Rubio's Red Herring

        I started my quest for logical fallacies in politics with what I figured would be the easiest (and possibly most trite) option, Mr. Donald Trump. After peeling through various interviews and statements via YouTube I stumbled across a clip from one of the 2016 Republican Presidential Debates.


         The clip is titled "Donald Trump Marco Rubio Challenge Racial Divide in America" and in it ABC's David Muir is the moderator. Muir opens up with asking Trump how he would "bridge the divide" between law enforcement whom Trump says are the "most mistreated people in America" and the people. Trump laudes law enforcement officials and stressed the fact that the people must respect police so that police can feel comfortable enough to do their jobs.

 Muir then directed a question at Senator Marco Rubio, Muir brought about a comment Rubio made about President Obama saying Obama is "...always pitting people against each other.".  Muir mentioned that Rubio made the statement after President Obama visited a mosque for the first time in his presidency and Muir also brought up the fact that President Bush visited a Mosque after 9/11. Muir blatantly asked Rubio to distinguish between the two events and whether or not Rubio himself would visit a mosque as president. Rubio retorted that he would in fact visit a mosque as president and began to accuse President Obama of perpetuating "...this fiction that there's this widespread systematic discrimination of Muslim American citizens."so let's pick up on this argument right here.

Rubio is saying that there is no wide spread systematic discrimination of Muslims in American, seems pretty dismissing, no? How does the senator plan to back up his claim? His justification is a simplistic as his initial claim, Rubio says, "First of all, let's recognize this, if you go to a cemetery in this country you will see Stars of Davids, crosses, but you will see crescent moons." It's worth noting that Rubio did go on to mention fallen Muslim American soldiers who fought for the United States and deserve honor and respect like any veteran, and he mentioned the importance of improved relations within the Muslim community so that they will be more willing to report suspicious behavior. Senator Rubio wrapped his response up with adding that many Christian groups that "hold traditional values" are currently under attack and are discriminated against in the United States.

        It seems tough to me to choose just one fallacy committed in this response to a question on race. One could argue the false cause fallacy, this occurs when an arguer assumes a relationship or correlation between two situations and again assumes that one causes the other. Rubio says there is no systematic discrimination for Muslim American people, according to his logic there can't be, we have crescent moon head stones, hello!

 The two scenario are not indicative of each other. While it is wonderful that Muslim American veterans can be honored respectfully, it hardly dismisses the whole of systematic discrimination. Something as insidious as systematic discrimination pervades all areas of politics, business and society so choosing one example of "equality" cannot be used to determine if something more perverse is occurring in America.

This flippant response is similar to everyone's favorite post racial America argument, "America can't still be racist, our president is black!". As Dominican author Junot Diaz puts it, "Exceptions to phenomena do not excuse phenomena." It simply isn't fair to choose one instance as the measuring stick to all other instances. Lastly, Rubio makes use of the Red Herring fallacy, which occurs when an arguer deliberating repackages the argument to a topic better suited for them to assert an opinion on. Toward the end of his speech Rubio is sure to throw in the fact that Christians are discriminated against (too!). His hurried statement as the bell sounds seems very "Hey don't look at that, look at me look at me!" and with it his Jenga tower argument really beings to waver.

       Marco Rubio's response to David Muir's posed question seemed hasty and ill founded which is probably why it's a just a gold mind of fallacies.