Whataboutism Is a Scam and Your Favorite TV Pundits Are Running It On You Every Night

Your Favorite Pundit Is Running a Con and You Keep Watching

I am going to call out something that has infected political commentary the same way junk fees infected the financial industry. It is called whataboutism, it is intellectually dishonest, and the people running it on you every night are laughing all the way to their next contract renewal.

Here is how the scam works. Something happens that is clearly, objectively wrong. Instead of simply calling it out, your favorite talking head pivots to something the other side did. That pivot feels like an argument. It is not. It is a distraction. It is the political equivalent of a bait and switch, and you are the mark.

The UFC Incident That Exposed Everyone

At a recent UFC event, a fighter grabbed the microphone and made a degrading comment about Michelle Obama in front of a national audience. Wrong. Full stop. I do not care what you think of her politics or her public statements over the years. That kind of personal attack is not okay.

And what happened next told you everything you need to know about the state of political media:

• Certain commentators refused to simply condemn it
• The immediate response was to catalog grievances from the other side
• The logic being applied was that past wrongs justify present wrongs
• The audience got a masterclass in moral cowardice disguised as commentary

Greg Gutfeld does this. The ladies on The View do this. Pick your team, pick your network, the pattern is identical. The only thing that changes is the jersey.

The Parenting Standard That Blows the Whole Thing Up

Want to know how simple this really is? Ask yourself one question. Would you let your own kid pull this at home? Your child does something wrong and says, yeah but what about what my brother did last month? You shut that down immediately. You do not negotiate with that logic because you understand instinctively that it is a manipulation.

So why are you accepting it from adults with television contracts and book deals?

The answer is that the media ecosystem has trained you to reward your team for landing punches, not for being right. The scoring system is broken. And until audiences start demanding a consistent moral standard from the people they watch, the pundits have zero incentive to change.

Two Things Can Be True and That Should Not Be a Radical Statement

Here is the concept that apparently requires a graduate degree to grasp in 2024. Two things can be true at the same time. You are allowed to believe that:

• What was said about a political figure you support was wrong
• What was said about a political figure you oppose was also wrong

That is called a consistent standard. It is the baseline requirement for being taken seriously as a commentator or as a human being trying to have an adult conversation.

I spent years exposing fraud in the financial industry. The same deflection tactics show up everywhere. When Wall Street gets caught, they point to other banks. When pundits get caught defending the indefensible, they point to the other channel. The mechanism is identical. The goal is to avoid accountability.

Stop Accepting This

One of the hardest things anyone can do is hold a consistent moral standard when your own side is the one in the wrong. It is hard. I understand the impulse to protect your team. But the moment you start using someone else’s bad behavior to justify your own, you have lost the argument and your credibility along with it.

Forgiving people who have wronged you, or wronged people you care about, is genuinely difficult. But that forgiveness is not a hall pass for the next bad actor on your side to do the same thing.

The pundits running whataboutism every night on cable television are not informing you. They are keeping you angry, keeping you tribal, and keeping you tuned in. That is the product. You are the revenue. Stop being a willing participant in your own manipulation.