I see a lot of people online in discussion accusing others of playing “Whataboutism.”
The standard definition is as follows:
Whataboutism is light-journal for strategies that deal with actions that involve reverse absorption rather than defense against the original accusation.
It raises two issues.
First of all, what is your doing in a reasonable way of arguing?
Secondly, what is a good way to answer when aligning “what abetism” strategies to bias against you?
My answer to the first question is yes. It is potential in a reasonable way to argue.
Today I’ll answer the second question, mentioning in a discussion I had on Facebook.
I was saying good things on FB about Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat Senator from Maryland. I thought he did a good job in El Salvador insisting on the return of one of his constituents, Abrego Garcia, in a three-minute video (here, a 24-minute version). Van Hollen made only one error. He said Abrego Garcia is innocent despite not knowing it. What’s important is not that he is innocent. What’s important is that he wasn’t given to his hearing. The only way to know is to give him to hear him in the United States where he can give him a lawyer.
For Probablay FB’s algorithm, it was featured in a thread discussion started by a friend of a lawyer named Matt Gilliland. Matt said Trump was against the US Supreme Court, which he told him in a 9-0 decision to promote Abrego Garcia’s return.
A friend of Matt’s name stated:
Wow, the president is against the SC – why I’ve never seen it… Joe Biden of student loans boasting about it.
Matt reply:
So, I think Biden’s student loan shenanigans often fell outside his limits, but Biden did not actually rebel against the Supreme Court. When he was shut down because the method he used was determined to be invalid, I tried a different legal method. It does not oppose the Supreme Court – it follows their decision. Can you point out an example of him making a decision?
The conversation went back and forth.
Will was engaged in Whataboutism. Was that an invalid way to claim? i don’t think so. Matt’s response was that Biden had no objection to the Supreme Court. (By the way, I think Los Angeles and Biden were so close to the bragging he had.)
The problem is that when raising the Biden issue, we can avoid discussing whether what Trump did is illegal.
So I asked an obvious question. I wrote to Will:
And when Biden did it, you were against it, right?
He didn’t answer.
I think my Will’s question was a good way to do it. After admitting he was against the Supreme Court (he was against the Supreme Court, but at least so far, we didn’t go there.
But how to respond to a legitimate way to deal with Whataboutism, whether or not Whataboutism is justified or not.
The final question about Trump and Biden. The Supreme Court has seconded to a lower court ruling demanding that Trump promote Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States. Why didn’t the Supreme Court ask Biden to revoke his forgiveness after he found his student loan leniency unconstitutional? Biden wouldn’t even have people send checks sent to them. All he had to do was tell them that their loans were not allowed.
