The current incarnation of anti-intellectualism in Republican politics — epitomized by the campaign of former football star Herschel Walker for U.S. Senate in Georgia — started in earnest in the winter of 2012 with a quip from former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), who was seeking the Republican presidential nomination. At a tea party campaign stop in Michigan, Santorum called President Obama a “snob” for saying he wanted “everybody in America to go to college.”
The truth is there’s no evidence Obama ever said that, but that is irrelevant. Politicians misquote, mislead and sometimes flat-out lie about each other during campaign stops. What made Santorum’s misrepresentation notable, though, is that he got a bump from his remarks despite the fact that he himself held a bachelor's and two graduate degrees.
It didn’t take a private investigator to find this information out. It was available on his campaign website — not that his supporters cared. They chose to ignore the hypocrisy of his comments about college because of their dislike of Obama, their dislike of Democrats or, perhaps, simply because the facts didn’t confirm what they thought they already knew.
The truth is Santorum held more degrees than Obama at the time of his remarks — 3 to 2.
Now to be fair, Santorum’s overall point was there’s nothing wrong with choosing an occupation that doesn't require a bachelor’s degree. But Obama agreed with that, which is why he launched his “Educate to Innovate” campaign in his first term to help get high schoolers better prepared for tech jobs.
Santorum, the rich guy with a law degree, went on to win 11 states partly because he couched himself as an everyman despite being a 1 percenter. That and his sweater-vest thing.
That moment in Michigan is when the fervent dislike the modern-day conservative harbors for so-called snooty, overeducated liberals really took off. Fast-forward a decade and anti-intellectualism is now such a common aspect of Americana that not only do many Republican voters reject vaccines and climate change, they also dismiss our leading scientists (see: Fauci, Anthony) and instead listen to the My Pillow guy for medical advice.
Enter Walker, who is currently the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in Georgia.
Walker was clearly unfit for the job even before he announced, given his threats to have a “shootout” with police and the domestic violence allegations made against him in the early 2000s. Traditionally, conservatives would have disqualified him for the things that were revealed after his announcement, such as lying about serving in law enforcement and dissembling about the number of children he has fathered.
But alas, no matter how many times he is revealed to have said something that wasn’t true — including his claim that he graduated from college — polls continue to show him in a virtual dead heat with incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), who graduated from divinity school and has never been accused of saying he was going to blow his ex-girlfriend’s head off.
But Warnock is a Democrat, so…
Look, if this was about sticking with an elected official embroiled in a personal scandal, maybe I could understand. Like President Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky episode. But this isn’t about a scandal. This isn’t about a gaffe or two. This is about something much more basic. It’s about someone who should not be in the U.S. Senate because he is patently not fit for office.
Don’t believe me? Read Walker’s response when he was asked about school shootings less than 24 hours after 19 children and two teachers were killed in Uvalde, Texas:
“You know, Cain killed Abel,” Walker said. “You know and that’s a problem that we have. And I said, what we need to do is look into how we can stop those things.”
As if our legal system has not considered addressing murder before.
Walker went on: “You know, they talk about doing a disinformation. What about getting a department that could look at young men that’s looking at women that’s looking at social media. What about doing that?”
Huh?
Walker also questioned the theory of evolution, suggesting that because there are still apes in the world, humans can’t be descended from them.
I could go on, but really, what’s the point?
“I love the poorly educated,” said Donald Trump, following a caucus victory in Nevada in 2016. “We won with the poorly educated — I love the poorly educated. We’re the smartest people, we’re the most loyal people.”
The former president received an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania, but sure, he’s Team Poorly Educated. And now he’s firmly behind Walker, a man whose explanation of air pollution includes the idea that “our good air decided to float over to China’s bad air.” As if air makes decisions the way we decide what to eat for dinner.
The problem with Walker’s candidacy is not that we’re setting the bar lower than before. It’s that the bar has been removed altogether.
