The Building Blocks of Political Debates
By Emily Chen, Data Science and Biochemistry, 2023
For two intense hours, candidates exchange arguments on hot topics — the war against Iran, healthcare, climate change — in what is known as the Democratic debate. Afterwards, news and social media networks take their turn, giving their opinions on the strength of each candidate’s argument; however, to truly evaluate an argument, one must understand the structure of the argument itself.
Every academic subject involves arguments — from proofs in geometry to Socratic seminars in English — which can be structured similarly across subjects. Generally, arguments have three components: information, a warrant, and a concluding claim. In this format, arguments use information to support a concluding claim. The information itself is based on a theory, statistic, or another concept. For instance, given two sides of a right triangle (information), we can calculate the value of the third side (concluding claim) using the Pythagorean theorem (warrant). Here, the warrant acts as the justification, or logic, behind the information. The warrant makes the information relevant and justified.
Generally, arguments have three components: information, a warrant, and a concluding claim. In this format, arguments use information to support a concluding claim.
Argumentation is particularly relevant to the field of politics. Political debates consist of candidates arguing their ability to hold political office. The candidates present the informational component as their opinions on questions posed by the public. The concluding claim of each Democractic candidate attempts to affirm that she or he is the ideal presidential candidate. This objective may seem simple, but the true complexity of the situation lies in the structure of the argument. One main concluding claim often produces numerous minor claims that collectively support the candidate. With each concluding claim, there must be information to back it up, and warrants to validate the way the candidate uses the information. We can clearly see this in the first Democratic debate of 2020.
The Democratic debate on Jan. 14 opened with the discussion of rising tensions between the United States and Iran. This discussion evaluated each candidate’s ability to be the ideal Commander in Chief, which is one of the primary presidential roles that deals with decisions concerning the Armed Forces. Strong, but incredibly different, arguments belonged to two candidates in particular: Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Sanders referred to his experience in 2002 when the United States deliberated entering a war with Iraq. He stated that he was extremely against the idea of waging war, as it would lead to chaos in Iraq, and the loss of many lives. He emphasized that, not only did he vote against the war, but he actively led the effort to vote against the war resolution. This reference was a warrant, using information on his voting history to duly support the concluding claim that his strong leadership qualities would make him an excellent public and military leader.
On the other hand, Warren argued that she would be the best Commander in Chief because she thoroughly understands the military. She informatively listed the military sites she has visited — Iraq, Jordan, and Afghanistan — in addition to her familial connections to the Armed Forces. However, her understanding of the military was a warrant to the primary reason she would be the ideal Commander in Chief: She would use her knowledge to fight against corruption in the Department of Defense so that military personnel would get well-deserved housing and medical benefits.
One main concluding claim often produces numerous minor claims that collectively support the candidate. With each concluding claim, there must be information to back it up, and warrants to validate the way the candidate uses the information.
The next main point in the debate was healthcare. This topic angled more toward presidential policy-making. As for Sanders, he argued for lower-cost healthcare, which acted as his concluding claim. His information was that the United States charges some of the highest prices for medicine. Using the warrant that poor healthcare hurts the economy in the long run, and that 30 million Americans lack healthcare, Sanders proposed his consumer-conscious healthcare plan, Medicare for All. In this argument, he demonstrated his ability to thoughtfully create policy, backing up his argument with statistics and logic. He further used this thoughtfulness as a warrant proving that he is superior to the other candidates with respect to policy-making. Warren took a similar consumer-based platform with the warrant of saving the money of citizens and employers. She showed her ability to create policy by effectively proposing an idea and emphasizing the need for it. She informed the audience that 36 million people could not fill their prescriptions due to lack of funds. The idea of saving money in the face of such an impactful statistic served as a warrant that only contributed to the relevance of this issue in the eyes of the viewers.
Argumentation enables progress if approached with an open mind; it allows the valuable exchange of ideas. The integral structure of an argument manifests itself in the complexity of the Democratic debate. We see how essential this structure is to an effective argument, and how, to holistically evaluate an argument, one must scrutinize each component: the information, warrant, and concluding claim.
