What Both Siderism Hath Wrought

The mindless repletion of some variation Both Sides Do It lie has become the all-purpose, all-occasion excuse that every degenerate, every coward and every fascist-in-smiley-face tosses out every time they're cornered.  I still contend that Marco Rubio's sweaty, stumble-bum performance on The Daily Show in 2012 set a standard for Gish Galloping Both Siderism that very few will ever match:

Centrism Triumphant

In case you missed Jon Stewart's award-verging "interview" with Marco Rubio, here is your rush transcript of Senator Rubio's answer to Jon Stewart every single time Mr. Stewart tried very respectfully to point out that Senator Rubio was, um, lying, and that the relentless, pathological obstructiveness of the Republican Party was unmatched by anything Democrats have done in modern history.

"Both sides..."

"Well, you know, both sides..."

"Both Democrats and Republicans..."

"That's just politics..."

"The Democrats left us no choice..."

"Both sides..."

"Democrats and Republicans..."

"Both sides..."

"Both Democrats and Republicans..."

And so forth, to the point of being comical.

Like every other Republican culture war criminal, Senator Rubio has been conditioned within an inch of his life to always answer any question about the unique perfidy and hypocrisy of his political Party with the Big Lie of Centrism and to refuse to stop repeating the Big Lie of Centrism until the questions stop regardless of circumstances.

My point being that the Big Lie of Both Sides Do It is now so automatic that today even the most famous doddering, mush-brained fuck-up in the world knows to grab for it when Scary Facts start closing in.

From the WaPo:

Trump, pressed on the environment in U.K. visit, says climate change goes ‘both ways’

And now, President Trump, who has called global warming a “Chinese hoax” and pulled the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, appears similarly unmoved by an appeal from British royalty.

The president left a 90-minute meeting this week with Charles, Prince of Wales, unconvinced that the climate is warming, which it is, according to overwhelming scientific consensus. The Earth’s average surface temperature in 2018 was the fourth-highest since 1880, when record-keeping began. That means that the past five years have been the warmest in recorded history.

But the president has other beliefs.

“I believe that there’s a change in weather, and I think it changes both ways,” he said in a wide-ranging interview with Piers Morgan on “Good Morning Britain” that aired Wednesday morning. “Don’t forget it used to be called global warming. That wasn’t working. Then it was called climate change. Now it’s actually called extreme weather, because with extreme weather, you can’t miss.”...

Like the Matrix ...

... the fascist-enabling poison of Both Siderism is everywhere now. 

In our political groundwater.  In the rain. On the breeze. 

And if you would like to take the matter up with the man who has done more than anyone else to spread this plague into every corner of of our political ecosystem -- the Pope of the High and Holy Church of Both Sides Do It --

-- he can currently be reached on his book tour where he is busy monetizing his midlife crisis as a book of Moral Instruction for Our Parlous Times.

Houston "thank you" for sharing @nytdavidbrooks. Happy for your journey toward joy, the soul, filling voids, especially heads up on "Weaver: The Social Fabric Project." Sad to miss over subscribed May 23 @WACHouston book lecture, "The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life"

— Deborah Mansfield (@STEAMtoInnovate) June 6, 2019

And so it goes.

Behold, a Tip Jar!