Bothsiderism is wrong. All intelligent people should reject it.

Why?

First, because “both” implies there are only two sides. I reject that there are only two sides in our current conflict (to which “bothsiderist” refers) or in most political conflicts.

With respect to understanding political situations I am a pluralist. Pluralists know that the very essence of a political situation is struggle among conflicting worldviews. Each worldview defines its own position, its own justification, and defines its enemies and speculates on their positions and motivations. These views of the situation never line up or harmonize with one another, and that’s precisely what makes it political. When trying to understand any political conflict I am an allsiderist, because that is what it takes to actually understand such situations.

Those most eager to accuse others of bothsiderism are something far worse than a bothsiderist. They are onesiderists. They have no serious doubts that their own theories about their enemies motivations are correct, and their enemies’ counter-theories are incorrect at best, and likely evil and/or insane. The other side has no valid point worth considering, or hearing, and suppressing their worldview is the best way to resolve the conflict. It is objectively clear there is only one true, good, just side in this conflict: mine.

With respect to picking sides among onesiderists I am a passionate neithersiderist. I see no reason to takes sides with onesiderists fighting against other onesiderists, and the fact each is completely unwilling to imagine that it is possible to be on neither side, nor that this alleged bothsiderism is tantamount to supporting their enemy.

I will go further and declare myself an anti-onesiderist. In fact, I reject the notion that ideological progressivists and the alt-righters are even two different things. They are one thing. They are a complementary pair that feed each other’s hatred and justify each other’s excesses, and combine to produce a single illiberal juggernaut bent on undermining and destroying our liberal institutions. Anyone who justifies their own rioting (as resistance to oppressors), their hatred (as righteous anger), their abuse (as speaking truth to power) and their bigotry (as a legitimate counterbalancing prejudice against the prejudiced), while seeing the rioting, hatred, abuse and bigotry of their enemies as beyond the pale, is themselves beyond the pale, not only for being rioting, hating, abusing bigots, but for being hypocrites. People have started rolling their eyes at accusations of hypocrisy, but eye-rolls are not arguments.

I long ago stopped seeing the political battle-line of our time drawn between left and right. We can quibble over economic policy later. We have bigger problems. The real battle-line today is perpendicular: we are now in a struggle between liberal and illiberal, or, to put it in the terms I’ve been using, allsiderists versus onesiderists.

Allsiderists try hard to be fair. They try to weigh different sides and assess tradeoffs. They do so because they want to get along with their fellow citizens. But onesiderism has advanced so far, become so aggressive, tribal, simplistic and destructive that it might be time to take forceful action and put down this double-insurrection.