The "both sides have their faults" argument is the same thing assholes do with elections. Sure, the Republicans have spent decades appealing to racism to establish their foothold, disenfranchising the less powerful and encouraging anti-intellectualism to convince them that they're being helped by it, but that's okay because the Democrats have to be just as bad.
After all, the Democratic and the Republican parties aren't just gangs of politicians who have teamed up to increase their chances of achieving common interests, the result of numerous other political factions dying out and reforming in a history of efforts to maintain their power in the landscape. No, they're forces of nature, shadows, yin and yang, where everything one does is cosmically reflected in the other.
It doesn't make any damn sense if you think about it for a millisecond, but it's simple to understand and it looks nice. So it's an easier to use that narrative than to actually try to make sense of things, because that way your side might end up looking like the worse one.
After all, the Democratic and the Republican parties aren't just gangs of politicians who have teamed up to increase their chances of achieving common interests, the result of numerous other political factions dying out and reforming in a history of efforts to maintain their power in the landscape. No, they're forces of nature, shadows, yin and yang, where everything one does is cosmically reflected in the other.
It doesn't make any damn sense if you think about it for a millisecond, but it's simple to understand and it looks nice. So it's an easier to use that narrative than to actually try to make sense of things, because that way your side might end up looking like the worse one.