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whataboutism: a term coined by libs to toss at conservatives who point out liberal hypocrisy.
Nope. It's been around for a long time. It's even been done by Putin for several years. People would ask him about things Russia did, and he'd turn around and said, "well about the United States when they did x?" It's a way to deflect from one's own wrong doing.
whataboutism: a term coined by libs to toss at conservatives who point out liberal hypocrisy.
I'm confused on how it points it out?
Again, using this minor example.
"Trump didn't know which KC he was congratulating"
"Yeah, well Obama said 57 states"
How does that point out any hypocrisy? How does that get us anywhere? I don't understand the motive of adults to play this silly game.
I'm all for calling people out on their hypocrisy. We see hypocrisy on both the right and the left all the time.
But defending the current president by pointing to the actions of other people in the past makes it look like you have no real defense for the current president and are scrambling.
And again, to make it clear, I know this was an easy to make mistake. When I originally posted it, it was simply a "ha ha, look at this". Some people are so sensitive though, they actually got offended by it and then pointed to something Obama said years ago as a defense??? (BTW, there was a solid 2-3 weeks where I ripped on Obama for the 57 state thing too)
Calling out selective outrage is often appropriate.
Have you ever seen someone counter a criticism of Trump with something Obama did and then say both are bad so Trump does deserve condemnation for it? Or is it just thrown out as justification?
Calling out selective outrage is often appropriate.
I know that a lot of people like to think of themselves as a hero, but that's not what this is.
People who use this tactic to defend the current administration (whichever "side" is in office) by pointing to something that they consider similar from a previous administration isn't heroic. It's simply just ignoring a current problem and saying "hey, if you didn't care about this other thing then you can't care about this current thing" It's, in a word, DUMB.
The specific example that I'm using isn't important at all so I thought it would be an easy subject that wouldn't rile anyone up too bad since people are WAY too sensitive about people "attacking" their little parties.But in this example the fact that Obama said "57 states" is not significant at all to the fact that Trump thought he was talking about the wrong Kansas City.
No matter when the term was invented it's a cheap tactic, and in most cases does more to illustrate the weakness of the "argument" than anything else. I'd love to have a nickle for every time I have read "what about Obama" or "what about Clinton" on here.
This is the type of subject matter that is worth a thread on the citydata politics forum in 2020? A thread to moan about responses on another thread?
Standards have declined, which is difficult to do here.
It's not about other threads. It's a tactic used constantly. It's used by political pundits, political figures, people in the media, and the general public on forums like this and social media.
Well I like Trump but boy he does say a lot of ridiculous things.
The whataboutism comes from the Lefts convenient denial of the short comings of their candidates and elected.
During the 2016 election the head of the FBI came out to tell us all about the crimes of Hillary, the destruction of subpoenaed materials, the obstruction of justice etc etc.. crimes that would have had any one of us arrested but at the end of Comeys rant he pretty much said "nevermind" and she was allowed to run. Meanwhile the Left was digging up trash on Trump from decades ago trying to smear him.
Another example is how Trump has been attacked by the Left and called a racist, a Hitler wanna be for locking kids in cages that tried to break our immigration laws, well who do you think built those cages in those detention facilities? Obama did but we never hear about that.
The whataboutism is about the double standard that the Left holds over the Right. Where the Right is wrong all the time and the Left is allowed to pivot and flip flop without a thought.
We are just pointing out the hypocrisy from the Left.
What I think is incredible is how Trump was impeached for daring to think about trying exactly what Joe Biden as VP actually did and bragged about to the cameras. I think it is Trumps right to investigate and every citizens right to know exactly who they might be voting for come November. The impeachment was a farce, a sham and a partisan witch hunt and a prime example of the hypocrisy of the Left and their media.
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