Mistake Type:
Whataboutism
Deflecting criticism or fault by bringing up a similar issue, often involving a counteraccusation.
Examples:
In a discussion about the Trump administration’s harsh treatment of illegal migrants: “Oh? Well, Obama deported more people than any other president in history.”
“Trump may have illegally kept classified documents, but what about the documents that Biden had in his garage?”
“Maybe the mainstream media has a liberal bias, but the right-wing media is ten times worse.”
About Whataboutism:
Whataboutism serves to deflect from the issue at hand by introducing another, often tangential, issue or criticism. There’s usually a veiled accusation of hypocrisy (“You’re criticizing A, but at the same time you’re defending B for basically the same thing.”) This tactic does not directly engage with the criticism or argument being made; rather, it shifts the focus, effectively muddying the waters and making it difficult to address the original point.
One of the reasons this tactic is so effective is that it plays into the natural human tendency to compare and contrast situations. It exploits the audience’s sense of fairness or their belief that problems should not be viewed in isolation but in the context of other, comparable issues. However, what it does in actuality is deflect critique or blame from the issuer’s beliefs or alignments.
Whataboutism is designed to create a sense of moral relativism, suggesting that because no one is perfectly innocent, no one has the standing to judge or criticize. But wrongness isn’t excused when multiple people on different sides engage in it.