Back Porch Files: "Both Sides..." is Not the Argument You Think It Is.

Spend enough time talking politics these days and you’ll hear a phrase that seems to end every conversation: “Both sides...” It usually shows up right when things start getting specific. You bring up documented lies, shady dealings, or behavior that would have ended political careers not that long ago, and suddenly the response is a shrug. “Both sides lie.” “Both sides are corrupt.” “They’re all the same.” Conversation over. Case closed. Nothing to see here.

Living where I do, surrounded by a lot of conservative folks and a lot of MAGA energy, I hear this constantly. Most often it comes up when I’m talking about the Trump administration — the documented false statements, the ethical concerns, the court findings, the norm-breaking. Instead of engaging with the specifics, the conversation pivots to “both sides.” And the more I hear it, the more I’ve come to see that this phrase isn’t always analysis. More often, it’s an exit ramp. A way to disengage. A way to avoid discomfort. A way to avoid saying, “Yeah… that’s actually not okay.”

Now let’s be fair. Politics has never been a pristine business. Politicians spin. They exaggerate. They frame things in ways that benefit them. That’s been true since the days of powdered wigs and handwritten pamphlets. But acknowledging that politics has always involved spin is not the same as saying all behavior is equivalent. And that’s where the “both sides” argument starts to fall apart. Because it flattens everything. It treats all actions, all lies, all behaviors as if they exist on the same level. And when you flatten everything, you lose the ability to measure degrees. You lose the ability to distinguish between ordinary political maneuvering and something that genuinely crosses a line.

There’s something psychologically comforting about saying “both sides.” It feels balanced. It feels mature. It feels like you’re above the fray. You’re not partisan or emotional — you’re just reasonable. But what if the facts aren’t balanced? What if the behavior isn’t symmetrical? What if one side is exaggerating about a policy outcome while the other is making demonstrably false claims about elections, science, or reality itself? Treating those as equivalent might feel fair, but it doesn’t reflect reality. And democracy depends on our ability to recognize differences in scale, intent, and impact.

Think about it this way. Imagine two people on the news. One says, “It’s raining.” The other says, “No it’s not. It’s sunny.” A journalist’s job is not to say, “Well, both perspectives are valid, and the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.” The job is to look out the freaking window. If it’s raining, you say it’s raining. If someone insists it’s sunny while standing in a downpour, the responsible thing to do is call that what it is — false. Objectivity does not mean neutrality between truth and falsehood. Objectivity means verifying reality. Somewhere along the way, we started confusing fairness with giving equal weight to unequal claims. Those are not the same thing.

What’s more troubling is how often “both sides” gets used as a shield. Instead of grappling with uncomfortable facts, it allows people to sidestep them. If everything is equally corrupt, then nothing requires your attention. If everyone lies, why get worked up about any particular lie? If they’re all the same, why stay informed or engaged at all? That mindset might feel practical, but it has consequences. Cynicism lowers expectations. Lower expectations weaken accountability. And when accountability weakens, the bar for acceptable behavior drops. Actions that would have shocked us a decade ago start to feel routine.

Cynicism, for all its appeal, is politically convenient. If voters believe that all politicians are equally bad, they’re less likely to demand better. They’re less likely to stay engaged. They’re less likely to hold anyone accountable. When someone does something outrageous and the public response is a collective shrug, that behavior becomes normalized. And once everything is normalized, nothing feels especially alarming. That’s not neutrality. That’s surrender.

None of this is to suggest that one political party is perfect. There are legitimate disagreements in politics — over taxes, regulation, the size and role of government. Reasonable people can and do disagree on those questions. But there’s a line between disagreement and denial. Between interpretation and fabrication. Between perspective and provable falsehood. When courts rule on something, when transcripts and recordings exist, when verifiable evidence is available, we’re no longer talking about partisan opinion. We’re talking about reality. Treating reality and denial as equal “sides” doesn’t make us fair-minded. It makes us less capable of telling truth from fiction.

Sometimes, I think the appeal of “both sides” is emotional. Anger is uncomfortable. If you acknowledge that something crosses a serious line, you have to sit with that realization. You have to decide whether it matters enough to respond. And if the person crossing that line happens to be on your political team, that’s even harder. So “both sides” becomes a kind of emotional anesthesia. It dulls the reaction. It allows you to stay comfortable. But there are moments in history that merit more than comfort. They merit clarity. They merit standards. They merit the willingness to say, “This isn’t normal, and it isn’t okay.”

Not all behavior is equivalent. A parking ticket and armed robbery are both crimes, but they are not the same. If we lose the ability to recognize differences in scale and severity, we lose the ability to make proportional judgments. And proportional judgment is essential to a functioning democracy. When something crosses from “politics as usual” into territory that undermines norms or institutions, we have to be willing to say so — even if it creates tension, even if it makes conversations uncomfortable, even if someone rolls their eyes and says, “Here we go again.”

It’s easy to default to “both sides.” It keeps the peace. It avoids conflict. It lets us feel balanced and above the chaos. But sometimes it isn’t thoughtful. Sometimes it’s just avoidance. If one person says it’s raining and another insists it’s sunny, the responsible thing to do is look out the window. Because if we lose the willingness to distinguish between disagreement and deception, we lose the ability to defend the standards that hold a democracy together. Facts still matter. Reality still matters. And pretending otherwise doesn’t make us reasonable — it just makes us less prepared for what happens when the truth stops being optional.

SOURCES

No sources on this one folks. It's all me.