You’ve heard it before — the smug sigh, the performative eye roll, the declaration that lands like a final verdict: “Both sides are just as bad.”
It’s the laziest line in modern politics, the intellectual equivalent of microwaving a Hot Pocket and calling it gourmet. And yet it’s everywhere. Why? Because it lets people pretend they’re wise, balanced, and above the fray, while being too cowardly to pick a side when one clearly deserves picking.
This is the rhetorical fog machine of the culture wars: a haze of false equivalence, whataboutism, and bothsidesism so thick you can’t tell a burning cross from a gender-neutral bathroom sign. And make no mistake: that fog doesn’t settle naturally — it’s pumped out on purpose, mainly by the very authoritarians who benefit when everyone else is too confused, cynical, or exhausted to resist.
Punches and Car Crashes
Here’s the thing about false equivalence: it looks smart until you think about it. Getting punched in the face hurts. Getting hit by a car also hurts. But if you’re telling me those two things belong in the same category of harm, I want to know what’s in your drink and where you bought it.
That’s how it works in the culture wars. A professor loses a speaking slot because students protested? Suddenly, that’s the same as Saudi Arabia imprisoning dissidents. A baker faces a boycott because he refused service? Equal to authoritarian regimes banning entire religions. Really? That’s the argument?
When right-wing media compare “cancel culture” to Orwell’s 1984, they’re not being profound. They’re insulting Orwell, who wrote about secret police and torture chambers — not YouTubers losing brand sponsorships.
Why People Use It
False equivalence is a survival strategy for scoundrels. It’s what you reach for when your side has just stormed the US Capitol, beaten cops with flagpoles, and smeared feces in the halls of Congress.
The move goes like this: “Well, sure, that looks bad, but the other side tore down a statue once. Same thing, right?”
No, it’s not the same thing. A riot that tried to overturn an election is not a protest that broke a few windows. One is a tantrum, the other is a coup attempt. But false equivalence lets people wave away that difference with a shrug. And if enough people shrug, accountability dies a quiet death.
It’s also a punishment tool. Criticize me, and I’ll drag you down with me. “Oh, you want to talk about disinformation? What about your disinformation?” Suddenly, the conversation isn’t about who lied, but who lied more. At that point, nobody has to tell the truth. Mission accomplished.
The Grifter’s Toolkit
False equivalence rarely works alone. It travels in a pack, with some of the ugliest rhetorical tricks in the business.
Whataboutism is the classic. Point out that authoritarian leaders are jailing journalists, and someone will say, “But what about the time Twitter suspended my cousin for posting anti-vax memes?” Yes, Brenda, your cousin still has access to the grocery store, the ballot box, and her Facebook account. She is not Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in a labour camp.
Tu quoque is another favorite. Instead of responding to the accusation, you call your critic a hypocrite. “You can’t lecture me on corruption, you donated to Hillary.” Even if true, the corruption doesn’t vanish. That’s like arguing a murder charge should be dropped because the prosecutor once jaywalked.
Then there’s false balance, the media’s tragic contribution. To avoid being called biased, networks will stage a debate between one scientist with a lifetime of research and one crank with a YouTube channel, and then act like the truth lives somewhere in the middle. That isn’t balance — it’s malpractice.
And looming over all of it is bothsidesism, the religion of the lazy. If one side is building guillotines and the other is handing out pamphlets, bothsidesists will tell you extremism is the real problem. Extremism where? In the pamphlets?
The Cult of the Sensible Centrist
Of course, no conversation about false equivalence would be complete without mentioning the self-proclaimed centrists. You know the type. They live for their brand of “reasonableness.” They’ll tell you they don’t vote left or right, they vote “common sense.” They think being perpetually in the middle makes them more intelligent, saner, more sophisticated than the brawling mobs on the edges.
On paper, that sounds noble. In practice, it’s often moral cowardice with a fresh coat of intellectual paint.
When centrists deploy their favourite line — “The truth is always somewhere in the middle” — they’re not analyzing, they’re abdicating. If one side is passing laws to strip people of rights and the other is marching to stop them, pretending both are equally guilty isn’t wisdom. It’s surrender.
This is the rot at the heart of modern centrism: the belief that every political conflict is just a matter of tone. The left shouts too much, the right shouts too much, and wouldn’t it be better if everyone just calmed down? But politics isn’t about tone; it’s about power. And when one side is wielding that power to target minorities, muzzle the press, or overturn elections, “calm down” is another way of saying “let them win.”
Centrists love to think of themselves as referees in the middle of the field. What they rarely admit is that the game they’re refereeing is rigged, and their neutrality keeps it rigged. They can’t tell the difference between a foul and fair play because to call one out would mean admitting that the sides aren’t equal. So they blow the whistle on both teams and strut like they’ve saved the sport.
This is why authoritarians love centrists. They provide cover. They give legitimacy to the idea that the fight is just politics-as-usual, when in reality one side is sawing the legs off the table. The centrist doesn’t have to lie outright; all they have to do is shrug and say, “Well, both sides are bad.”
The tragedy is that many centrists think they’re protecting democracy by refusing to pick sides. In reality, their refusal is the oxygen that lets democracy’s arsonists keep the fire burning.
Culture Wars: A Rigged Game
Culture wars are the perfect breeding ground for these tricks because they’re not about evidence. They’re about identity. Authoritarians figured this out a long time ago: if you can make people think of politics as a sport, they’ll stop caring about rules or reality. All that matters is that their team wins.
That’s why false equivalence is so useful. It keeps your base fired up by minimizing your sins and inflating your opponent’s. Book bans become the same as boycotts. Hate speech laws become the same as hurt feelings. A riot becomes the same as a march. The lines blur, the scoreboard stays even, and the game drags on.
And let’s be blunt: this tactic overwhelmingly serves the far right. Progressives aren’t the ones storming governments, installing strongmen, or rolling back civil rights. But if you can convince people that shouting “Merry Christmas” less often is equal to banning religion, suddenly the authoritarians don’t look so bad. They look like just another team playing rough.
The Price of Shrugging
Every time we let false equivalence slide, we lose our grip on proportion. And proportion is everything. It’s the difference between outrage and tyranny, between inconvenience and oppression.
Equating Twitter mobs with secret police doesn’t just flatten reality; it cheapens actual suffering. When everything is the same level of bad, then nothing is bad. And when nothing is bad, authoritarians get away with everything.
That’s the point. Confuse the public. Exhaust the critics. Make people throw up their hands and say, “They’re all the same.” Once you’ve done that, democracy becomes a carnival game: rigged, noisy, and impossible to win.
See Through the Scam
So, the next time you hear someone declare “both sides,” treat it like an alarm. Ask yourself: who benefits from me believing this? Who gets off the hook if we call a punch and a car crash the same thing?
Neutrality isn’t wisdom. Cynicism isn’t insight. And refusing to take a side when one side is actively dismantling democracy isn’t balance — it’s surrender.
The truth doesn’t always live in the middle. Sometimes it lives right where the evidence is, staring us in the face, daring us to say it out loud. And sometimes, yes, one side is worse. Pretending otherwise isn’t sophisticated. It’s cowardice in a cardigan.
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