Q22 - To win democratic elections

[njw5d]

Hi. I'm completely lost on this one. Perhaps someone can show me the light. As I see it:

1. To win democratic elections not fully subsidized by gov't, non-wealthy candidates must have wealthy patron

2. So it is plausible to believe that non-wealthy candidates will compromise their views to win the support of their patrons

3. However, the wealthy are proportionally distributed among the various political parties

Conclusion: The belief presented in sentence 2 is false.

I just don't see how answer choice (B) weakens the argument.

Thanks

[cyruswhittaker]

The argument is that although it would seem plausible that the candidates will compromise their views to win support from wealthy patrons, this belief is false: they don't have to compromise their views.

The reasoning used is that the wealthy are equally dispersed among the political parties. So the author seems to be saying that a particular candidate can just get support from that particular group to which he agrees with.

But the author assumes that there are enough groups for a candidate to find one that adequately expresses his views.

Maybe there's only a few such groups, and so a candidate would have to choose the "closest fit," thereby compromising some of his/her views.

Choice B weakens the argument by attacking this assumption. Basically, it says that there might be more positions taken by candidates than positions endorsed by political parties. And thus, to get the support from a particular party, the candidate might have to compromise some of his/her views.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

That's a terrific response -- thank you cyrus!

This is a killer problem, because the flaw cyrus so aptly described is not an obvious one at all. Interested to see if cyrus predicted it, but I couldn't see exactly how (B) worked until I got rid of the rest of the answers.

One tip -- when they've separated the conclusion like that -- by putting one opinion up front then having the author say he disagrees -- it's helpful to have a clear head about exactly what the point it --

When you put it together, you get that the author...

Thinks it is FALSE that candidates will compromise views to win wealthy support.

Even if you couldn't predict (B), having a slightly cleaner sense of the conclusion might have helped you eliminate some of those other answers that might seem related to the point, but are actually not.

[shirando21]

still don't quite understand...

is B attacking the premise: the wealthy are dispersed among the various political parties in roughly equal proportion to their percentage in the overall population?

[ericha3535]

Need your verification people!
I also struggled with this question but hope that my explanation is good enough.
Here is the argument.

to win election + not subsidized + nonwealthy -> have to subsidized by wealthy people.

Thus, to win election, non wealthy people would appeal to wealthy people by compromising their views to win support.

So far so good! It makes sense! Since wealthy people's contribution is a requirement, it's plausible to appeal to them!

Then in concludes since there are wealthy people who are equally distributed among political parties, the non wealthy people don't have to comprise their views in order to survive.

Now, it's sort of hard to see it but here is what I think...

There is a guy name John who supports animal rights. There are two kinds of animal rights: their environment (known as E) and their quality of life (known as QL). John supports both E and QL.

Now, there are three political parities, A B and C.

A supports E but not QL
B supports not QL but E.
C supports E and QL.

Also, since there are "equal number" of wealthy people in each A B and C, John doesn't really have to compromise his view: all he gotta do is kiss some asses of those who belong to party C.

But, what if there are only 2 political parties instead of 3?

A supports E but not QL
B supports not QL but E.

If this is the case, then John has to either compromise QL or E in order to appeal to those wealthy people belong A and B.

Did argument ever say anything about how many political parties exist? Nope... It said various political parities but that does not mean there are a plenty of them.

This is what C is saying: hey, if there are two political parities, having an equal distribution of wealthy people don't mean a thing.

Hope this helps

[tommywallach]

Hey All,

Ericha, you should read the thread before posting. The answer to this question isn't (C), it's (B). Try not to post an answer unless you've checked to be sure it's right!

Now, we should always start a flaw question by looking at the core (Ericha, you actually had the opposite of the correct conclusion!).

Conclusion: Candidates will not compromise their views to win support.

Premise: Even though candidates need wealthy patrons, there are plenty of wealthy patrons in every political party.

The problem here is if you have a candidate who isn't in a political party. That candidate will have trouble getting a wealthy patron, and might have to compromise his or her views in order to win support.

