Bulwark Writers Attack ‘Anti-Anti-Trumpism’

C. S. Lewis, writing in 1941, coined his famous definition of the logical fallacy of Bulverism:

If Lewis thought that Bulverism was pervasive in 1941, he would have been horrified to see the state of political argument in 2020. Its symptoms are everywhere: the woke tendency to value every statement by the identity of the speaker and attribute bigotry to all disagreement, the MAGA columnists who rant constantly about what Never Trumpers are getting out of opposing Trump, the socialists who prattle about Citizens United and the Koch brothers and see everything in our political system as a smokescreen for the influence of Big Money. Motivations are of course fair game in political argument, but the Bulverists who just skip over the argument to talk about motive are doing their audience a disservice.

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Dan McLaughlin

Dan McLaughlin is a senior writer at National Review Online and a fellow at National Review Institute.

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C. S. Lewis, writing in 1941, coined his famous definition of the logical fallacy of Bulverism:

If Lewis thought that Bulverism was pervasive in 1941, he would have been horrified to see the state of political argument in 2020. Its symptoms are everywhere: the woke tendency to value every statement by the identity of the speaker and attribute bigotry to all disagreement, the MAGA columnists who rant constantly about what Never Trumpers are getting out of opposing Trump, the socialists who prattle about Citizens United and the Koch brothers and see everything in our political system as a smokescreen for the influence of Big Money. Motivations are of course fair game in political argument, but the Bulverists who just skip over the argument to talk about motive are doing their audience a disservice.