False Equivalence: Eat Shit!

Robin Alperstein
Voluble by Robin Alperstein
2 min readSep 15, 2016

You can place a steaming pile of shit on a scale, and balance it out with a slice of cake. The two may balance perfectly, but they are not equivalent choices. One is literally shit and the other is a piece of cake.

Maybe the cake is not your favorite — maybe it is carrot cake and you don’t like carrots. Maybe you prefer pie. But the thing on the other scale, all balanced out with the cake, is still a steaming pile of shit.

The press treats the cake and the steaming pile of shit as if they are the same, and in fact, it comes down harder on the cake for being carrot cake and not being an angel food cake or a red velvet or a donut; “this cake tastes like shit.”

The headlines scream and blare how nobody likes carrot cake (except for those who do, but they don’t matter or count) and how can we possibly have carrot cake and OMG the icing is not cream cheese icing, It’s just regular icing and we were promised cream cheese icing and where did that icing come from and who paid for the icing and cake is not healthy for you and this is the shittiest cake in the world, how can we be possibly be stuck with this awful shit-cake? This carrot cake is a pile of shit! It’s just dressed up to look like a carrot cake.

Reporters: “Hey, everyone! Do you want the carrot-cake-shaped shit or the steaming pile of shit?”

Voters: “ At least the steaming pile of shit is honest about its shittiness!”

Steaming pile of shit to voters: “The carrot cake is a steaming pile of shit.”

Reporters: “The shitty carrot cake is pretending it is not a steaming pile of shit too! Voters don’t believe the carrot cake is not a steaming pile of shit. The carrot cake cannot be trusted.”

Let’s take a poll now: do you want the carrot cake or the actual steaming pile of shit?

Now the carrot cake is weakening in national polls, because really, what’s the difference?

NB: Wise Women for Clinton has created a short comic based on this post. Check it out here

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