View source for Both sides do it/Democrats vs. Republicans

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==About==
The phrase "[[both sides do it]]" is often used in discussions about the [[US Democratic Party|Democrat]] and [[US Republican Party|Republican]] parties in the {{USA}}, which have essentially become a [[US/politics/duopoly|political duopoly]] (excluding all other parties from any substantial participation).

While it is true that both of these parties are clearly colluding in a number of ways (e.g. [[good cop/bad cop politics]]) and share a number of negative characteristics, and that the public benefits tremendously whenever a non-[[Douglas Adams/democracy|lizard]] (i.e. someone who belongs to ''neither'' party) wins an election, it is also true that the Republicans are far ''more'' guilty of malfeasance in a number of areas, including:
* lying and misrepresenting facts
* use of [[appeal to emotion|emotional]] and [[religious]] arguments
* platforms based on [[ideology]] and [[dogma]] rather than [[reasoning]] from [[fact]]ual information; [[moralism]]
* [[hypocrisy]] (probably due to [[moralism]])
* [[corruption]]
* fealty to those who provide the majority of funding to their campaigns, rather than to their constituencies ([[Lessigian corruption]]) &ndash; in other words, representing [[the 1%]] rather than all voters equally
==Obama vs. Romney==
This is also true for the [[US/president/election/2012|2012 presidential election]]. While incumbent [[Barack Obama]] has basically carried forward and even expanded many of the truly awful policies of [[George W. Bush|his predecessor]], he has also at least taken a sane approach in many areas where Bush did not (employing science-based policy in many areas where Bush preferred faith-based policy or simply appointed key administrators on a political basis). Obama's opponent [[Mitt Romney]], on the other hand, has made it clear that he has no interest in facts and will do his best to represent the interests of the wealthy and [[privilege]]d. He is also likely to carry forward Bush's policy of appointing ideologically-driven justices to the [[US Supreme Court]].