• OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

    That’s interesting. Why does that standard change so much in the context of presidential candidates compared to every other situation?

    Like, if someone was criticizing, say, Fidel Castro, and instead of addressing it I brought up the problems with the Batista regime that he opposed, would that be whataboutism? Just as in a presidential election, there were two realistic possibilities, either Batista stays in power or he’s overthrown. So if it’s valid to divert from criticism of Biden towards problems with his most realistic alternative, Trump, then why would it not be valid to do the same thing with Castro and Batista, or any number of similar cases?

    • Croquette@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      We are talking about a stance of two presidential candidates, the context matter when talking whataboutism.

      In this case, the stance of both candidates on Israel is part of their political platform and we’re in the presidential campaign.

      Whataboutism would be Republicans defending Trump on its criminal charge by talking about Hillary’s emails. Those two things are unrelated.