How Politicians Make Reductionist Arguments.

Donald Trump's son compared refugees to skittles on twitter. He tried to make a logical analogy, in that you wouldn't eat a handful of skittles from a bowl if you knew three of them were poisonous. He then compared the poisonous skittles to Jihadists and the rest of the skittles to refugees. The whole analogy was an exercise in precaution, why let the refugees in when you know a few of them could be terrorists who can harm the USA.

Well, the argument seems logical at its core but therein lies the problem; it is too simplistic and reductionist, hardly taking into account the complexities of issues and the policies designed to deal with them. But if there is one party that's made a living out of reductionist arguments, it's the Republican Party.

Reductionism involves breaking down a complex phenomenon into simple and understandable parts. It is widely used in science, maths and philosophy. But, in politics, it is often used to pick and choose incoherent arguments and misrepresent details to propagate a political agenda. The ideas are so simplistic that to make it seem legitimate it is piled with lies masquerading as facts. And, once reductionist political arguments clings to a bias; other relevant contexts, facts and details that make the phenomenon a whole are utterly dismissed. The biased argument then proceeds to categorise opposition into monolith groups that are often described as either evil, lazy, entitled or having an agenda against common good. Such characterisations make it easy to disregard or dismiss concerns of the "others".The Republican Party has used this technique in the past and continues to use it in the present as a legitimate political discourse. We evaluate some of the examples below.

Republican War Against Women


 Planned Parenthood
 focuses on
 prevention:
 80 percent
 of it's patients
 receive services
 to prevent
 unintended
 pregnancy.
 Planned
 Parenthood
 services help
 prevent
 approximately
 579,000
 unintended
 pregnancies
 in a single
 year. Three
 percent of
 all Planned
 Parenthood
 health services
 are
 abortion
 services for
 women
.
 Planned
 Parenthood
 affiliates provide
 educational programs
 and outreach to
 1.5 million young
 people and adults
 in a single year.
 Planned Parenthood
 is not
 using federal funding
 for abortion
.

Source:FactCheck.org | Planned Parenthood

Republican War on Climate Change


 Global warming
 has wide
 ranging
 influence
 on weather.
 It
 is
 causing
 unreal
 levels of
 extreme
 weather in
 the short term
 and climate change
 in the long term.
 This is primarily
 because
 of the
 rapid heating
 of the
 atmostphere as
 we have
 continue
 to pump
 tonnes
 of Co2
 into the
 air.
 From
 the coldest winter
s to the
 warmest summers
 the effect of
 global warming
 will be harsher
 in years
 to come
.

NASA Earth Observatory chart by Joshua Stevens

Republican Argument Against Refugees


 Syrian Refugees
 seek asylum
 in nations
 across the
 world.
 The refugees
 should not
 be
 turned
 away from
 asylum as they have
 already
 suffered
 harrowing
 journeys to
 survive the
 civil war.
 Canadian
 Prime
 Minister
 Justin
 Trudeau
 called
 for
 more
 refugees
 to be
 allowed
 into
 Canada.
 President
  Obama
  has similar
  plans
 to allow
 refugees
 into
 USA,
 but it
 faces
 obsturction,
 largely
 because
 of republican
  party's
 perceivable
 threat of
 Islamic
 Extremism.
 Thus,
 they can't be
 taken in
 large number.
 The refugees
 however are
 thoroughly
 vetted
 in a
 process that
 takes over two
 and
 a half
 years.
 This ensures
 that
 people allowed
  into
 the country
 are
 not
 a
 national security
 threat.

Source: Economist

Republican Argument Against Immigrants


 Illegal immigrants
 are
 a hot
 button topic
 this American
 Election Season.
 Presidential nominee
 Donald Trump vows
 mass deportation
 if he becomes the
 President;
 blaming them
 for
 taking up local
 American jobs
 and
 being the
 prime cause
 of rape and
 murder in the
 country.
 But stats
 offer a
 different
 picture.
 There is
 very little
 proof of
 immigrants
 taking jobs
 from locals
 and infact
 natives 
 are
 commiting
 crimes at
 a higher rate
 than illegal
 immigrants
.

Source:Immigration and Crime: Assessing a Conflicted Issue