Is this formally one of The Logical Fallacies?

[minoanmiss]

If so, which one?

Content advisory: political cartoon, bedbug metaphor.






I hate you, Gary Varvel

Over and over these days this is how the Republicans respond to any complaints. I have seen the above example several times, where anyone who says "Maybe we shouldn't fire government employees wholesale" is accused of loving peculation and being against "cutting waste". Also, I tried to find the link for an article I read where Congresscritter expressing concern about deportations was accused of "supporting criminals and murderers". And so on and so forth. Ugh.

A metaphor I thought of while thinking about this:

Person: ugh, my house has a bedbug infestation
Exterminator: I can fix that right now! Come back in one hour.
-- 1 hour --
-Exterminator: see, no more bedbugs!
Person: YOU BURNED DOWN MY HOUSE!
Exterminator: So you mean to tell me you love bedbugs and wanted to keep every single one of them?
Person: You burned down my house! With all my belongings!
Exterminator: You're so ungrateful.


It feels to me that this repeating pattern probably has been catalogued and named, maybe as a Logical Fallacy [TM]. What do you think?

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

Just by the wikipedia list, there are several! I am not an expert though and I'm used to a different list of logical fallacies.

There are errors in lumping together what Trump, Obama and Clinton meant by cutting waste. And then there are errors to leaping to the Donkey's reaction.

Equivocation fallacy
Loaded terms
Argument from fallacy
Non sequitur
Illicit negative

And that's just for starters.

That cartoonist is dumb.

[bikergeek]

One problem here is that DOGE has to date not identified any meaningful "wasteful spending", and the agencies that DOGE has targeted for shutdown are, by strange coinkydink, the self-same ones investigating various aspects of Elmo's businesses and business dealings.

ETA: not to mention, refusing to spend money that has been allocated by Congress is a violation of the Impoundment Control Act, which reinforces the notion that Congress alone has "the power of the purse" and that the Executive Branch cannot act to thwart it by impounding allocated funds.

Also: Is DOGE an agency with power to hire and fire? If so, it's illegal, because "agencies" can only be created by act of Congress. If not, then they're advisory only, and can't do what they're doing. Whether or not DOGE is an "agency" seems to vary according to the convenience of the speaker.

[petra]

Mendacious as all get-out, that.

[ororo]

This is one of those things that make me scream, "Will someone please put some fucking nuance in the water?"

[cellio]

Yeah. And, you know, there's a difference between saying "my plan will cut waste" and then implementing that plan in a lawful and transparent way, versus jumping straight to "I'm gonna do it on my own and I don't care about pesky things like Congress or laws".

But I don't know what logical fallacy this is.