Whataboutism might be more defensible if you could name a person. Just pointing to the "Dems", knowing that collectively there must be enough shit out there to stick, isn't a good defense to the behavior to "the President" himself.
If you point to AOC, for example, then the person can respond with a) she's not as bad (and you can have that argument); b) she may be as bad, but I don't constantly defend her.
As for the general idea that Dems are tribal as well, I think that is a different animal and not insidious. I'm not a big fan of tribalism myself, but people of color have not used tribalism historically to keep white people from attaining positions of power and wealth in this country. The opposite is not true. That is why White Male tribalism is, in fact, worse than, say African American tribalism.