How did “both sides” become swear words?

Suddenly being open-minded is considered bad – by both sides

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“Fuck both sides-ism,” a trending TikTok journalist declares in The Girls on the Bus, Amy Chozick’s ode to gonzo campaign coverage, airing on Max. Hunter Thompson’s ghost even appears! Clutching a bottle of Wild Turkey, of course.

Dan Pfeiffer, a White House advisor under Barack Obama and now a prominent podcaster, recently denounced “the both-sides BS of traditional journalism.” Here’s his Substack.

Pfeiffer often is mad at the New York Times – join the club! – not for misrepresenting environmental news (my main complaint) but for refusing to become nothing but left-wing propaganda. Acknowledging the opinions of conservatives, even simply acknowledging the humanity of conservatives, is “both-sides BS.” 

Both sides feel the ire of the both-sides complaint. In March there was a dustup at the tiny-circulation literary magazine Guernica when an Israeli peace activist wrote that both sides were suffering in the Gaza conflict. Impermissible thought! Most of the magazines’ staffers resigned to protest the use of a both-sides argument.

Constructions along the lines of “this is more both-sides crap” have become standard insults on social media, usually from the high-and-mighty who haven’t wasted valuable time by reading things before complaining about them.

Scene from The Girls on the Bus. Image courtesy Max.

In 2020 the distinguished editor James Bennet was forced out at the New York Times for publishing an oped proposing the National Guard be called in to stop urban race riots – just as the military had been called in to stop the 1957 race riot at Central High School of Little Rock.