July 19, 2023

The Democrats like to mock our whataboutism.  Every time Donald Trump is attacked, we pull out an ever-growing list of examples illustrating how he’s being treated differently from his political opponents.  He is charged with illegally having classified documents in his possession.  Joe Biden also had classified documents in his possession — illegally — but faces no charges.  Hillary Clinton illegally had classified documents in her possession, too.  They were stored on a secret email server, in her bathroom, which was almost certainly compromised by foreign actors.  James Comey assured us that no reasonable prosecutor would charge Hillary.  Apparently, the DOJ found an unreasonable prosecutor on staff to charge Donald Trump.

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When we make such comparisons, the Democrats laugh and accuse us of deflecting with whataboutism.  They’ll make the claim that “no one is above the law” — which is demonstrably false (see Hunter Biden, Eric Holder, Andrew McCabe…).  The Democrats, and their propaganda ministry, assert that comparisons do not excuse lawlessness — as if that ends the discussion.  It does not, because it misses the point.

Whataboutism is “an argumentative tactic where a person or group responds to an accusation or difficult question by deflection. Instead of addressing the point made, they counter it with ‘but what about X?'”  The Democrats are implying that a whataboutism argument is invalid.  

It is the motorist arguing with a police officer that everyone else was speeding, too.  But we’re not using it to defend speeding.  We’re using it to question why one motorist out of many was singled out.  In fact, we want to know why the same police officer pulls over the same motorist every day — when hundreds are doing the same thing.

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The Dems are deflecting from the real debate we need to have.  We aren’t using whataboutism as a defense of Trump.  His lawyers will use evidence and legal arguments for that.  In fact, we are not debating Trump’s case at all.  We are using Donald Trump’s case as evidence of a broken criminal justice system.  Whataboutism is an indictment of the system that is targeting Donald Trump.  The “whataboutism” argument is about systemic corruption.

Merrick Garland is not the head of the department of law enforcement, the department of criminal prosecution, or the department of political dirty tricks.  He is the head of the Department of Justice.  He did not swear an oath to enforce the law.  His oath is to “defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same[.]”

However, prosecuting only his preferred offenders is not bearing “true faith and allegiance” to the Constitution.  He is sworn to defend justice, not use all legal means to target opponents.

According to the Cornell Law School:

Justice is the ethical, philosophical idea that people are to be treated impartially, fairly, properly, and reasonably by the law and by arbiters of the law[.]

The 5th and 14th amendments to the Constitution provide more direction on the meaning of “impartially, fairly, properly, and reasonably.”  Their due process requirements are universally interpreted to require equal protection by federal and state governments.  Law enforcement applied unequally does not advance justice — regardless of the facts associated with any specific case.