Whataboutism Is Rotting Our Brains, Our Consciences, and Our Politics
Humans have always been beguiled by black-and-white thinking. Something is either good or bad. You are either with us or against us. Greek or barbarian. Saved or damned. Sigmund Freud coined the term 'Madonna/whore complex' to describe the mindset of men who relegate women into one of two categories: pure or sullied. A related error in logic is called 'tu quoque' (you too), a form of the ad hominem fallacy because it attacks the person rather than disproving their argument—which should sound familiar to anyone who's lived through the past few years of American politics.
The tendency to engage in polarized thinking is hardly new, and yet, it seems that we've regressed in recent years. We live in an age of overflowing information and knowledge, and yet we seem more inclined now than in the recent past to succumb to whataboutism.
It's perfectly clear why Trump and his many enablers rely on whataboutism. It's the easiest deflection. What is the proper response to Trump's iniquitous treatment of women? What about Bill Clinton? How can one evaluate his pardons of the January 6th insurrectionists? What about all those who rioted in protest of George Floyd's murder and were never prosecuted? (They were.) Was Trump's refusal to return highly classified documents a serious breach? What about Joe Biden keeping files in his garage? (Biden returned them when asked.) Is Trump corrupting the rule of law with his pardons of friends, donors, and political allies? What about Joe Biden's pardons of Hunter and his entire family?
We don't do whataboutism at The Bulwark. We don't have partisan loyalties or ulterior motives. We just tell you what we really think. Join us.
This game can be played endlessly, and it has been played aggressively for the past decade. It's important to dwell on the consequences. Some people who are caught in a lie, betrayal, or other transgression admit their guilt and seek to repair the damage. That's how mature people and societies stay civilized.
Truly depraved people don't take that route. Trump uses whataboutism not just to change the subject or disarm the accuser ('tu quoque' was pretty much the theme of the 2016 presidential race) but also to breed cynicism. If 'everybody does it' then it's unfair to hold him accountable. And because people who constantly transgress can't function with the knowledge that they are immoral, they must believe—and teach—that everyone is just as corrupt as they are; that the standards themselves are flawed or at least universally flouted. Does a mafia don tell his daughter that he's a criminal, or does he explain that the world is composed of killers and losers and that you must choose one or the other?
Though Americans are sometimes perceived as idealistic, there are other strains in our character that demagogues can tap into, such as cynicism about politics. A line perhaps inaccurately attributed to Mark Twain has been a staple of after-dinner speeches for more than 150 years: 'America has no native criminal class, except Congress.' Or as a more modern wag put it: 'Politics comes from the Greek 'poly' (many) and 'ticks' (small, annoying bloodsuckers).'
A certain amount of skepticism about politicians is healthy. But cynicism is corrosive because it invites the very thing it scorns. Once you elect a sociopath and agree with his jaundiced view that everyone is corrupt, you've lost any chance of upholding basic values. If you treasure honesty, integrity, the rule of law, and decency, you must be prepared to reject whataboutism and to risk mockery by insisting that no, not everybody does it, and we don't want to accept the kind of society in which that is assumed.
As David Frum outlined in the Atlantic:
Nothing like this has been attempted or even imagined in the history of the American presidency. Throw away the history books; discard feeble comparisons to scandals of the past. There is no analogy with any previous action by any past president. The brazenness of the self-enrichment resembles nothing seen in any earlier White House. This is American corruption on the scale of a post-Soviet republic or a postcolonial African dictatorship.
Trump's corruption is so off the charts (a Qatari luxury jet, hundreds of millions in memecoins and tokens, bidding wars to dine with him as his club) that it defies comparison. Through the memecoin, anyone anywhere for any reason can put hundreds, or thousands, or millions of dollars directly into Trump's pocket. Not into a campaign fund, not into a political party, but into the hands of the president. And as we witnessed on his Middle East trip, eager foreign leaders and businessmen are lining up to do so. Vietnam, hoping for relief from tariffs, is in talks to help Trump build a luxury golf course. Due almost entirely to his crypto holdings, Trump has, by one estimate, doubled his net worth in just four months.
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The Constitution could not be clearer. Article I, Section 9 reads: 'No title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign state.'
Are we so cynical that we cannot summon outrage at a flagrant disregard for our founding document?
In keeping with the current grab-everything-that-isn't-nailed-down ethos, the Trump administration announced last month that it was disbanding the Justice Department unit devoted to ferreting out crypto crime, and the Securities and Exchange Commission dropped an investigation into one of Trump's largest donors—the one who donated top dollar (or memecoin) to have dinner with Trump at his country club outside D.C.
Yes, Biden's pardons of his family were grubby, but they were a few pebbles compared with Trump's avalanche of corruption. The current president is signaling with his pardons that anti-democratic violence is encouraged if undertaken on his behalf, and that no action, not even murder, is beyond redemption if you are in his camp. He has pardoned a corrupt thief who happened to be the son of a big donor, granted a 'FULL AND Unconditional Pardon' to a Virginia sheriff who was convicted of selling government offices but who was redeemed by his Trump loyalty. The family of Ashli Babbitt, who violently stormed the Capitol and was shot by police, received a generous payout from the Trump-controlled government. Murderers, politicos on the take, swindlers, thieving reality TV stars, gangsters—all have been pardoned by Trump in the past few weeks. If you're a Trump supporter, you have an honest-to-goodness get-out-of-jail-free card. The Department of Justice's watchword is no longer 'Equal Justice Under Law,' but, in the words of Ed Martin, Trump's newly minted pardon advisor, 'No MAGA left behind.'
We must disenthrall ourselves from the whataboutism mindset. There are honorable politicians. There are honest businessmen. There are police and soldiers and teachers and programmers and athletes and judges of integrity. Millions of Americans are appalled and deeply embarrassed by the kakistocracy we've elevated. Hold on to that outrage. It's the road back from this disaster.
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