You are going 80 miles an hour on a rural highway in Wyoming where the posted speed limit is 55 miles per hour. You are in the middle of the pack of twenty other vehicles going the same excessive speed rate. Gradually, every vehicle behind you passes you until you are last in the line. They had to speed up to 90 or 95 MPH to pass. You see a state highway patrol car pull out from a secluded lane, speed up, and turn on its lights. You dutifully pull over; so, the patrol officer can go past and give the real speeders their tickets.

BUT, the trooper pulls in behind you, gets out of his patrol vehicle, and asks you for your license, registration, and auto insurance documents. In all innocence, you ask the question he has heard 10,562 times in his fifteen-year career, “But, Officer, what was I doing wrong?”

He says, “I recorded you by my radar as going eighty miles-per-hour in a fifty-five-mile-per-hour zone. You were speeding twenty-five-miles an hour over the maximum limit, and I am going to give you a citation. There was a speed limit posting five miles back. Did you not see that?”

“Yes, I have to admit that I did, but everyone else in the line of cars was going even faster than me. I figured I was going the speed of the general traffic. Why did you pick on me and not the real speeders? What about them?”

“You were speeding. What the others were doing is irrelevant, Sir. That is why you are receiving a ticket.”

“But, that’s not fair.”

“I suggest that you not make that argument to me again, Sir. As I said, under the law, it is not relevant. There is no legal concept of ‘Whataboutit?’ What is relevant is that you broke the law.”

You seethe with the indignance and inequity of it all, but hold your peace.

“Here is your summons, Sir. You may not be familiar with the traffic laws in Wyoming, but you now have two choices. You can pay me here and now in cash, or you can go to the nearest city, Casper, and present yourself at the courthouse. There, you can wait until the circuit judge comes through, and you can pay your fine by cash, check, or money order; or you can set a date to argue your case before the judge the next time she comes to Casper. You will be obliged to obtain your own lawyer, and you will be required to show proof that you have resided in Casper for at least two weeks to be heard. Do you understand what I have just told you?”

“Yes, but…”

Taking note of the stern expression on the trooper’s face and remembering his admonition about questioning the fairness of his having selected you out for receiving a ticket, you bite your lip and shut up.

“Which will it be?”

“Do you seriously mean that I have to pay cash to you here and now, Officer?”

“To be correct, it’s ‘trooper,’ not ‘officer,’ and I ask you, do I look like I am anything but serious, Sir?”

You have seen less severe expressions on the faces of convicted criminals who have just learned from the judge that they are to receive the death penalty.

He reads your face and accepts your somber expression as answer enough.

“The citation for such egregious speeding is for $750. I did consider adding ‘reckless driving,’ but since you have been so cooperative, I will let you off this time.”

“We’ll try and scrape up the cash, Off… I mean, Trooper.”

You are on vacation only passing through the long stretches of nothingness of Wyoming; so, you have planned for a trip to Disney World by giving each of the four children some cash; and you and your wife have some. At your brusque command, everyone forks over all their money. You are five dollars short; so, the nimble children search under the seats for lost coins, and your wife searches the suitcases in the trunk. The total you come up with is $751.25. You hand it over to the trooper. He counts it meticulously, writes out a receipt on Natrona County letterhead receipt paper, and hands it and the change back to you.

“Sir, I highly recommend that you not speed in Wyoming again. A second summons within two weeks will be double in cost.”

His face is no more jovial than it was when you were asking if he was joking previously.

You are about to say, “I will never set foot or wheels in this rotten state again,” but your wife—who can read your mind—swats you on the back of the head; and you take the hint.

The trooper drives away. You begin driving on along Wyoming’s fine highway and mutter something under your breath.

Your four-year-old daughter—whose hearing ranks with that of bats—says, “Daddy, we don’t say that. We say, ‘Oh, my goodness.’”

According to the Oxford Living Dictionaries, Oxford University Press, 2017, the Cambridge Dictionary, and Ben Zimmer, The Roots of the ‘What About?’ Ploy, The Wall Street Journal. July 22, 2017, “Whataboutism” is another name for the logical fallacy of “tu quoque” (Latin for “you also”), in which an accusation is met with a counter-accusation, pivoting away from the original criticism. The strategy has been a hallmark of Soviet and post-Soviet propaganda. Other commentators have accused President Donald Trump and his defenders of mimicking Vladimir Putin’s use of the irrational technique that has no place in legal parlance or practice. “Whataboutism”–also called “whataboutery”–is a logical fallacy that attempts to discredit opponents’ positions by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument. It is used as a means of distraction by educated people and simply irresponsibly by the uneducated supporters of an otherwise unsupportable legal or argumentative position.

The Washington Post observed in 2016 that media outlets of Russia had become “famous” for their use of whataboutism. According to Maxine David, use of the technique had a negative impact on Russia–United States relations during US President Barack Obama’s second term. The Wall Street Journal noted that Putin himself used the tactic in a 2017 interview with NBC News journalist Megyn Kelly.

The practice of focusing on disasters elsewhere when one occurs in the Soviet Union is so common that after watching a report on Soviet television about a catastrophe abroad, Russians often call Western friends to find out whether something has happened in the Soviet Union. The tactic received new attention during Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and military intervention in Ukraine. The Russian officials and media frequently used “what about” and then provided Kosovo independence or the 2014 Scottish independence referendum as examples to justify the 2014 Crimean status referendum, Donbass status referendums, and the Donbass military conflict, and the annexation of the Crimea. The assessment that Russia Today engages in whataboutism was echoed by the Financial Times and Bloomberg News.

Former US President Donald Trump used whataboutism in response to criticism leveled at him, his policies, or his support of controversial world leaders. National Public Radio (NPR) reported, “President Trump has developed a consistent tactic when he’s criticized: say that someone else is worse.” NPR noted Trump chose to criticize the Affordable Care Act when he faced criticism over the proposed American Health Care Act of 2017, “Instead of giving a reasoned defense, he went for blunt offense, which is a hallmark of whataboutism.”

NPR noted similarities in use of the tactic by Putin, the Russian despot, and Trump, the American. “it’s no less striking that while Putin’s Russia is causing the Trump administration so much trouble, Trump nevertheless often sounds an awful lot like Putin.”

When criticized or asked to defend his behavior, Trump frequently changed the subject by criticizing Hillary Clinton, the Obama Administration, and the Affordable Care Act. When asked about Russian human rights violations, Trump inexplicably shifted focus to the US itself, employing whataboutism tactics similar to those used by Russian President Vladimir Putin. After Fox News host Bill O’Reilly and MSNBC host Joe Scarborough from polar political opposites separately called Putin a killer, former President Trump responded by saying that the US government was also guilty of killing people—whataboutism at its worst and most harmful to the United States.

I became aware of whataboutism during a discussion with a family member who was, is, and presumably, always will be a “Trumper-forever.” The issue was why the US government under former President Trump did not act decisively when alt-right mobsters attacked peaceful protestors in several cities. The counterargument was “Well, what about the Democrats in August?” referring to a BLM protest turned riot with widespread lawlessness, violence, and brazen thievery. I had done some reading about such actions’ criminality and had no desire to defend such actions. “However,” I said, “we are talking about a here and now alt-right outrage, very possibly fomented by your president’s inflammatory rhetoric. Legally, “what about it” has no standing, and my question still stands, ‘Why is it that your president’s favored mobsters can get away with such criminality without suffering penalties?’” There was what amounted to a deeply held belief that some godly premise existed that gave the former president and his minions’ preference and privilege where the law is concerned. After all, whatabout…?