Just gonna chime in late to say that I don’t think it’s circular. They did not define a “realistic candidate” as necessarily someone without a contrary view, just that it is a trait shared by all “realistic candidates” that are currently running. At no point did they say it was a necessary trait of all “realistic candidates.”
It’s kind of like how all squares are rectangles, but not vice versa. Just because all of the current “realistic candidates” share that one opinion, it does not logically follow that they need to share the opinion in order to be a “realistic candidate.”
Except pugjesus did describe ‘realistic candidate’ as one with no contrary views:
No realistic candidate has contrary views.
Therefore
There are no realistic candidates with contrary views.
Regardless, begging the question doesn’t necessarily need to be circular, just that the speaker assumes some premise that hasn’t been proven to be true. Namely that candidates with a different view on Israel are not “realistic”, either because of that view or because they are not the ‘presumptive’ nominee (and are therefore not realistic). In either case, the framing of the question was completely disingenuous.
Just gonna chime in late to say that I don’t think it’s circular. They did not define a “realistic candidate” as necessarily someone without a contrary view, just that it is a trait shared by all “realistic candidates” that are currently running. At no point did they say it was a necessary trait of all “realistic candidates.”
It’s kind of like how all squares are rectangles, but not vice versa. Just because all of the current “realistic candidates” share that one opinion, it does not logically follow that they need to share the opinion in order to be a “realistic candidate.”
Except pugjesus did describe ‘realistic candidate’ as one with no contrary views:
Regardless, begging the question doesn’t necessarily need to be circular, just that the speaker assumes some premise that hasn’t been proven to be true. Namely that candidates with a different view on Israel are not “realistic”, either because of that view or because they are not the ‘presumptive’ nominee (and are therefore not realistic). In either case, the framing of the question was completely disingenuous.