Encyclopedia of Opinion
Question
Should Hunter Biden’s actions compromise Joe Biden’s presidential campaign?
Position1 of 2›
Yes, Hunter Biden's actions reflect directly on the Joe Biden presidential campaign
Argument‹3 of 3

Email scandals have cost previous presidential campaigns

Some argue that Hillary Clinton's emails lost her the 2016 Presidential election.

The argument

"— -- Donald Trump ended one of the sharpest exchanges in last night's debate against Hillary Clinton with a pointed question: "Why did she delete 33,000 emails?" Clinton is doing her best to move beyond the controversy over her use of a private email server as secretary of state, saying only last night that she "made a mistake" and declining to address why those emails were deleted."

Premises

[P1]In the 2016 debate, Donald Trump pressed Hillary Clinton over deleting 33,000 emails, a scandal she could only call a mistake. [P2] That email controversy dogged and damaged her presidential campaign. [C] Therefore, because email scandals have cost previous presidential campaigns, Hunter Biden's actions reflect directly on the Joe Biden presidential campaign.

Counter-arguments

A rebuttal is that the Clinton analogy breaks at the decisive point. The email controversy concerned Clinton's own conduct as a candidate and public official; Hunter Biden is a separate adult family member. That a candidate's personal scandal damaged their own campaign shows nothing about whether an adult relative's actions should reflect on a different candidate. Critics add that the argument slides from "scandals can hurt campaigns" to "this relative's conduct implicates this candidate," which is precisely the point in dispute. Without a link between Joe Biden's own actions and his son's, the precedent of a self-inflicted scandal does not transfer.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The Clinton email controversy concerned her own conduct as candidate and official, not a family member's actions, so it is not analogous to Hunter Biden's situation. [Rejecting P2] That one candidate's personal scandal damaged their campaign shows scandals can hurt candidates, not that a relative's conduct should reflect on a different candidate.