Guilt by association

Guilt by association is a form of ad hominem in which the reputation of an individual/organization/movement is attacked by associating it with another individual/organization/movement with a bad reputation.

To associate critics of some form of political correctness, regardless of ideology, with National Socialism, is a common example. Such an association can be created emotionally, despite there being no logical cause for this and despite no open argumentation being stated. One example is by illustrating articles criticizing ideological opponents with images with National Socialist imagery, despite there being no logical cause for this.

Another example is labeling something disliked as a "conspiracy theory", a guilt by association attack by associating with argued absurd and false conspiracy theories, and ignoring the existence of real conspiracies. In addition, this may combined with a straw man description of what is argued. See, for example, White genocide conspiracy theory.

Entire branches of research have come under guilt by association attacks by associating with questionable very early research, ignoring that questionable very early research can likely be found in all branches of research, especially if gong back to an early time when, for example, modern statistical methods did not exist. One common example is guilt by association attacks on race research by associating with questionable very early race research.