The Tu Quoque Mirror: The logical fallacy of accusing your opponent of your offenses.
No one has mastered this logical fallacy more than the loser of the 2020 presidential election, Donald J. Trump.
Accused of tampering with an election: Joe Biden and/or Hilary Clinton did it Accused of improperly handing documents: Joe Biden and/or Hilary Clinton did it Convicted of falsifying records: Joe Biden and/or Hilary Clinton did it Convicted of paying hush money: Joe Biden and/or Hilary Clinton did it Accused of rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment: Joe Biden and/or Hilary Clinton did it Accused of witness tampering: Joe Biden and/or Hilary Clinton and/or Hilary Clinton did it Accused of weaponizing political infrastructures: Joe Biden and/or Hilary Clinton did it Accused of mishandling the pandemic: Joe Biden and/or Hilary Clinton did it Accused of foreign misdealing: Joe Biden and/or Hilary Clinton did it Accused of a porous border: Joe Biden and/or Hilary Clinton did it Defending Putin, Orban, Xi, or other dictators: Okay, that one’s Trump alone.
And those are the ones that come to mind in 5 minutes. There is no situation where, when accused, Trump doesn’t (without any evidence) turn it around to be his opponent’s offense.
It is an extension of the ad hominem logical fallacy “whataboutism.” In that simpler (but no less simple-minded) deflection, you turned the argument by putting your opponent on the defensive by eliciting an example of their misdeed—deflection as a defense. And in the age of bumper sticker philosophy and 5-second sound bites, it works. It’s a gotcha moment just waiting to birth a meme. Except it never answers the original charge. And that’s the idea. Cut to commercial. Print the t-shirts. Hang the flags (and the vice president).
The death of debate and the rise of Trump acolytes have resulted in a catastrophically divided country. It has spawned not a political movement but a cult. And like all cults, it is sick—sick from within and diseased at the head. Like their leader, they obfuscate with whataboutism, like “chosen one” like sycophants. But all cults thrive until they don’t. When is that tipping point? Time will tell.
The tu quoque mirror version takes it a step further. Now, you no longer need to research misdeeds by your opponent. You accuse them of yours. It would be elegant if it weren’t childish. It’s Dorian Gray’s portrait, except he does not see himself, and Mr. Gray puts it on display for his cult.
Oscar Wilde may have summarized Trump best when he wrote, “”You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit.”
Can this be how it works? I’m 57 years old and see more life in the rearview mirror than the open road ahead. With that perspective, I find it’s become essential to reflect on what I’ve done with my time on this planet. Blissfully ignorant of the repercussions of news events growing up in bucolic suburbia, adulthood, parenthood, citizenship demanded my attention as I aged. I’ve experienced events no one wants. People summarize it as “life” when you see death. I’m not special. Just frustrated.
After the massacre at the movie theater in Aurora, CO, I began to write. Not with the expectation of affecting change, but rather to give my anger, my emotions, an outlet, an offramp for the toxic blood poisoning my body. I saw gun violence stealing a generation. While some social issues had moved the Overton Window, political intransigence (keep cashing the NRA’s checks!) and eventual American ennui accepted gun violence as baked into the American fabric in the name of “freedom.”
After the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, CT, I began to speak. Surely, a tragedy of this scale would shock Americans (and politicians) out of their stupor. Nope! I talked to groups in Texas as the lone spokesperson for the Brady Campaign in Texas. The only one. That alone tells you all you need to know about the calculus of “I NEED my gun, dead kids and teachers be damned.” Thoughts, prayers, and sad face emojis flooded social media until America’s fruit fly attention span moved on to the latest “tragedy” affecting Kim Kardashian.
My anger peaked with the death of my wife. Fuck cancer makes a great tweet, a guttural reaction without consequence. Utterly suicidal and dying with my wife, I could not yell at the tumor. I took it out on God for a while (also useless) and even turned to God for a bit (utterly meaningless). There was no one to blame, no revenge to be had. No offramp for my anger.
And then Americans, in the obvious next step for a society that had abdicated all personal responsibility and suffered no consequences, elected a narcissistic moron president—a billionaire (if you believe him) speaking for the uneducated rubes. Merit and logic were dead. With each lie, with each crime, I expected consequences. None came. Robert Mueller fumbled the ball with no defenders anywhere near him. Facts were relegated to the trash bin. Tweets became governmental edicts. And I waited. Furious.
