Yeah, no; you can't "everyone does it, it's always been like this" your way out of this.
There's a big difference between "we need to be able to defeat the other side in order to enact our goals, which are X, Y, and Z" and "our only stated goals are to defeat the other side and hold power". Also see 2020, when the Republican Party released no official platform aside from, effectively "we support Trump, whatever he says goes".
There's a big difference between every (modern*) Democratic president and Trump, who has, since even before he was elected, derided and eroded our democracy, actively promoted racism and white supremacy, and relied upon Big Lies[0] as fundamental parts of his campaign and governance strategy.
* To differentiate from the era prior to the Dixiecrats flipping to the Republican Party, in response to the Democratic Party officially supporting civil rights.
There's a big difference between "we need to be able to defeat the other side in order to enact our goals, which are X, Y, and Z" and "our only stated goals are to defeat the other side and hold power". Also see 2020, when the Republican Party released no official platform aside from, effectively "we support Trump, whatever he says goes".
There's a big difference between every (modern*) Democratic president and Trump, who has, since even before he was elected, derided and eroded our democracy, actively promoted racism and white supremacy, and relied upon Big Lies[0] as fundamental parts of his campaign and governance strategy.
* To differentiate from the era prior to the Dixiecrats flipping to the Republican Party, in response to the Democratic Party officially supporting civil rights.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie