“What-about-ism” continues to thrive under the leadership of Republicans in Congress. The impeachment inquiries against President Biden are no more than an attempt to lower the bar for voting for Donald Trump.
In a comparison of candidates for President, the checklist of qualifications tells a sad story for Donald Trump. Let’s look at a few of the categories for Biden vs. Trump. Constructive aid for CoVid passed? Biden, Yes – Trump, No. Infra-structure bill passed? Biden, Yes – Trump, No. Expanded medical care? Biden, Yes – Trump, No. Support for military and vets? Biden, Yes – Trump, No. Strengthening international alliances? Biden, Yes – Trump, Heck No!
How about character? Bipartisan gestures? Biden, Yes – Trump, No. Positive campaigning? Biden, yes – Trump, No. Empathy for victims of tragedy and disaster? Biden, yes – Trump, No. Respect for women? Biden, yes – Trump, Only the sexy ones. Integrity? Biden, yes – Trump, no.
How about Impeachment? Biden, it’s inevitable – Trump, yes (twice) Oh, so there’s a tie in one category, one engineered by the House Judiciary Committee under a Republican majority? So, on the most serious matter, one that implies the President has failed on all the others, Biden and Trump are tied?
This is a quality standard we can all get behind?? It is sad to believe the American voter will get behind that standard. Yet former President Trump always appeals to that relativistic principle in his campaigns for President. “If you think I’m bad, you should see the other guy!”
Relativism, which goes back to the Greek Sophists, is the idea that nothing is really true in itself, but only by comparison with other things. So if I steal something, and you catch me at it, I could say, “What about the time you stole . . . ” And that would prove that I wasn’t wrong to steal.
[Sophists are considered the founding fathers of relativism in Western philosophy. Protagoras said: “What is true for you is true for you, and what is true for me is true for me.”[25][26][27]
What surprises is that some evangelicals and Roman Catholics, who would abhor relativism in every other case, are not bothered when the former President frames a relativistic excuse: What about Clinton, Biden, the Democrats, the Rino’s” –and anyone else else who seems to reflect his own bad character? The justification for all bad behavior named by Trump’s critics is that someone, somewhere is doing the same thing. Therefore, Donald Trump is guiltless.
When someone uses the word “truth” sincerely, for example in court, in church, even in politics, that person implies that there is some standard of truth that can back him or her up. They mean that it is commonly accepted that certain things are true, and you could not claim that something is false, merely because anyone else might contradict it. We often use “truth” to mean we can support our claims with fair arguments, not as absolute truths, but with valid evidence or proof.
Relativists, and Donald Trump has to be in that number, will always claim that there is no universal truth, so there can be no truth at all, even when people lie. That is a dangerous argument, and it is the premise for all of Donald Trump’s defenses of his own behavior– someone is behaving worse.
Now the highest legislative body in the land is resorting to that standard of truth, when they try to impeach the President. If he can be impeached, then he is no better than Donald Trump. A low bar indeed, but it appears that possibly half the nation is resorting to that standard to justify supporting Donald Trump–he is no worse than the others.
If we can be honest, and not cynically relativistic in our judgments, we would have to admit that just because someone is impeached, it does not make him equal with someone else who has been impeached. A majority of the House of Representatives can not prove that morality is relative.