{"id":32581,"date":"2018-03-20T17:20:21","date_gmt":"2018-03-20T22:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=32581"},"modified":"2018-03-20T17:20:55","modified_gmt":"2018-03-20T22:20:55","slug":"whataboutism-is-a-nonsensical-propaganda-term-used-to-defend-the-failed-status-quo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=32581","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Whataboutism\u2019 is a Nonsensical Propaganda Term Used to Defend the Failed Status Quo"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u2018Whataboutism\u2019 is a Nonsensical Propaganda Term Used to Defend the Failed Status Quo<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n
\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

If you spend any time on Twitter, you\u2019ll probably be familiar with the latest pathetic attempt to defend and insulate the U.S. status quo from criticism. It centers around the usage of an infantile and meaningless term, \u201cwhataboutism.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s begin with one particularly absurd accusation of \u201cwhataboutism\u201d promoted by NPR<\/em><\/a>\u00a0last year:<\/p>\n

When O\u2019Reilly countered that \u201cPutin is a killer,\u201d Trump responded, \u201cThere are a lot of killers. You got a lot of killers. What, you think our country is so innocent?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

This particular brand of changing the subject is called \u201cwhataboutism\u201d \u2014 a simple rhetorical tactic heavily used by the Soviet Union and, later, Russia. And its use in Russia helps illustrate how it could be such a useful tool now, in America. As Russian political experts told NPR, it\u2019s an attractive tactic for populists in particular, allowing them to be vague but appear straight-talking at the same time.<\/em><\/p>\n

The idea behind whataboutism is simple: Party A accuses Party B of doing something bad. Party B responds by changing the subject and pointing out one of Party A\u2019s faults \u2014 \u201cYeah? Well what about that bad thing you did?\u201d (Hence the name.)<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not exactly a complicated tactic \u2014 any grade-schooler can master the \u201cyeah-well-you-suck-too-so-there\u201d defense. But it came to be associated with the USSR because of the Soviet Union\u2019s heavy reliance upon whataboutism throughout the Cold War and afterward, as Russia.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is a really embarrassing take by NPR<\/em>. First, the author tries to associate a tactic that\u2019s been around since humans first wandered into caves \u2014 deflecting attention away from yourself by pointing out the flaws in others \u2014 into some uniquely nefarious Russian propaganda tool. Second, that\u2019s not even what Trump did in this example.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Whataboutism\u2019 is a Nonsensical Propaganda Term Used to Defend the Failed Status Quo If you spend any time on Twitter, you\u2019ll probably be familiar with the latest pathetic attempt to defend and insulate the U.S. status quo from criticism. It centers around the usage of an infantile and meaningless term, \u201cwhataboutism.\u201d Let\u2019s begin with one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4285,6174,6457,655,19360],"class_list":["post-32581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-liberty-blitzkrieg","tag-michael-krieger","tag-npr","tag-propaganda","tag-whataboutism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32581"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32582,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32581\/revisions\/32582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}