(A) This argument isn't about the primary function of political parties. This answer choice is probably true (though negating the influence of wealth is certainly important!), but it doesn't relate to our conclusion about compromising views.

(B) CORRECT. If the positions endorsed by the political parties (where the wealthy patrons are) are less varied than the positions taken by candidates, it will be hard for a fringe candidate to get support without compromising his or her viewpoint.

(C) The problem here is "wealthiest people in those countries." This isn't about the wealthiest people in the country! It's about the wealthy people who get involved in elections. They don't need to be the WEALTHIEST people. They just need to have enough money to influence the election. Also, what does "overly influence" mean?

(D) This argument isn't about the wealth of the candidates, but the wealth of the patrons who support them.

(E) This answer is totally out of scope. Obviously candidates will have other flaws; they're people!

[woof90]

The problem here is if you have a candidate who isn't in a political party. That candidate will have trouble getting a wealthy patron, and might have to compromise his or her views in order to win support.

That's very helpful tommywallach.

My issue with (B) is... it requires that I bring in outside knowledge to see that it could undermine the argument. In the heat of reading the argument, it wasn't even remotely close to my mind that a candidate doesn't always have to belong to a political party (or am I just deficient in common sense?). That seems to come from a context quite far away from what the argument is talking about. When I read (B), all I could think was "how is this AC possibly relevant?"

[cyt5015]

Very helpful discussion above! When approaching this question, I actually have little clue what the premise says, but managed to use some tactics to eliminate all four wrong answers.
A: "whose government do not subsidize election" is out of scope, because we only care about elections that are not fully subsidized by the government.
C is about "government-subsidized election", which is out of scope for the above reason.
D: whether easier or not is beyond our concern about "compromise"
E: "candidates who do not compromise views have other flaws" is also out of scope, because we only care about "whether candidate will compromise their view or not."
When you have troubles to understand the convoluted premise, eliminating answers which are clearly out of scope will lead you to the correct answer.

[kyuya]

The assumption here is that since candidates are supported by wealthy people in their parties, and not by people outside of their parties, they will not have to compromise their views.

What is the assumption here?

The assumption is that because the candidate is supported by a wealthy person in their party, they will no longer have to compromise their views. However, is this necessarily true? Do all liberals, or conservatives have the same views? Of course not. It is very possible that the candidate will still have to compromise their views, even if the person supporting them is from the same party.

(A) This stimulus is never concerned with primary functions, so that alone is enough to get rid of this.

(B) This is correct. If positions endorsed by parties are much less varied than those taken by candidates, that means there is a discrepancy between the candidate and their supporter. The language here is confusing, but it is a convoluted way of expressing the flaw I stated above: parties and individuals do not necessarily converge in agreement on a number of issues.

(C) This is never stated. It mentions briefly subsidized elections only insofar as to introduce the truly important subject which is non subsidized (and therefore needing of outside funding) elections. There is simply not enough info here, and this assumption is never made.

(D) The ease in which someone wins an election is not something assumed about here - the stim is concerned with influences on view points.

(E) Never speaks about other flaws - just talks about one potential one, and a way that is presumed to curtail it.

[fadams]

To put things into perspective so that it will hopefully be easier to understand:

The US government does a poor job of subsidizing elections.
Clinton has to seek the support of wealthy bankers to fund her election because of that.
So it's possible that the beliefs Clinton holds will be compromised by those bankers so that she can get their support. [sell herself to bankers and compromise]

But this belief is false; it is not true that she will have to compromise to get support. [she won't have to compromise]
This is because there are some bankers who are democrats, some are republicans, and within each parties some are especially progressive while others libertarian [hence the "dispersed among the various political parties"], and that this spectrum is dispersed within each parties equally. [there are a lot of rich people that are equally distributed]
[assumption is that the fact that the wealthy are "dispersed ... in roughly equal proportion" somehow prevents her from compromising]

Maybe there is another way in which she can still compromise.
If she only has two options in terms of parties, Democrat and Republican, and there are a narrow spectrum of positions that each party takes, then she has limited options. For example, if she was for 15 bucks an hour of minimal wage, and the Democrats only allow for 12, then she will have to compromise.

