You miss the point. There’s the denotation of criminal which includes King, and the connotation of criminal which very rarely includes King. By categorizing King as a criminal, most people will take it to mean “King has committed unlawful acts (denotation) and King is bad (connotation).” People using the worst argument in the world count on this (most of the time probably unknowingly), because without the connotation their argument has no force (or at least not the desired amount) behind it. I.e., the worst argument in the world has the same effect as arguing King is bad even though that was never actually argued.
You miss the point. There’s the denotation of criminal which includes King, and the connotation of criminal which very rarely includes King. By categorizing King as a criminal, most people will take it to mean “King has committed unlawful acts (denotation) and King is bad (connotation).” People using the worst argument in the world count on this (most of the time probably unknowingly), because without the connotation their argument has no force (or at least not the desired amount) behind it. I.e., the worst argument in the world has the same effect as arguing King is bad even though that was never actually argued.