this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2023
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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Please google what Whataboutism actually means.

The US has hardly any democracy in their electoral system. All you can do on federal level is inputting a 1 bit vote once every four years. And if you don't live in a swing state, that vote doesn't count at all.

So there are only three possible choices on the ballot:

-Vote for A -Vote for B -Vote for another party, do a blank vote or don't go voting

All of the options in the third choice lead to exactly the same result: You have no input regarding the result.

So if your choice is between A, B, or leaving it up to others to decide for you, then comparing the stances of A and B is exactly what you have to do, because there is no other option where your vote does anything.

So let's compare these two:

-Republicans are 100% behind Israel and genocide. -Democrats are at least split on the topic of Israel and genocide.

So what's the right choice to take here? All three options likely lead to more genocide. Not voting doesn't change anything because politicians care about being voted into office, and non-voters don't stop them from getting into office.

So to circle back to the beginning:

Whataboutism means that you bring up an unrelated topic of something that's maybe worse to make something else seem less bad.

For example: "I don't do anything to save the environment, because my neighbor drives a massive truck."

Whataboutism does not apply if you are comparing two related points to each other, e.g. "I vote for A, because voting for B is worse and there are no other choices."