Agreed, I came up with analogy that I intend to use whenever false equivalencies are used to try to scuttle an argument: there is a massive difference between going 65 (mph) in a 60 and 110 in a 60. While both are illegal, you can not use one to justify the other. We can have high standards and expect them to be met but if we cannot tell the difference in scale between two actions we are doomed.
I'm not really sure I agree with that analogy. My primary problem with it stems from the fact that current policies don't exist independently of previous policies.
I agree that on a scale of badness, Trump certainly seems worse to me than Obama.
But in your analogy it isn't so much that Trump took a car from zero to 110 in a 60 zone. The car he got in was already speeding thanks to the policies of the Obama administration, and prior administrations. I don't think pointing this out is necessarily excusing it through false equivalence.
So while I agree that it's important to tell the difference in scale, I think it's equally important to realize that in most cases these policies don't come about out of thin air, they are built and extended from prior policies.
Granted, its a very simple analogy but it needs to be simple because it can be used to counter an equal simple false equivalency in conversation.
My honest opinion is that we've unfortunately divided ourselves down the middle and we've picked causes and policies like we were picking players in dodgeball and you can only be on one team.
I think it so happens either by chance or by some kind of underlying tendency that one side tends to be more correct or at least more progressive (which tends to be more correct in the long run) than the other. I know plenty of people who correctly (I think and I think the data supports) acknowledge climate change is real and largely man-made but could no more discuss the actual causes or ramification than your average climate denier.
I want to be able to have honest, nuanced conversations with people but they typically end defensively and quickly (which is often the result of someone I agree with who can't help but be snarky and counterproductive) and I want to find quick and effective counters to some of these argument killers.
