I often see people in debates online accuse other people of playing “Whataboutism.”
Here’s a standard definition:
Whataboutism is a pejorative for the strategy of responding to an accusation with a counteraccusation instead of a defense against the original accusation.
That raises two issues.
First, is whataboutism ever a reasonable way to argue?
Second, what’s a good way to respond when someone uses the “whataboutism” strategy to deflect?
My answer to the first question is yes. It is sometimes a reasonable way to argue.
I’ll answer the second question by referring to a discussion I was in on Facebook today.
I had said good things on FB about Senator Chris Van Hollen, the Democratic Senator from Maryland. I thought he did a good job down in El Salvador, in a 3-minute video (here’s the 24-minute version), of making the case for the return of one of his constituents [Note: this is an incorrect use of the word “constituent.” Thanks to Tyler Watts in the comments below for raising the issue.], Abrego Garcia, whom the Trump administration admits was mistakenly taken to a prison in El Salvador. Van Hollen made only one error: he stated that Abrego Garcia is innocent even though he doesn’t know that. The key is not that he’s innocent. The key is that he was never given a hearing. The only way to find out is to give him a hearing back in the United States at which he can have a lawyer present.
Probably because of FB’s algorithm, up popped a threaded discussion initiated by a friend named Matt Gilliland. Matt said that Trump is defying the Supreme Court of the United States, which told him, in a 9-0 decision, to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.
A friend of Matt’s named Will stated:
Wow, a president defying the SC – why I haven’t seen that since … JOE BIDEN on student loans bragging about it.
Matt replied:
So I think that Biden’s student loan shenanigans were often outside of his limits, but Biden didn’t actually defy the Supreme Court. When he got shut down because the method he used was ruled invalid, he tried a different legal method. That’s not defying the Supreme Court — it’s following their decisions. Can you point to an example where he actually defied their decision?
The conversation went back and forth.
Will was engaging in whataboutism. Was that an invalid way to argue? I don’t think so. Matt’s response was that Biden hadn’t defied the Supreme Court. (By the way, in an appearance in, I think Los Angeles, Biden came awfully close to bragging that he had.)
The problem is that in raising the issue of Biden, Will manages to avoid discussing whether what Trump did was illegitimate.
So I asked the obvious question. I wrote to Will:
And when Biden did that, you were against it, right?
Will didn’t answer.
I think my question of Will was a good way to go. Once he admitted that he was against Biden defying the Supreme Court (he thought Biden was; I, like Matt, thought he didn’t, but I also thought Biden came perilously close) then we could get to the issue of whether Trump’s actions constituted defiance of the Supreme Court. We never got there because, at least so far, Will hasn’t replied.
But the way I responded is a legitimate way to respond to whataboutism, whether or not whataboutism is justified, but especially if whataboutism is justified.
One final question about Trump and Biden. The Supreme Court has seconded a lower court decision requiring Trump to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States. Why, after the Supreme Court found Biden’s forgiving of student loans unconstitutional, did it not require him to undo that forgiveness? Biden wouldn’t have even had to get people to send checks that had been sent to them. All he would have had to is tell them that their loans were not forgiven.
Update: See below for Matt Gilliland’s answer to the question I raised about reversing Biden’s loan forgiveness. And I apologize for mislabeling Matt as a lawyer. His comments on law always seem so well thought out, and I noted that he went to law school. Therefore, I assumed. Assuming often gets you in trouble, as Reacher often notes. If some immigration enforcers hadn’t just assumed, I wouldn’t have felt the need to write about this.
READER COMMENTS
BS
Apr 16 2025 at 10:57pm
There’s at least one context in which I consider “whatabout” justified. When someone complains that customary behaviour (“norm”) has been violated, it’s reasonable to point to a prior violation and argue that the custom was no longer in force. In politically-connected disputes the complainant is often being reminded that status quo changed by his preferred political party’s own hand. Once someone tears down Chesterton’s fence for his own purposes, it’s down for everyone else. In another sense, my impression is that the person using “whatabout” is saying, “In the Game we were playing, you defected; now I’m defecting (either to secure the same advantage, or to deny whatever was gained by defection, or to persuade the original defector to reform).”
Otherwise, most uses of “whatabout” amount to something for which the appropriate rejoinder is “two wrongs don’t make a right”.
Mark
Apr 17 2025 at 7:43pm
I disagree. Norm degradation is gradual; it’s not a question of either the fence is down or not. Often in US history presidents have done things that violated prior taboos, then subsequently presidents decided not to follow their suit because they believed the taboo was worth preserving (e.g. FDR ran for a third and fourth term, but fortunately, imo, American society subsequently decided to restore and codify the norm).
Encouraging people to adopt the mentality that any norm their opponent breaks can be immediately discarded will only expedite the collapse of what norms remain.
Ken Costello
Apr 17 2025 at 9:18am
Maybe Van Holler meant that pursuant to the US judicial system a person is innocent until proven guilty, which of course the Administration hasn’t shown since Garcia was denied a fair hearing.
David Henderson
Apr 17 2025 at 9:28am
Good point.
Related point: I was telling a friend about this yesterday when I was noodling this post. He said that maybe Van Hollen wasn’t a lawyer and so didn’t understand the legal niceties. I was on a walk while talking to my friend and so I couldn’t check but I said, “Maybe he is a lawyer and he’s talking as if Abrego Garcia is his client.” My friend was at his computer and, bingo, saw that he is a lawyer.
