Hypocrisy

Frank Underwood: “This sort of stubbornness makes you no better than the Tea Party.”

Donald Blythe: “Except for the fact…that we happen to be right.”

When then-Senator Barack Obama was running for president in 2008, many conservatives flippantly remarked that if he were to be elected, they would move to Canada. The same thing happened in 2012. Both times, liberals bloviated about how un-American that notion was, and how it was a pathetic, infantile response to your side losing the election. Fast forward to 2016, and those liberals are now the ones with plans to move to Canada, while the right calls them childish.

After Obama was re-elected in 2012, republicans marched in the streets, burning Obama’s likeness, calling him Hitler—all that good stuff. The establishment vowed to oppose any policy he tried to push through, refused to confirm his Supreme Court nominee, and basically made his job as difficult as humanly possible. All the while liberals bitched about how that wasn’t right, it was un-American, etc. Fast-forward to 2017, and we have liberals doing the same thing to Trump—protesting, calling him Hitler, implying he had sexual relations with his own daughter—while republicans now play the victim.

I’m sure you can think of a thousand other examples of hypocrisy on both sides. Facebook and Twitter are littered with memes and videos “catching” politicians and talking heads saying or doing something hypocritical. 

What’s my point?

Everyone is a hypocrite. That can be understandably frustrating, but the enduring trend of “calling out” hypocrisy—made infinitely easier by the permanent nature of things said on the Internet—is pointless. It’s a waste of time that could be spent on a better argument.

If as a kid your parents tell you to wear your seatbelt, but you notice your dad rarely does, that doesn’t invalidate the fact that you should still wear yours. His hypocrisy doesn’t mean he’s wrong; you should wear a seatbelt. Hypocrisy may compromise the integrity of the messenger, but it doesn’t usually compromise the message. Yeah, it might be annoying to see people not practicing what they preach, but that’s life.

Political “gotcha” isn’t going to get us anywhere. You’re not going to convince people they’re wrong by calling them hypocrites. They’re just going to say, “Well this is different.” And, depending on their argument, they might be right.

Donald Trump personally and frequently criticized Obama for signing executive orders. But now Trump is signing them at a record rate—12 as of Feb. 9, according to NBC News. I don’t have a problem with Trump signing executive orders because he complained when Obama did it. I have problem with Trump signing these executive orders because of what they entail—specifically, racism, misogyny and general insensitivity.

I thought it was fucked up for the right to obstruct Obama like they did, but I also think it’s not only OK, but imperative, that the left now obstructs Trump as much as possible. I think that way because I saw the republicans’ response to, and obstruction of, Obama as racist backlash against our first black president. And I see the democratic protests and obstruction (not that there’s been enough of the latter) as an appropriate response to a legitimate, existential threat to democracy in America.

That might make me a hypocrite, but that’s OK. Because what’s important is not who’s the least hypocritical. What’s important is who’s right.