Link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/column-herschel-walker-is-unfit-to-serve-in-the-u-s-senate/ar-AAZyZo2?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=1f960d9f33944d6e833b569e074af124
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blithering idiot and you took great offense and did your whole "misogynist" routine that you do when someone points out an obvious truth about the lack of intelligence of one of your tribal members. You voted for her, of course, which only adds to your offense taken. The author of your linked article undoubtedly behaves the same way with a highly selective dum-dum sensor. I'd like to quiz him on some of his dogma and torment him a bit about his own ignorance as many do here with you.
choices.
I didn't call her a great POTUS candidate.
You're a liar and that thread proves it.
Link: Boom!
You did claim that her intelligence was "15 points" higher than all the GOP candidates combined. You did take offense. You did not use the word "misogynist" in that thread, which I already acknowledged. That is not lying. You have also labeled me a "misogynist" on multiple occasions, which you know.
The point remains that like the LA Times author, you will never call one of your tribe an idiot unless it's Manchin, Sinema, or another Dem who deviates from the company line. But please, provide an example of a "good" Dem whom you have described as a dummy.
about her and definitely noting how lame in the brain department your candidates were and are.
I wouldn't vote for her ever.
You made it a point to use Gillibrand as some sort of gotcha when there wasn't a gotcha post there.
You're a liar and the morons who thought you had some grail are by far too stupid to be in any conversation
and you used them.
I'm not a Gillibrand fan.
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I do apologize. You did not use the smear, "misogynist" in this one. You've usually reserved that for posts in which I point out another uncomfortable truth, namely that women's college basketball is horrendous, given the great disparities in speed, strength and so forth. But I believe you've hurled that one at me on political issues, too.
Link: https://forum.uhnd.com/forum/index.php?action=display&forumid=2&msgid=535294
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I'll stand by her being a far better candidate than those I posted.
I was correct then, and I'm correct now.
…..you cannot actually have a dum dum sensor. If you did, it would be going off continuously from being constantly triggered.
his go to move. His must not work
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Not that I have a problem with that.
Again, everything Joe touches, aside from little girls, goes to...
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Plus he can be the 3rd contestant with MGK and AOC on Congressional Jeopardy.
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Is there another reason to post such content?
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that person.
If Walker were a D. Not only would I not vote for him, I'd also campaign against him in every way I could.
This issue is, you R's put up these types of candidates as serious people and call those who oppose that candidate
racist, or other without ever taking into account who that candidate really is.
I wonder sometimes if you are all so cleverly cynical putting these guys up for office because you want to make the borderline
candidates look great. Lose a Walker in light of a Keri Lake or Boebert or Gohmert or Perry or Jordan or Hawley or and the list goes on and on.
You have no credibility at all.
This posting thread was brought to you by the Obama era, when all substantive criticisms of Obama caused Jim to accuse people of racism.
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The entire thread may have to be shut down
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He's funny like that. Racist as hell, but still funny.
me - That is strange that's too far.
Odd how you'd support him as Senator - Gives your lack of credibility, reason.
of GA will have their say on him. I asked a simple question. One you have yet to answer because you don't do direct questions. It's ok, just own it and move on.
Examiner to back me up.
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Being "smart" is marinally related to human behaviors.
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Kind of a stupid move that she’ll never live down.
Maybe...
Lots of dimwits out there that are book smart.
Trump. They are on his side so she has to be smart.
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people are scumbags and do not have the interest of the people who vote for them. You, on the other hand, seem to think Dems walk on water and are the best of the best. So, are there any Dems who are as stupid as Walker?
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He made his point though a simile; A grossly exaggerated one, but one, nonetheless.
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they are screaming about the post. Notice there wasn't an answer, just screams. It's there go to. Deflect and scream and not answer.
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I was just wondering if you think any Dem was a dolt and unfit or was it just republicans. Really simple question that you won't answer. Shocking, I know.
comment on the thread post and link itself - you prefer to question me on something else.
Every Day!
God forbid they criticize a Republican.
