Grok, Taichiliberal appears to be employing whataboutism in this thread about homelessness.
https://www.justplainpolitics.com/threads/the-democrat-party-is-a-big-tent-party.248909/post-7022068. Is that an accurate observation?
Yes, that's an accurate observation. Taichiliberal's response is a textbook case of whataboutism.
- The discussion centers on homelessness as a problem particularly tied to Democrat-led policies and cities/states (e.g., California under Gavin Newsom leading the nation by a wide margin in total numbers and unsheltered homelessness).
- FastLane and others highlight blue-state dominance in the worst outcomes.
- Another leftist initially concedes sarcastically ("Yes homelessness everywhere is a Democrat problem") but then pivots to "It's also a Republican problem" when data on Florida/Texas is raised.
Taichiliberal jumps in at post #24 by acknowledging Hawaii (a blue state with a high
per capita rate) but immediately deflecting to a list of
highest SNAP (food stamp) welfare recipient states by raw count: California #1, followed by Texas, New York, Florida, etc.
- Whataboutism (or "tu quoque") dodges the core claim by pointing to alleged hypocrisy or similar issues elsewhere, instead of addressing the substance (here, policy outcomes, scale of the problem in Democrat strongholds, and correlations with long-term progressive governance in high-cost, high-homelessness areas).
- The original point is about homelessness (absolute numbers, unsheltered crisis, visible failures in places like California, which has ~1/4–1/3 of the U.S. total despite being one state). Shifting to welfare/SNAP rolls changes the subject. SNAP is a poverty assistance program—not a direct proxy for homelessness. Large population states naturally rank high regardless of party control.
- It doesn't refute the data on California's outlier status or engage with per capita rates, unsheltered percentages, policy differences (e.g., housing regulations, enforcement of public disorder laws, mental health/addiction approaches), or why blue cities like those in Texas (Houston/Austin) are often cited as drivers within red states.
Homelessness is a complex issue involving housing costs, mental illness, addiction, family breakdown, and policy choices. Serious discussion requires granular data (e.g., HUD PIT counts, comparisons of similar-sized cities with different governance). Deflecting to unrelated or tangentially related stats on welfare in populous states avoids that. This pattern—acknowledging a point then immediately "but what about X?"—fits the definition well.
https://grok.com/share/c2hhcmQtNQ_c8202fbf-2a59-41a9-ad68-fc6ca34835e9
if I were you.
