I typically see folks in debates on-line accuse different folks of taking part in “Whataboutism.”
Right here’s a normal definition:
Whataboutism is a pejorative for the technique of responding to an accusation with a counteraccusation as a substitute of a protection in opposition to the unique accusation.
That raises two points.
First, is whataboutism ever an affordable approach to argue?
Second, what’s a great way to reply when somebody makes use of the “whataboutism” technique to deflect?
My reply to the primary query is sure. It’s generally an affordable approach to argue.
I’ll reply the second query by referring to a dialogue I used to be in on Fb right now.
I had stated good issues on FB about Senator Chris Van Hollen, the Democratic Senator from Maryland. I assumed he did a very good job down in El Salvador, in a 3-minute video (right here’s the 24-minute model), of creating the case for the return of one in all his constituents, Abrego Garcia, whom the Trump administration admits was mistakenly taken to a jail in El Salvador. Van Hollen made just one error: he acknowledged that Abrego Garcia is harmless although he doesn’t know that. The hot button is not that he’s harmless. The hot button is that he was by no means given a listening to. The one approach to discover out is to provide him a listening to again in the US at which he can have a lawyer current.
Most likely due to FB’s algorithm, up popped a threaded dialogue initiated by a lawyer good friend named Matt Gilliland. Matt stated that Trump is defying the Supreme Courtroom of the US, which informed him, in a 9-0 determination, to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.
A good friend of Matt’s named Will acknowledged:
Wow, a president defying the SC – why I haven’t seen that since … JOE BIDEN on pupil loans bragging about it.
Matt replied:
So I believe that Biden’s pupil mortgage shenanigans had been typically exterior of his limits, however Biden didn’t truly defy the Supreme Courtroom. When he received shut down as a result of the strategy he used was dominated invalid, he tried a distinct authorized technique. That’s not defying the Supreme Courtroom — it’s following their choices. Are you able to level to an instance the place he truly defied their determination?
The dialog went forwards and backwards.
Will was participating in whataboutism. Was that an invalid approach to argue? I don’t assume so. Matt’s response was that Biden hadn’t defied the Supreme Courtroom. (By the best way, in an look in, I believe Los Angeles, Biden got here awfully near bragging that he had.)
The issue is that in elevating the difficulty of Biden, Will manages to keep away from discussing whether or not what Trump did was illegitimate.
So I requested the plain query. I wrote to Will:
And when Biden did that, you had been in opposition to it, proper?
Will didn’t reply.
I believe my query of Will was a great way to go. As soon as he admitted that he was in opposition to Biden defying the Supreme Courtroom (he thought Biden was; I, like Matt, thought he didn’t, however I additionally thought Biden got here perilously shut) then we may get to the difficulty of whether or not Trump’s actions constituted defiance of the Supreme Courtroom. We by no means received there as a result of, at the least to date, Will hasn’t replied.
However the best way I responded is a professional means to reply to whataboutism, whether or not or not whataboutism is justified, however particularly if whataboutism is justified.
One closing query about Trump and Biden. The Supreme Courtroom has seconded a decrease courtroom determination requiring Trump to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the US. Why, after the Supreme Courtroom discovered Biden’s forgiving of pupil loans unconstitutional, did it not require him to undo that forgiveness? Biden wouldn’t have even needed to get folks to ship checks that had been despatched to them. All he would have needed to is inform them that their loans weren’t forgiven.