That seems to be what B is saying:
positions of the parties have a narrower spectrum than the positions held by politicians. if that's true, then to win, it is possible to think that candidates WILL compromise.

[andrewgong01]

I thought this argument was saying the belief of changing beliefs due to wealthy folks is wrong( not they won't change views for all other possible reasons). The first two sentences are directly related to the connection between changing views and gaining support from the wealthy. And the belief that Sentence 2 talks about and the argument seeks to refute is that candidates will compromise their view in order to gain the support from donors.

That's why "B" seems out of scope since it seems to bring in a different reason why politicians may still compromise their view: it's because parties are not that diverse in views and hence it is not because of wealthy people but it is because of parties that now cause people to change views. I agree "B" would provide an alternative reason to pause and say 'actually, they may still compromise' but this compromise is due to political parties and not the wealthy.


Another side note, the argument assumes politicians are joining political parties for "B" to be tenable.

I thought "C" was good because "C" was showing that even in countries where depending on the wealthy is unnecessary politicians may still be representing the wealthy's view; hence, "C" talks about checks against being influenced by the wealthy. For example, money may not be the motivating factor for adopting the wealthy's view ; perhaps it is for social status such as hanging out with CEOs and in return views are influenced by CEO's. However, as the previous posts indicate, I did not intially see the degree issue with "C" where it said the "WEALTHIEST" and "OVERLY"

[mswang7]

I'm still confused why the answer is B and not D. Here is my attempt at a breakdown.

Premises: In not fully subsidized elections nonwealthy must be supported by wealthy
plausible candidates will compromise value to win this support
Concl: since wealthy candidates are dispersed equally among parties & to the pop, candidates will not compromise their value to win this support
Gap: Wealthy candidates will win anyway & they don't need support elsewhere so there are no values to be compromised

A. primary purpose is out of scope here. So is "governments who do not subsidize elections" Note this is not the same as elections not fully subsidized by gov
B. I still don't understand what this is saying - feels very premise booster-ish to me since the premise talked about equal disbursement & this talks about much less varied.
C. This discusses subsidized elections - out of scope
D. Hmm this is kinda the opposite of the gap I prephrased. If this were true a nonwealthy person must've compromised to win - weakening the conclusion. After reading some other posts, someone mentioned this answer is incorrect due to "people" Are we really not allowed to assume the persons discussed in this context are the candidates?
E. Out of scope

[Laura Damone]

Argument Breakdown:

Prem - to win elections not subsidized, non-wealthy candidates need wealthy patrons.
Opposing Point - non-wealthy candidates will compromise their views to win the support of wealthy patrons.
Prem - the wealthy are dispersed in various political parties in roughly equal proportion to their percentage in the population.
Concl - non-wealthy candidates won't have to compromise their views to win the support of wealthy patrons.

Gap - the wealthy candidates being in the same political party doesn't necessarily mean a non-wealthy candidate wouldn't have to compromise their views to win that support. Consider a down-ballot Dem of a Bernie Sanders mentality. Would she have to compromise her views to win the support of a wealthy Democratic patron? Highly likely! Party and viewpoint are not synonymous!

Correct Answer: B
Just because two folks share a party, doesn't mean they share a view point. The positions taken by candidates might be more varied than the positions endorsed by the parties. The Democratic establishment says "Yes abortion, yes LGBT rights, yes Obamacare" whereas many upstart dems within the party add in "Medicare for All" and "Green New Deal": positions the establishment doesn't support.

A) "Primary function" is out of scope.
C) "Government subsidized elections" aren't the ones we're talking about.
D) We're not talking about the ease of winning elections, or wealthy vs. non-wealthy candidates.
E) True story, but who cares? That won't mess up the argument about this particular flaw in the system.

And regarding D, mswang, while we can't normally equate "people" and "candidates," when we're talking about people winning elections, they're necessarily candidates, so that's not the issue. The issue is that we're not concerned with the ease of winning elections, nor are we concerned with the wealthy as candidates at all! The conclusion is only about non-wealthy candidates and their views.

Hope this helps!

#officialexplanation