An equivalency diploma for the right

No, the left has nothing equivalent to the racist pandering on the right

Reading this article on Salon got me thinking about how well modern conservatives are trained on to respond to criticism from the left. And one of the most common responses used is to claim equivalency: someone claims the right is bad for doing this, so you say the left is doing something equivalent. The debate tactic is a smokescreen meant to hide the embarrassing truth of the initial accusation. It has the double fallacy of A) assuming that the counter attack is actually true and B) assuming that truth is a points game where if the accuser is also doing something similar, it absolves the accused of any wrongdoing and accountability.

I hear an equivalency argument a lot when it comes to the accusation that the right panders to the crazy and the racists. There’s usually some mention of the 9/11 conspiracy theorists or the evidence-thin argument that social programs championed by the left are harming blacks (left unspoken is the implied tail to that sentence: “even more than racism”).

In addition to the typical fallacies of the equivalency argument, this particular tactic has additional problems, ones that, when conservatives employ them on this particular subject, really demonstrate how clueless and completely lacking in empathy they are when it comes to racism.

First, the argument being made by the left is not one of policy. It is not, for instance, the same as the argument that poor white voters are being fooled by the GOP into voting for them. That thesis is one that basically criticizes major facets of the right’s platform, in other words a political science debate rather a social one.

But to say that the right panders to racists isn’t to claim that a certain policy or set of laws isn’t working the way people think they should. It’s saying that the leadership of a political party is catering their message to people who hold a belief so universally recognized as being morally reprehensible, namely racism, that even _racists_ recognize it as being morally reprehensible (the contemporary defense for racists is almost always to simply deny that they’re racist because even they can’t bring themselves to say out loud that racism is okay).

So the first problem is that even the equivalency argument is trying to apply an incorrect equivalent. In this case, a more applicable equivalent would be to claim that the left was intentionally trying to play up the 9/11 conspiracy to attract lunatic left voters to the polls. But the second problem is that implied tail I mentioned before: that racism ultimately isn’t that big a deal.

The thing about using an equivalency argument is how dismissive it is of the original accusation. It’s an attempt to disengage from a discussion on the merits of the statement, kind of like dropping the mic and walking off stage even though you haven’t actually said anything. This is especially pernicious in talks over race relations since it’s the ones in power who are dropping the mic. Whether you look at Dr. King vs Malcom X or Prof Xavier vs Magneto, an oppressed segment of a population generally has two paths in the struggle for equality: fight alongside those in power or fight against those in power. But in this case, you have a party that walks off the stage whenever racism is mentioned. Many even go so far as to roll their eyes and claim racism is “over.” They, through the willful ignorance of privilege, can’t comprehend why an oppressed segment of society whose struggle they won’t even acknowledge feel forced to turn to the side of fighting against the power.

Ultimately, the problem with the application of the equivalency argument in this case is that it attempts to discuss which side is going to do better for you as a person, when in fact the other side is trying to point out that the true issue is that the right is pandering to a philosophy that denies personhood to a large swath of the population. You can’t have a debate about how much better off you’d be as a person without first dealing with those who are trying to dehumanize you. The right seems to think it can engage in the former argument while ignoring the latter. Until they change that, they are still going to lag far behind in minority votes. That won’t be too big a problem in House elections where you can gerrymander your way to victory, but it’s going to become a bigger issue in statewide elections and even more so in the vote for President.