When I get angry (when I get down), it is because things should be easier. “Keep the simple things simple; the hard things are hard enough.” But nothing was easy. Changing a light bulb resulted in the glass bulb snapping off the metal base, a trip or two to Lowes, and a call to the electrician. Nothing was easy. Ultimately, I realized it was an absolute lack of control. There was nothing I could do about any of it. My wife was dead, guns were more important than life, freedom from fact and responsibility replaced actual democracy, and rabid evangelicals believed in Trump as the messiah. Stop the world; I want to get off.
And now we have Ukraine. Again, one man brings the world to the point of a world war—one man. Ukrainians are fighting to survive- as a nation and a people. “Denazifying” Ukraine? Really?
I’m reminded of Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot speech as I watch an army destroy entire cities. Stepping back for a second, it seems bizarre that NATO and the UN watch the massacres with tepid financial penalties because Ukraine doesn’t belong to their club. It’s like a high school clique turning its back on a less cool student getting beaten up because they don’t wear the “right” jeans. I understand the political ramifications of engagement. But on a human level, it seems callous and impotent.
So here I am—no one special, poisoned with anger and unable to control or change anything. Hell, I can’t even watch baseball now! The billionaires are too busy fighting with the millionaires. I get the feeling that if aliens did visit earth, they’d look down and say, “Nah, they’re petulant adolescents with nascent technology and a penchant for killing each other. Keep driving.”
So, my clock continues to tick down, and I’m not ignorant enough for its promised bliss. I’ve read Viktor Frankl and Thomas Paine but still cannot find reason or acceptance. How do I accept all of this? How do I “let it go?” No, seriously, I’m asking.
Winston Smith awoke from his nap, the tattered science textbook still resting on his chest. It rose and fell with his breathing, the paper-thin book jacket waving in time with his exhalations.
It was dangerous enough to be napping during the day, especially this day, but to have been caught with that volume in his possession would have been personally devastating. Fortunately, it was still mid-morning, and the Happiness Squads hadn’t begun their daily sweeps. He hadn’t slept well the previous night, and it had caught up with him after his breakfast sank into his belly.
Today was the anniversary of the rebellion, a day when “spontaneous” celebrations and protests erupted across the new nation in honor of the heroes of the previous year. The migration and funerals paused on this day. Everything paused.
Winston looked at his upper arm. The redness had subsided from the previous day. In another day or so, there would be no evidence of his insubordination, no way to identify him as one of “them.”
It still struck him as strange. He thought again of the science textbook now safely tucked under the floorboards in the bedroom. Cancer, he had read, was the process of mass replication of mindless cells with the ultimate, suicidal goal of killing its host. His mind made the connection before he had the chance to consider it. How similar was that metaphor to what had happened over the past few years, but especially the past year?
He looked at the paperboard flyer everyone had received in the mail still sitting on his kitchen table. The Happiness Squad would be by shortly to ensure it had been placed in a prominent place. He thought of the mantle, the refrigerator, the door. Getting up, he picked up the placard and decided on the door. That way, he could see it both when passing by the door and, especially, as the last thing before leaving his apartment. He read the words out loud to himself:
Science is fiction. Freedom is ignorance. Ignorance is strength. God trumps all. Trump is God.
Following last year’s purge (or emergency recall elections, as they were called), evangelicals, once a fringe group of mystics and non-taxed mass delusion peddlers, now comprised 100% of the Senate following last Spring’s purge. Since then, the nation had fallen further as the emergence of the epsilon variant to coronavirus had risen. First, it infected the young and the unvaccinated (or Insubordinate as they were now called). Then the evangelicals had seized control as the moral arm of MAGA nation under Trump.
They first convinced the country that a cloud shaped like a fist with the index finger pointing skyward was the sign God was with them and the solution finally at hand (pun intended). They said the reason for the epsilon variant’s rise was because the vaccinated, the Insubordinates, were emitting undetectable, demonic microwaves infecting the unvaccinated. Science is fiction, we were told. Freedom is ignorance. Absolution walked hand in hand with willful ignorance. Those (scientists) claiming to have an answer (the vaccine) were the first sacrifices to the purge. God would show the way. Trump would lead the way. He was the only one who could solve it.
