Bulwark Policy Editor Mona Charen says Americans do more damage than they know when they dismiss gross corruption as “everybody does it” —because everybody doesn’t.
“It’s perfectly clear why Trump and his many enablers rely on whataboutism. It’s the easiest deflection,” Charen writes. “What is the proper response to Trump’s iniquitous treatment of women? What about Bill Clinton? How can one evaluate his pardons of the January 6th insurrectionists? What about all those who rioted in protest of George Floyd’s murder and were never prosecuted? (They were.) Was Trump’s refusal to return highly classified documents a serious breach? What about Joe Biden keeping files in his garage? (Biden returned them when asked.) Is Trump corrupting the rule of law with his pardons of friends, donors, and political allies? What about Joe Biden’s pardons of Hunter and his entire family?”
Many people, when caught in a lie or transgression admit their guilt and seek to repair the damage, said Charen. “That’s how mature people and societies stay civilized. … But “truly depraved people don’t take that route. Trump uses whataboutism not just to change the subject or disarm the accuser … but also to breed cynicism.”
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Cynicism is corrosive because it invites the very thing it scorns, said Charen. “Once you elect a sociopath and agree with his jaundiced view that everyone is corrupt, you’ve lost any chance of upholding basic values.
“Yes, Biden’s pardons of his family were grubby, but they were a few pebbles compared with Trump’s avalanche of corruption,” Charen concedes, however, “… Trump’s corruption is so off the charts (a Qatari luxury jet, hundreds of millions in memecoins and tokens, bidding wars to dine with him as his club) that it defies comparison.”
Charen ticks down a list of the president’s worst: “Through the memecoin, anyone anywhere for any reason can put hundreds, or thousands, or millions of dollars directly into Trump’s pocket. Not into a campaign fund, not into a political party, but into the hands of the president. And as we witnessed on his Middle East trip, eager foreign leaders and businessmen are lining up to do so. Vietnam, hoping for relief from tariffs, is in talks to help Trump build a luxury golf course. Due almost entirely to his crypto holdings, Trump has, by one estimate, doubled his net worth in just four months.”
The Bulwark podaster says the Constitution could not be clearer that “no person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign state.” But that doesn’t appear to be preventing the administration from disbanding the Justice Department unit devoted to ferreting out crypto crime just in time for the Securities and Exchange Commission to drop an investigation into one of Trump’s largest donors “—the one who donated top dollar (or memecoin) to have dinner with Trump at his country club outside D.C.,” she said.
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If Americans do treasure honesty, integrity, the rule of law and decency, Charen said they must be prepared to reject whataboutism and risk mockery by insisting that no, not everybody does it, and we don’t want to accept the kind of society in which that is assumed.
“We must disenthrall ourselves from the whataboutism mindset,” she said. “There are honorable politicians. There are honest businessmen. There are police and soldiers and teachers and programmers and athletes and judges of integrity. Millions of Americans are appalled and deeply embarrassed by the kakistocracy we’ve elevated. Hold on to that outrage. It’s the road back from this disaster.”
Read the full Bulwark report here.