I think the fallacy actually lies in presenting two issues/viewpoints of unequal merit as having the same merit. It's a (false) balance fallacy (1, 2). It happens a lot in climate change arguments.A-RockLeFrench wrote:Often. Yes, sometimes.
On the other hand it is entirely possible for people to track multiple issues at the same time. Just cause someone points out how rediculous it is that the douchebag in chief has played however many days playing golf at his own resort costing taxpayers however much money doesn't automatically mean they're missing all the more important news.
Using the 'this is just distracting you from the bigger picture so it's not relevant' argument to reduce the validity of a claim has to be some kind of logical fallacy....
As you've stated above, multiple issues at the same time can be tracked. Together, the issue can form a pattern of behavior, with individual incidents comprising evidence, and this can be a much stronger issue.
Edit: I realize there is probably a fallacy related to "that argument is less valid/important because of some other unstated-other-arguments are probably more important." It's not like we're weighing two issues against each other in the above case. I'm actually more concerned with the outrage fatigue mentioned below.
On a more practical side, presenting multiple smaller issues separately can also cause outrage fatigue. As people see more and more noise, they start to filter out news about incidents, and may not be able to distinguish between more important issues and minor outrages. This can be deliberately induced too, to slowly sap a movement's momentum, and obscure the importance of more important issues such as potentially harmful laws.
