Weiner identified an even more convoluted stroke of self-justification: that Trump could not have achieved his policy agenda without the lying, vulgarity, and illicit behavior, so it all actually enhanced his effectiveness. This is what Weiner called the “post Trump, ergo propter Trump” fallacy: “It is a form of the ‘post hoc ergo propter hoc’ error in logic: ‘after, therefore because of.’ The classic illustration is the supposition that the rooster’s crow causes the sunrise because the second event follows the first. In the version of the fallacy his defenders espouse, Mr. Trump violates
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