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You and your little butt buddy can scream whatabout all you want but I think all politicians are scumbags. I've said that many times but you idiots just don't listen. I know your job, as little as it brings to society as a whole, depends on these people so you need them. Me, I don't and really don't like any of them.
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"Whataboutism gives a clue to its meaning in its name. It is not merely the changing of a subject ("What about the economy?") to deflect away from an earlier subject as a political strategy; it’s essentially a reversal of accusation, arguing that an opponent is guilty of an offense just as egregious or worse than what the original party was accused of doing, however unconnected the offenses may be.
The tactic behind whataboutism has been around for a long time. Rhetoricians generally consider it to be a form of tu quoque, which means "you too" in Latin and involves charging your accuser with whatever it is you've just been accused of rather than refuting the truth of the accusation made against you. Tu quoque is considered to be a logical fallacy, because whether or not the original accuser is likewise guilty of an offense has no bearing on the truth value of the original accusation.
Whataboutism adds a twist to tu quoque by directing its energies into establishing an equivalence between two or more disparate actions, thereby defaming the accuser with the insinuation that their priorities are backwards. The CNN correspondent Jill Dougherty, in a 2016 article about allegations of Russian doping during the Olympics, defined whataboutism in terms of a more familiar English idiom:
There's another attitude toward doping allegations that many Russians seem to share, what used to be called in the Soviet Union "whataboutism," in other words, "who are you to call the kettle black?"
—Jill Dougherty, CNN.com, 24 July 2016
The association of whataboutism with the Soviet Union began during the Cold War. As the regimes of Josef Stalin and his successors were criticized by the West for human rights atrocities, the Soviet propaganda machine would be ready with a comeback alleging atrocities of equal reprehensibility for which the West was guilty.
The weaknesses of whataboutism—which dictates that no one must get away with an attack on the Kremlin's abuses without tossing a few bricks at South Africa, no one must indict the Cuban police State without castigating President Park, no one must mention Irak, Libya or the PLO without having a bash at Israel, &c. – have been canvassed in this column before.
—Michael Bernard, The Age (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), 17 Jun. 1978
Before the 2016 presidential election, more instances of whataboutism applied to criticism among regimes than between individual politicians:
Events in Ferguson have caused whataboutism to go global. As Robin Wright notes in the Wall Street Journal a whole bunch o' authoritarian states have seized on Ferguson to criticize the United States…
—Daniel W. Drezner, Slate, 20 Aug. 2014
Since the Cold War, Moscow has engaged in a political points-scoring exercise known as "whataboutism" used to shut down criticism of Russia's own rights record by pointing out abuses elsewhere. All criticism of Russia is invalid, the idea goes, because problems exist in other countries too.
—Max Seddon, Buzzfeed, 25 Nov. 2014
The term is seeing a bit of a renaissance in our current political climate. Philip Bump writes in The Washington Post that President Donald Trump has utilized whataboutism frequently as a way of deflecting criticism for his actions, such as his pardon of former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio.
“[I]f you look at, as an example, President Clinton pardoned Marc Rich, who was charged with crimes going back decades, including illegally buying oil from Iran while it held 53 American hostages — wasn’t allowed to do that, selling to the enemies of the United States,” Trump said at a news conference on Monday. “He was pardoned after his wife donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Clintons.” He went on with his list: pardons of “dangerous criminals,” of drug dealers, President Barack Obama’s commutation of the sentences of Chelsea Manning and Oscar López Rivera. What about them, he asked? Why is he being maligned when what Clinton and Obama did was so bad?
—Philip Bump, The Washington Post, 29 Aug. 2017
The specific application of whataboutism to Donald Trump might be prompted in part by his fondness for language that alerts to the tactic itself:
Time will tell if whataboutism can persuade its way into the language, but its recent upswing in usage suggests it may have staying power. At least until someone changes the subject.
Words We're Watching talks about words we are increasingly seeing in use but that have not yet met our criteria for entry.
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Take deep breaths and walk away, please.