The death toll from the previous day had topped 500,000 for the sixteenth day in a row. What remained of the South were pockets of the Insubordinate and the Happiness Squads rounding them up. Winston thought of the press conference held last year when Trump told them to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was his final, most essential command. It was then that the evangelicals began to set a firm date for His return to the White House. On the same date, the cloud showed them God was manifestly on Trump’s side.
The Happiness Squads protected themselves, as had the evangelicals, with aluminum foil hats. They believed the metal prevented the transmission of the demonic microwaves and saved them from the epsilon variant. Still, with a 63% failure rate, there were rumblings of its protective properties. Thicker sheets of aluminum foil would soon be produced through the Insubordination Distribution Incentive Output Taskforce recently passed by the reconstituted Senate. The bill’s negotiations had proven difficult to conclude as senators were constantly being replaced, either through epsilon variant deaths or the recently imposed three-week term limits.
The press conference presented evidence supporting the purge. Two maps of the United States were overlaid on one another. The first showed the results of the 2020 election by county. The second showed the death rate by county. With near perfect uniformity, the maps coalesced. This was proof, they were told of the microwave’s effective dissemination of the virus targeting only those who voted for Trump. The Happiness Squads were formed the next day under Generals Sebastian Gorka, Stephen Miller, and Stephen Bannon.
Winston had just secured the placard to his front door when the knock came.
“Happiness Squad, open up in the name of Trump,” said the voice.
Winston hesitated a second, pulled the short sleeve of his shirt over his underground obtained vaccination site, and opened the door.
O’Brien entered first, followed by three camouflaged troopers wearing their officially sanctioned “tactical” aluminum foil hats and toting “recreational, modern sporting” AR-15’s. “Why are you not mustering for your parade position yet, Smith?” said O’Brien. “I did not sleep well last night and fell asleep on the couch this morning after breakfast,” explained Winston. “There have been reports of mask-wearing in this neighborhood, Smith. Wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” asked O’Brien, squinting his eyes as though that allowed him to see inside Winston. “No,” said Winston, “I saw one in the gutter last week, but given its condition, I’m sure it hadn’t been worn since the purge.”
“Sweep the apartment,” O’Brien barked to the Happiness Squad. “You know we’re only here to ensure your happiness, don’t you, Winston?” “Of course!” answered Winston. His eyes stole a glance at the bedroom into which the Happiness Squad had entered. His pulse quickened when he heard their footfalls on his floor, hoping the loose boards hiding his science textbook would not betray him. “Sir, we’ve found something,” said the leader of the Happiness Squad. O’Brien stared intently at Winston for what seemed a minute before heading into the bedroom.
Muffled voices emanated from the bedroom. Orders were given. O’Brien emerged from the bedroom with the tattered textbook raised before him, looking so much like President Trump holding the bible outside the church in Lafayette Square years earlier in his famous photo op that Winston giggled. He was in trouble, and he knew it.
“Yours, Winston?” asked O’Brien.
“Can I ask you a question, O’Brien?” posited Winston, suddenly freed by the truth and warmed by fact.
“What is it?” an annoyed O’Brien asked.
“That book describes cancer as the mass replication of mindless cells with the ultimate, suicidal goal of killing its host,” began Winston. Behind him, one of the Happiness Squad lowered his Happy Gun to clear a nagging cough. “Today is the day of celebration for the beginning of the overthrow of a tyrannical government. January 6th is celebrated today and will be on every January 6th after that. So, my question is: Without the Insubordinates, without the vaccine, without science, who would He blame? Science created the vaccine, and the old government offered it free(!) to its people. Isn’t it possible, just possible, that disinformation, doublespeak, and idolatry have acted as the catalyst for a population ready to mass replicate, through force, if necessary, with the ultimate, suicidal goal of killing this nation? Isn’t it possible?”
The blow to his head came from behind. The Happiness Squad leader provided the final insult. The vaccine would not save Winston now, nor, did it seem, could science and facts save the nation.
The history books would never mention Winston Smith, and his tattered science textbook would disappear in a burst of bright fire along with so many others on a night later that summer named Fahrenheit 452 Night.
Thoughts at Large 