The conflation of criticism and attack

[TCJ70]

What follows are my own observations and definition of what constitutes and attack. I can't speak for everyone, but I think we really need to re-orient ourselves on what is actually an attack on a candidate.

From what I've observed, there seems to be a tendency to conflate criticism with attack. This same tendency occurs when drawing comparisons between candidates as well. If someone makes a claim about a candidate that can be backed up with facts, that isn't an attack. It's something to consider when throwing support behind a candidate. Stating voting records, funding sources, and citing previous statements are not attacks. Comparisons are definitely not attacks if the facts back up the comparison.

When something does become an attack it usually happens in three ways. Examples of this would be relating candidates to unpopular political factions, divining future negative ads against a candidate from the other party, and ignoring the history of a candidate in order to make them look worse...without any facts to back any of it up. Again, if someone has facts and figures to back up what they're saying, it's not an attack. It's at worst, a criticism.

These things happen on both sides and I've purposely not mentioned any candidate by name to give potential readers hopefully the opportunity to think about this without bias. If you read this and thought, "But, but, but my candidate is blah blah blah..." then you may want to read it again and consider some of the things you've read about the other candidates, maybe from your own hands and keyboards. I've been guilty of it myself and will be working to be better about it in the future.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

1. In other words...

In other words if I dislike someone the criticisms of him or her are legitimate and therefore warranted and if I like someone the criticisms of him or her are therefore illegitimate and unwarranted.


We take the shadow within ourselves and place it unto others. That is the source of conflict.

[TCJ70]

2. No. That's not at all what I said...

...not even close.

[Bluenorthwest]

3. That's what you think the OP said? Really? Seriously?

Consider this: a criticism uses facts, if you don't agree with my criticism you can counter with facts and interpretations of those facts and we discuss facts. An attack uses no facts so if you don't agree when I say 'very grating and reminds me of Hitler' you have no reason based counter argument. I've avoided fact and made use of subjective opinions stated in extreme language.
'I don't like this tax plan because it fails to address the ups and downs many see in yearly income in our current economy' is a criticism.
'I don't like this tax plan because it is like some Reagan wet dream' is an attack. Subjective and opinion based.

Are you seriously unable to see the difference?

I offer that the same metrics are in play outside of politics, it is possible to both criticize and to attack an artist, a film, a dinner served to you, your spouse, children or yourself. Perhaps removing the political and pondering a cultural example might assist you. I'd offer that some negative comments about many musicians are valid artistic criticisms while some such comments are just attacks. I'd even say some artists are regularly subjected to racist, homophobic or misogynistic attacks posing as criticism.