One of the oldest political tricks in the book

Here is a very nice example of a Red Herring from The Simpsons:


As we can see, Mayor Quimby is trying to distract the public from taxation issues by blaming immigrants for all their problems. Although this episode, "Much Apu About Nothing" originally aired in 1996, current political events reveal the extent to which this is, despite being fallacious, still an enormously effective political strategy.