Why are Democrats held to a different standard than Republicans?
To me, it isn't a tribalism thing. "It's my team, so I'm going to look the other way." I don't believe that.
It's built into the socialist mindset, and you can see it in every far left government that has ever existed. Imagine you can live by one of two moral frameworks.
1) Stealing is always wrong.
2) Stealing is okay as long as they have at least X amount of money, and you are using the money for Y.
It is a pet peeve of mine when conservatives say "Socialism is a great idea but it doesn't work". It is an awful idea for a very simple reason: The moral framework that props it up is entirely arbitrary. Challenge any socialist to fill in "X" or "Y" with something that isn't just a whim. People are really good at rationalizing bad behavior, and if you give them a set of golden rules that are ultimately arbitrary, they can rationalize even the most savage and murderous actions, which is exactly what happens every single time.
The media can lie straight to the faces of the American people because their ill-defined and arbitrary sense of how things should be trumps any preconceived notion that lying in general is always wrong.
Obviously the socialist critique of this is to say all moral frameworks are arbitrary... Which just isn't true.