Forced Choice

Reality Team
October 30, 2023

What is a false dichotomy (false choice)?

There are millions of posts on social media that try to tell us some version of the “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” argument. Odds are if you’ve see one, you’ve seen an example of a forced choice.

A forced choice is when someone gives us two choices and ignores all of the other possibilities. This is also sometimes called a false dichotomy or false dilemma.

What does a forced choice do?

Manipulators use this tactic to make us feel bad about our choices.

They want to convince us to support their cause by claiming ours is a terrible option.

They want us to think our arguments are ridiculous and theirs are reasonable when they’re compared to each other.

They also want to frame things in terms of black-and-white choices and opposite extremes, so they can hold the moral high ground and frame anyone who disagrees with them as bad people. Hence the idea that “you’re either with us or against us.”

What do false dichotomies look like?

Some forced choice posts seem innocent. One popular media star asked her followers to decide whether America’s most important strength was diversity or freedom. Both are popular arguments by left or right-leaning people.

She ignored other options (like excellent education or Freedom of Speech). She made it seem like if we chose diversity, we must hate freedom, and vice versa. One comment on the Tweet actually asked “it’s a simple question, why do you hate freedom?”

The choice isn’t always spelled out so aggressively. This Instagram post about the Canadian Freedom Convoy implies that if we don’t support the truckers, we don’t support freedom.

Others are more in our face, asking us to choose between freedom and tyranny. And how about the post all but accusing us of communism if we believe in climate change? Who wants to be a communist? The word is scary and negative to most of us.

The bad guys want to make it seem like their choice is the only reasonable one. Politicians do this a lot when debating. One president even famously said, “either you’re with us, or you’re with the terrorists.” In reality, we can support our country while also wanting to make sure our government is telling the truth (to watch this and other televised examples of forced choice in action, visit The Propwatch Project).

So what can we do?