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countercharges

Responding to a charge by making a countercharge, or a tu quoque is the term for when someone responds to a claim by pointing to another claim which seeks to nullify or normalize the original charge. The textbook provides an example of a university professor charged with using funds to lavishly redecorate his office; his countercharge is to make salient that the attorney general (who asserted the original charge) just spend significant money for a new door into her office. The Recent statement Trump made about the Saudi government, which made public the USA's (quietly held) 30 year tradition of exempting the Saudi government from human rights abuses because they are a clever economic ally in the Middle East, made the left furious. Conservative commentators made the point that Obama too was guilty of turning a blind eye to the Saudi Arabia government. The erroneous argument made by the right in response to left's back lash fails to address the issue at hand. However, it does dull the significance of Trump's actions because the fury coming from the left can be more easily criticized as being partisan as opposed to virtuous. By making known that the Obama administration is guilty of acting (but not saying it outright) in a similar way towards Saudi Arabia,  (being lenient in regards to their human rights abuses), the political right's countercharge is effective, especially to those who already support Trump. There is much of this sort of argument style in current politics. A new term for it is "what aboutism" whereby the accused (party or candidate) points to an aspect of the opposing side's behavior which mimics the injunctive act or statement. I find this argument strategy to unveil partisanship, and augment furiousness, but I think it does little to exempt the accused from their actions.

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