Beware the Both Siders

 A month ago on Facebook I said I'd have respected Ted Cruz more if he had just stayed in Cancun after winter storms crippled Texas than letting social media shame him into coming back to pretend he cared while throwing his wife and kids under the bus.  Someone then jumped into attack mode like, "How can you admire him?!"  And I wasn't using "respect" in that way.  I meant it like "I respect your right to exist."  It doesn't mean I like you or admire you but that I tolerate you.

By the same token I respect a villain like Donald Trump who is consistent.  I don't admire him but I respect that he's not wishy-washy.  I don't like his politics or him as a supposed human being, but at least you know where he stands.

The ones I really don't respect are these jerk-offs who try to moderate everything terrible people like Trump or Ted Cruz does by saying, "Well both sides are bad."  Or "Well what about..."  Usually it's, What about Hillary?  Or What about Obama?  What about Hunter Biden?  Blah blah blah.

There are jerk-offs like Tony Laplume who after a Trump mob tries to overthrow the government say, "Well what about Black Lives Matter protests?"  What about them?  They weren't trying to overthrow the government.  But there was violence there!  Mostly because dipshit Trump and his sycophants wanted to "dominate the protesters."  And the few violent protests naturally got way more media attention than the many, many that were peaceful.

And after the Ted Cruz thing they try to say, "It snowed, so what?"  Um, no it didn't just snow.  Much of the state was without power, heat, or water in freezing temperatures.  People were literally dying and he decides to jet off to sunny Cancun, Mexico (the country Trump supporters hate so much) for a vacation.  Does that sound like what a compassionate leader or decent human being would do?

Then there's this oldie but goody:  Liberals preach tolerance but they're intolerant of us!  Um, yeah, we're intolerant of asshole fascists with their Nazi and Confederate flags.  That makes us so terrible, right?  The implied paradox is one that doesn't really exist; some things you are supposed to be intolerant of:  murderers, child pornographers, religious extremists, white supremacists, and the like.  That doesn't make us "intolerant;" it makes us decent human beings.  If you're trying to bend yourself into a pretzel mentally to excuse those behaviors, what kind of human being are you?

What the Both Siders are really trying to do is to pull everything into the middle.  Trump supporters raid a nuclear missile silo and nuke Mexico?  Well, remember when Obama saluted a Marine with a coffee cup in hand?  Just as bad!  Or remember when Obama wore a tan suit?  Just as bad!  Both sides are equally bad!

And really the worst part about it is people like Tony Laplume can't just say they support Trump.  Instead they try to cloak it in all this "both sides are bad" or "what about..." bullshit.  I'd respect you more if you just said which side you're on instead of trying to act like you're in the middle when it's pretty fucking obvious which side you're on.  You're not fooling anyone--except yourself.

If you notice, that kind of both siders never seem to say anything to defend people on the left.  Nope, it's always to defend the right.  So when you say I don't get it or I'm misinterpreting it, well, what else am I supposed to think?  Write some lame poems or Twitter posts defending Bernie and AOC and I might really believe your "both sides" crap.

(And predictably when Laplume couldn't win arguments on his stupid poetry blog he just started deleting my comments.  It's funny how these right wingers are only tough guys until someone hits them back.  Then they run crying to Mommy.)