One of the advantages of finding myself in recent years without a political home is that I feel no temptation, let alone an obligation, to justify or minimize unsavory behavior from either side of the political aisle. My disenchantment with both the Republican and Democratic camps has its drawbacks, but one advantage is that it inoculates me against the mote-and-beam double standards that partisan loyalists regularly succumb to.

It is easy and satisfying to point the finger of condemnation when the other party says or does something disagreeable; when your own team does the same thing, the compulsion to make excuses for it, to sugarcoat it, or to ignore it can be irresistible.

There is nothing new about selective outrage in politics, of course. Republicans who excoriate Democratic presidents when spending and deficits explode routinely lose interest in fiscal responsibility when their party controls the White House. Democrats slam Republican candidates for relying on wealthy donors to “buy” elections — but celebrate it as evidence of grass-roots enthusiasm when a fellow Democrat shatters fund-raising records.

There has been no shortage of such clanging double standards over the past week, as Joe Biden’s presidency came to its end and Trump’s second term began.

For instance, both presidents delivered major speeches — a farewell address from Biden and an inaugural address by Trump — that were grim and demoralizing, casting the state of the nation in the bleakest possible light and maligning the character of the other man’s supporters.

In his broadcast on Jan. 15, Biden ominously warned of an “oligarchy” threatening American democracy — of “powerful forces [that] want to wield their unchecked influence” — of how the “free press is crumbling, editors are disappearing,” and how “truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit.”

Trump’s speech five days later was, if anything, even more bitter, notwithstanding its self-aggrandizing triumphalism. “For many years, a radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens, while the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair,” he intoned. He vowed to “completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal,” and to “tariff and tax foreign countries” until all challenges are “annihilated.”

To my ear, the two speeches were more or less equally grotesque, but that wasn’t how Republicans and conservatives saw it. Biden’s acrid address they pronounced a failure; Trump’s they loved. The Wall Street Journal ran an editorial on each speech. One was headlined “Biden Offers a Bitter Last Word,” the other, “Trump’s Inaugural of Optimism.” On the Fox News website, Biden’s speech was described as the “worst farewell speech in presidential history,” while Trump’s was hailed as “a triumph for him, and for his supporters.”

There was a similar cognitive dissonance when the two presidents attempted unilaterally to change the Constitution.

On Jan. 17 Biden purported to “affirm” that the failed Equal Rights Amendment — which expired, unratified, in 1979 — had actually become the 28th Amendment. Many Democrats and liberals applauded and cheered, proclaiming their “full agreement” with Biden’s announcement and hailing him for “standing on the right side of history.”

But when Trump on Monday signed an executive order to abolish the 14th Amendment’s ancient guarantee that any child born in America is an American citizen, prominent voices on the left instantly declared, as the progressive Brennan Center for Justice put it, that “Presidents Can’t End Birthright Citizenship.” Federal lawsuits challenging Trump’s order were swiftly filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Lawyers for Civil Rights. Democrats like Governor J.B. Pritzker of Illinois thundered that Trump’s order was “unconstitutional.”

In one area after another, this is the pattern. When Democrats use invented woke terminology like “Latinx,” Republicans roll their eyes with contempt. But when Trump decides to change the centuries-old name of the Gulf of Mexico to “Gulf of America,” Republicans rush to comply. When Trump’s daughter and son-in-law parlayed their White House connections into lucrative business deals, Democrats were scandalized by the obvious conflicts of interest. When it was Biden’s son embroiled in ethical wrongdoing, however, Democrats and their allies couldn’t be bothered to take it seriously.

From “weaponizing” the justice system to cozying up to Big Tech, from shattering democratic norms to abusing the pardon power, each party is unsparing in chiding the opposition but oh-so-understanding when its own leaders cross the line.

Political hypocrisy is as old as politics itself, but its persistence underscores how easily partisanship blinds us to truth and principle. One presidency ends and another begins, but the cycle of selective outrage and partisan blindness continues unabated. More than ever, America needs Republicans and Democrats who know that the real work of integrity in politics isn’t about rooting for a team — it’s about rooting out hypocrisy, wherever it resides.