“Look at the Clinton Foundation.”
“Bill was getting $500,000 speaking fees while Hillary was Secretary of State.”
“She deleted all of those emails.”
“The FBI was clearly trying to help Hillary.”
“The FBI has no other to get that FISA warrant except for the dossier Clinton paid for.”
“The Clintons are crooked.”
“Yeah, Trump’s horrible, but look at who the alternative was.”
– Americans Trying to Justify the Unjustifiable with False Equivalence.
I have an important announcement to make: Hillary Clinton is not the President. That’s obvious, right? Yet, the gravity of that reality is not apparent to some (particularly to those that watch a lot of conservative pundits rant about uranium and the Clinton Foundation).
In this alternate reality, Hillary Clinton’s transgressions – many as they are – still matter. They don’t. Hillary is not the President. Hillary’s sins do not affect the daily operation of the government or the American people. Hillary lost and Hillary’s past behaviors cannot and must not be used to justify our current President’s nonsense.
To rely on arguments and statements similar to those quoted above is to engage in a great logical fallacy: false equivalence. Put simply, false equivalence “is a logical fallacy in which two opposing arguments appear to be logically equivalent when in fact they are not.”
False equivalence was used throughout the 2016 presidential election to justify then-candidate Donald Trump’s absurd behavior, because Hillary was “just as bad.” This fallacy may have been excusable in the heat of an election, but it is no longer forgivable.
For one example, Hillary’s uranium-related funny business (involving a debunked report that Hillary engaged in a “quid pro quo” deal giving Russia ownership of one-fifth of U.S. uranium deposits in exchange for $145 million in donations to the Clinton Foundation), cannot be equated to the President’s real conflicts of interest.
To be clear, if the uranium reports are true, Hillary should face justice. But, meanwhile, a key distinction cannot be overlooked: Hillary’s alleged corruption ten years ago cannot overshadow President Trump’s real conflicts of interest now. These conflicts of interest are so real that the head of the Office of Government Ethics resigned early.
Then again, it seems that Mrs. Clinton is debating a renewed presidential run. If that is indeed the case, Americans should brace for political warfare that will make 2016 look like a contest conducted under Marquess of Queensberry Rules.
the irked moderate 