What does "bothsidesism" mean?

A tendency to treat all policy debates as if the opposing sides present equally strong arguments, or are equally valid or equally dangerous.

What is a synonym for "bothsidesism"?

Common synonyms include: centrism, false balance, view from nowhere.

Pronounced //bəʊθˈsaɪd.zɪ.zəm//.

//bəʊθˈsaɪd.zɪ.zəm// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A tendency to treat all policy debates as if the opposing sides present equally strong arguments, or are equally valid or equally dangerous. uncountable, usually
"Near-synonym: view from nowhere"

"I'm tired of lazy bothsidesism."

From both sides + -ism.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.