Everybody is saying

 
Published on 2024-02-14 by John Collins. Socials: YouTube - X - Spotify - Amazon Music - Apple Podcast

If you listen to the media for long enough, you will eventually hear someone claiming that "everybody is saying" something about some argument the speaker is trying to reinforce.

"It's not just me saying this, EVERYBODY is saying it."

It's a basic method to try to reinforce an argument via strength of numbers, as they believe that a majority consensus makes their argument full-proof.

At the same time, they rarely provide:

  1. A survey sample or otherwise that indicates this broad consensus for their position.
  2. Any actual evidence to support their position.

For me, "everybody is saying" is as example of weasel words, or more specifically an appeal to an anonymous authority:

"An appeal to anonymous authority is an appeal to authority that doesn't attribute the claim to any specific person. Rather, the arguer attributes it to an unnamed individual or, more commonly, group of individuals."

Source: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/appeal-to-authority-fallacy/

Anyone exhibiting such behaviour is not to be trusted, as it is deliberately vague and dishonest. The solution is to immediately challenge them on their sources.

Call them out.