False Balance aka False Equivalence aka Bothsidesism. In 2016 it was hush-money payments to hookers AND members of an election campaign soliciting foreign assistance from Russia’ being given equal media treatment to ‘her emails’.
More recently, it’s ‘fine people on both sides’ when white supremacists march through a city’s streets while the White House labels ‘Black Lives Matter’ a symbol of hate’.
But any reasonable person can understand that Putin’s Russia helping a candidate win the presidency was not equivalent to a home email server. Nazis marching with torches is not the equivalent of Black protestors demanding that we not be murdered by police. It’s bullshit, and no amount of mental gymnastics ever make either of them true.
Let’s be honest. Nothing about where we are as a country concerning our elections, racial unrest, or more recently the Coronavirus, is because of both sides. All of it stems from a Republican party that gives support and cover for a corrupt, racist, and incompetent president so that they can maintain their power. I don’t usually care to assess blame, but this has all happened in broad daylight for all to see. republicans are undeniably to blame and must own it.
I’m not about to allow ‘false balances’ to go unchallenged, even in a casual setting with friends.
I recently had a conversation that started innocently enough with the statement, “I wish both sides would stop making everything so political with this pandemic.” There was no hint of sarcasm. It was stated as a known fact. Inside of my head, however, there was an immediate sound of a needle scratching across a record.
“No no no! I’m tired of this. It’s not both sides. Both sides did not make this political! This is all on trump and the republicans!” Taken aback, my friend continued. “Well, both sides are using this in the election. I just wish they would work together to fix it.”
I consider this person to be intelligent and well-meaning. But clearly, they’ve fallen prey to the blatant misrepresentation of the facts surrounding how we got to this point. As a nation, we can’t let this continue. These types of misrepresentations are exactly how we got to over 200K dead.
In this instance, it was going to end right there with me. At least with this one person.
“Of course Democrats are going to talk about the failures of this administration with the pandemic for the election. What are they supposed to do? Are they supposed to pretend that over 180K people aren’t dead and not say anything? Are they not supposed to talk about their own plans for dealing with the virus? Then you’d be saying that they didn’t do anything to help, and they have no plan.”
“When this pandemic began, this administration was repeatedly warned about what might happen with this virus. They proceeded to deny the gravity of the problem, and their role to help stop it, for months. They dismissed anyone who disagreed with them. When people started to die, Kushner saw that it was happening in predominantly Democratic strongholds. So he decided to let people die to help their election results.”
“And as people died, trump withheld aid to Democratic states that were suffering because they needed to be nice to him. No. I’m not accepting this anymore. It’s not both sides.”
I could see by the look on their face a recognition that they had stepped way too deep with me. But I wasn’t going to let them off the hook. I have listened for months as people have used this ‘both sides’ and ‘false balance’ bullshit since 2016 to justify the unjustifiable.
“Both sides didn’t say it was okay to have migrant children in cages at the border. Both sides don’t look at the killing of Blacks by police and think it’s okay. None of where we are right now is both sides.”
The table became silent. Eventually, the subject was changed. I let it go because I had said what needed to be said even though I’m not sure that any of it was heard, or that any views were changed.
In the end, however, that wasn’t the point. You can’t change the viewpoint of someone who doesn’t want to be changed. If someone looks at this president (or any of their gop leaders) and says, “But the Democrats are just as bad”, the discussion isn’t about facts. It’s about blindly defending indefensible actions and policies by your political party to save face.
My point was to draw a line in the sand for myself and say “No more.” I’m not writing about this conversation to demonize anyone, just merely to say that we should hold people accountable to their words, actions, and affiliations… and hope that they do better in the future.