In a world dominated by political tribalism, you’re expected to condemn things the other group does while excusing your group for doing the same thing. If you apply the same standards to both, you’re mocked for “bothsidesism.” Hypocrisy is an obligation.

Many of the things which Trump has done have precedents in previous administrations; he’s just carried them to their outer limits. Democratic and Republican presidents alike have conducted wars not declared by Congress. After a mysterious meeting in the Biden White House, Amazon put some books on the “Do Not Promote” list. The ACLU actively supported Biden’s attempt to write off student loans, which would have been a federal expenditure by executive decree.

The rightness or wrongness of a government action doesn’t depend on which party backs it. Understanding what the US government is doing today requires understanding what it has done before. The imperial presidency and Congressional cowardice go back a long way. For example, the president’s State of the Union address was originally a written report. Woodrow Wilson (a strong competitor for “worst president ever”) began the monarchial practice of speaking in person to an assembled Congress; since then, it’s become a bombastic ceremony where the president tells Congress what he wants them to do. Democrats and Republicans alike have participated in this mockery of the separation of powers, so it’s “bothsidesism” to object.

Saying “Both sides do it” is sometimes an excuse or distraction, especially when it comes from one of the sides doing it. It isn’t offered to justify the action but to discredit the critic. Often it’s accompanied by the claim — often a lie — that the critic said nothing when the other side did the same thing.

False equivalence is a different issue. If one person pilfers petty cash and another engages in armed robbery, saying just that they both steal isn’t satisfactory. Trump has in many ways exceeded the precedents he’s built on. The “Constitution-free zone doctrine,” which holds the Border Patrol can question people anywhere within a hundred miles of the coast or border, is terrible, but having masked thugs grab people off the street without a warrant or probable cause is far worse. The War on Drugs has excused many outrageous actions, but outright extrajudicial killings take it to a new level. On the other hand, he still hasn’t signed an executive order to send an entire ethnic group to concentration camps or legislation that locked people away for years for criticizing the government. Democratic presidents did those things. It’s legitimate and sometimes necessary to observe that both sides have done bad things but one is much worse.

If there’s any hope for getting the United States out of its current catastrophe, it has to come from understanding how we got there. That requires knowing and criticizing the actions of all the major participants. “Bothsidesism” is a necessity.