I might call it epistemic closure, but that’s a little misleading. I suspect the closure is driven by other factors. Question begging, or assuming the conclusion, is more relevant.
I’m trying to mine this discussion for sociological or rhetorical insights. Let me follow up with my argument via association framework. I used to think that argument was composed of 2 components. But actually there are 3:
[ul]
[li]Facts (observation)[/li][li]Logic[/li][li]Emotive Buttons.[/li][/ul] Buttons are pretty important. I make a fair amount of use of loaded language on this message board: it complements factual evidence and substantiated claims pretty well. But you can secure an audience just with buttons. Donald Trump is a terrific practitioner of this technique: factual refutations just bounce off his supporters. As for logic, I’ll quote part of post I made in the elections forum:
Segueing from a discussion of capitalism to a terrorist organization makes no logical sense. But such emotive language certainly lights up the neurons, much like a jingle that you can’t get out of your head. I had thought that buttons were a complement to facts and valid logic. But for some they can wholly crowd them out.
For some, buttons can carry the conversation on their own: some will draw conclusions on the basis of them, even if their factual backing is refuted.