that the arguer asserts or principles that the arguer assumes as the foundation for constructing arguments. For more about this, see our 'What is Fallacy Checking?'

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