Craig
Apr 17 2025 at 11:11am
Well, I think he can fall back on that position if it turns out this guy isn’t a very nice guy after all, but I suspect that, at least at the moment, he is thinking in terms of ‘actual innocence’
Cove77
Apr 17 2025 at 10:08am
Thats’s nothing. Whatabout HILLARY?
Tyler Watts
Apr 17 2025 at 10:56am
David, honest question, not meant in the spirit of a “gotcha”:
Is Abrego Garcia legitimately a “constituent” of Van Hollen? At a minimum AG is a non-citizen (non voter) and also entered the country illegally (though he may have some kind of adjudicated protected status). On the one hand, Van Hollen can argue for the return of AG on the ground of just process or rule of law. On the other hand, it might be in the interest of Van Hollen’s constituents (citizens/ voters) for the likes of AG to be deported.
Just asking questions here! 🙂
David Henderson
Apr 17 2025 at 11:23am
You wrote:
Thanks, Tyler. I didn’t take it that way.
You wrote:
He’s not a constituent. I looked it up in Merriam-Webster. I thought the term was more expansive than it is. I’ll make a correction.
You wrote:
Yes. That’s what I think, based on my understanding of the legal system.
You wrote:
That’s too general. Maybe some, and probably many, of Van Hollen’s constituents would like him to be deported. But I bet there are at least some who think long term and worry about the implications of this violation of the rule of law.
Tyler Watts
Apr 17 2025 at 1:50pm
Thanks, David. As always, you are a most decent and worthy interlocutor!
David Henderson
Apr 17 2025 at 6:14pm
Thanks, Tyler. You are too.
One thing I appreciate about blogging and hearing from commenters is that I learn things. I’ll be more careful in the future about using the term “constituent” and about claiming someone (e.g., Matt Gilliland) is a lawyer just because he sounds like one and went to law school.
Matt Gilliland
Apr 17 2025 at 11:24am
IMO, even if Garcia were El Chapo himself, it is in the interests of Van Hollen’s constituents that the government not be able to mistakenly deport a person and then claim they have no responsibility to do anything about it.
Matt Gilliland
Apr 17 2025 at 11:21am
A quick caveat/correction — I’m not a lawyer by profession. I went to law school, but never took the bar, and ended up working in startups and management consulting instead of practicing, but the special interest in constitutional law remains.
Biden tried to forgive student debt under several mechanisms. The massive cancellation was planned under the HEROES Act, and that’s what SCOTUS struck down in Biden v. Nebraska. The HEROES cancellation never went into effect, so there was nothing to claw back.
The debt that was successfully forgiven was on a significantly smaller scale (though still significant), and under different mechanisms that were not proscribed by the SCOTUS decision and which were more arguably constitutional. I believe virtually all of the successful forgiveness came under the waiver authority in the Higher Education Act of 1965, which allowed the Secretary of Education to “enforce, pay, compromise, waive, or release any right, title, claim, lien, or demand, however acquired, including any equity or any right of redemption.”
While I’d argue that this also would be unconstitutional under Major Questions Doctrine, it’s at least derived from plausible statutory authority, unlike the HEROES forgiveness, and it was implemented through already-existing authorized programs. If any lawsuits went far on that forgiveness (before the SAVE plan), I missed them, but they weren’t blocked.
So when Biden bragged that “The Supreme Court blocked it, but that didn’t stop me,” he didn’t mean that he had defied the Supreme Court — he meant that he’d found another way to enact forgiveness (though less than half of what he’d planned via HEROES).
Biden also attempted to implement a new income-based repayment plan (SAVE) that was more forgiving than the current set, but it was stopped by the courts via a string of nationwide injunctions from several different circuits (the kind Trump is currently ranting about), and I assume the Trump administration will drop the defense of those cases and let SAVE die completely.
David Henderson
Apr 17 2025 at 11:27am
Thanks for both clarifications.
steve
Apr 17 2025 at 1:31pm
My general approach on whataboutism is kind of similar. If I can find something to agree about then I make it a point to agree with the whatabouter. I then go back, as you did, to the original question. I find that about 95% of the time I dont get a response since the person really didnt want to talk about the issue in question. The other 5% of the time is mostly an attempt to go back to their what about claim.
I also agree, as I noted elsewhere, that what Biden tried to do was wrong. Fortunately, our system worked the way it’s supposed to work. POTUS tried to claim too much authority. SCOTUS, at least partially citing the major questions rule, said it should go through Congress. A one time incident where POTUS needs to make a very time limited decision places a lot fo authority into the hands of POTUS, but when it is a major policy decision and or one that’s not time limited Congress should be involved with a few exceptions and POTUS should not be defining those situations.
Steve
David Henderson
Apr 17 2025 at 1:47pm
Well said, steve.
Thanks.
Warren Platts
Apr 18 2025 at 12:29am
We used to have a saying in the Navy: “Admit nothing. Deny everything. Make counter-accusations!” 😉
Warren Platts
Apr 18 2025 at 12:30am
And “If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying!”
Monte
Apr 18 2025 at 7:50pm
The practical reality of following due process to the letter for each undocumented immigrant would ensure fairness and uphold constitutional principles, but would collapse the system under its own weight. Enforcing immigration law on a mass scale without violating the Constitution would be next to impossible. It would overwhelm the courts, bring deportations to a screeching halt, and force Trump to abandon his deportation policy resulting in de facto amnesty for millions. An unlikely scenario, but one that open borders advocates would welcome, I’m sure.
Michael Byrnes
Apr 30 2025 at 3:55pm
So, it is OK to violate the constitution under circumstances where you think it is necessary?
That’s the equivalent of not haveing a consitution at all.
Comments are closed.