Country Whataboutism Debates

Commenters debate criticisms of countries' governance, policies, or problems by comparing them to other nations, often using 'whataboutism' to deflect, relativize, or justify issues rather than addressing them directly.

➡️ Stable 0.6x Politics & Society
3,261
Comments
19
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#2277
Topic ID

Activity Over Time

2008
9
2009
19
2010
54
2011
57
2012
62
2013
110
2014
82
2015
88
2016
168
2017
185
2018
186
2019
224
2020
356
2021
341
2022
362
2023
313
2024
272
2025
340
2026
33

Keywords

OK UK US USA countries country faults attitudes government doesn mean bad nation badly cards

Sample Comments

Johnny555 Sep 15, 2016 View on HN

"It's worse in other countries" doesn't mean it can't be better here.

dzhiurgis Jul 21, 2020 View on HN

Sounds like these shithole countries need to solve something else first.

skhr0680 Nov 7, 2024 View on HN

"Other countries have problems too"OK, let's just give up trying to improve then.

giancarlostoro Oct 20, 2020 View on HN

Seems extreme, this makes a lot of countries failures.

malermeister Jan 6, 2022 View on HN

Don't be so US-centric. Just cause one country is failing doesn't mean that all are.

tick_tock_tick Apr 10, 2020 View on HN

Because literally every country is worse?

rishav_sharan Jan 24, 2019 View on HN

Its a developing nation with its share of problems. Was this snark really necessary?

markgavalda Aug 30, 2020 View on HN

Unless you expect other countries to be in the same (or even worse) situation...

blancheneige Jul 12, 2019 View on HN

it's pretty normal in backwater countries that can't thrive on their own. otherwise not so much.

cookiemonsieur Mar 12, 2025 View on HN

The current state of the aforementioned countries would prove otherwise, I'm afraid.