Spend enough time online and you will eventually encounter a familiar narrative: “Both sides are the same.” It is often delivered with the tone of someone who believes they have risen above the chaos of politics and reached a higher level of understanding. The statement carries an air of intellectual maturity, as if the speaker has escaped the tribalism that supposedly traps everyone else.

In reality, this claim rarely reflects deeper insight. More often, it reflects something far simpler: intellectual avoidance.

Declaring that both sides are identical ignores one of the most obvious features of political life: human beings organize themselves according to values…