Chapter 5.6 | The Price of Partisanship: The Collapse of Principled Consistency

Why Partisanship Is America’s Greatest Vulnerability

We are living through a dangerous moment—not because one man is breaking the system, but because both parties have been doing it for decades. And now, we’re being told we must pick a side or be complicit.

But what if that’s the real trap?

For years, I have challenged the way partisan narratives distort reality. The goal here is neither to defend Trump nor indict him. My goal with this chapter is to expose how the “Political Industrial Complex” is tearing the country apart.

But here’s what I’ve heard from people I trust: That even if Trump isn’t the cause of our democratic decay, he’s still a dangerous accelerant. And my highlighting hypocrisy (as I will do again in this chapter) is not enough when the stakes are this high. That treating both sides as equally flawed can come off as moral equivalence when one side now openly threatens constitutional norms.

And you know what? They’re not wrong. But, that said, the only way forward that I can see is to point out the hypocrisy that I see in the hopes that it opens your eyes. The political left is once again catastrophizing Trump, while the political right excuses him. Both approaches are dangerous. What we need is to break out of our echo chambers and stop allowing the political duopoly to manipulate us to their political ends and start focusing on solutions and holding our elected officials to account for failing to legislate!

Let’s Start with Some Honest Reflections

• The system is broken. Institutions have failed. Power has corrupted both parties.

• Trump didn’t create the rot—but he is exploiting it in ways that are objectively dangerous.

• The media fuels outrage by selectively framing events to serve partisan agendas.

• Millions of Americans feel politically homeless—deeply concerned, but unsure where to turn.

Donald Trump has made clear, in his own words, that he intends to rule, not govern. He’s promised “retribution,” called political opponents “vermin,” floated mass deportation camps, and declared he would act as a “dictator on day one.” These aren’t careless exaggerations—they’re deliberate signals. They echo the language of strongmen, not statesmen. And after four years of testing—and often breaking—norms, we’d be foolish to dismiss them as mere rhetoric. Millions of Americans—left, right, and independent—see the warning signs for what they are: a threat to constitutional order.

But here’s the trap: If our only response is outrage—especially outrage filtered through partisan media and double standards—we risk driving people toward the very danger we seek to avoid. That’s the paradox. The more one side screams “authoritarian,” the more the other digs in, convinced they’re being manipulated by a political elite that only applies standards selectively. And let’s be honest—there’s truth to that. The political establishment has been complicit for decades in eroding democratic norms.

This didn’t start with Trump. It started when both parties stopped putting patriotism above partisanship.

• Congress stopped legislating.

• Presidents stopped persuading and started ruling by executive order.

• Courts became political referees, not neutral interpreters.

Media—traditional and social—became outrage machines. They reward fear, tribalism, and clickbait over thoughtfulness, truth, and principle.

We can’t fix Trump without fixing the system. And we can’t fix the system if we’re blind to how both parties broke it—or to how we’re being manipulated into fueling the dysfunction.

This isn’t about defending Trump or indicting him. It’s a call for objectivity, unity, and action. Without moral clarity and consistent standards, our democratic republic can’t survive. I published my first article in FairnessMatters over 2 years ago, with a simple premise:

American’s need to wake up to the fact that we are being manipulated by a political industrial complex that only cares about staying in power and has no interest in solving the problems we face as a nation. It’s partisanship over patriotism. Meanwhile both parties profess that they are the only solution to solving those problems. Yet neither has the willingness to put forth workable solutions because the system is rigged so that an unresolved issue is far more valuable than a resolved issue.

Our challenge is to confront that exploitation without pretending the rest of the political system is healthy.

The goal of this chapter—and this project—is not to “sane wash” Trump. It’s to decontaminate our discourse. To make space for honesty and self reflection. To build the kind of intellectual and civic credibility that can persuade not just the choir, but the congregation.

We will not defeat authoritarianism by becoming authoritarians in language, thought, or assumption. We will not heal division by blaming only one side. And we will not revive democracy by demanding submission to a single narrative.

Let’s look at a few issues that we are confronting in real time. These need to be viewed as issues of national importance and national security.

IMMIGRATION: IDENTICAL POLICIES, DIFFERENT OUTRAGE

The core issue traces back to the 1965 shift that limited legal migration from Mexico just as labor demand surged. Successive administrations have failed to reconcile legal pathways with labor and humanitarian realities. While public support for reform is high, political polarization—intensified by strategic messaging—continues to obstruct durable legislative solutions.

Remember when President Obama told ABC News:

We simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, unchecked…

Or when Obama warned in 2014 of a “humanitarian crisis” at the border. He deported more than 3 million people—the most in modern history—and expanded ICE and family detention. Immigrant advocacy groups called him the “Deporter in Chief.” He used expedited removal and in many cases, migrants had no access to an immigration judge. Democrats didn’t accuse Obama of fascism. There were no protest signs comparing him to Hitler. There were no cries of “concentration camps” on CNN.

But when Trump enforces virtually the same policies—including family detention initiated under Obama—the narrative flips. Suddenly, it’s “kids in cages,” “xenophobia,” and “ethnic cleansing.” The virtue signaling that masquerades as activism is not about compassion. It’s about control—of the narrative, the media, and the tribal loyalties of voters.

At some level, it’s not hard to understand why the rhetoric changes. The approach is markedly different. While it’s true that Obama’s deportations were the most prolific in history, and they often lacked due process (but most were near-border and “voluntary returns”), Trump’s approach strips protections even for long-time residents, using expedited removal deep inside U.S. communities without hearings. Obama was criticized primarily by immigrant rights groups and progressives. Trump is drawing global criticism, lawsuits from civil liberties groups, and backlash from within the federal judiciary. Obama built the deportation machine. Trump is turbocharging it—expanding its scope, ignoring judicial precedent, and politicizing immigration as an existential threat to the nation. Obama’s sin was quiet efficiency in removals, often overlooked by his own party. Trump’s is loud escalation, unapologetically testing the limits of executive power.

Yes, tone matters. Rhetoric matters. But, if we’re going to be honest with ourselves: policy matters more. And the truth is, on core illegal immigration policy, Obama and Trump largely agreed:

• Secure the border

• Deport illegal entrants with criminal records

• Discourage unlawful migration

But here’s what matters most now: Biden’s failure to secure the southern border is one of a handful of reasons Trump was reelected.

• Record numbers of illegal crossings under Biden.

• A porous system that overwhelmed border states and sanctuary cities alike.

• White House messaging that sent mixed signals to migrants—and then relied on governors and mayors to handle the fallout.

Now, in Trump’s second term, the pendulum has swung hard. The public has demanded action, and Trump is delivering on his campaign promise. Whether you agree with his tone or tactics, it’s undeniable that his mandate was born from Biden’s refusal to act.

Consistency matters. But in immigration, as in foreign policy, it’s the narrative that drives outrage—not the facts.

If you backed Obama’s border policies, don’t smear Trump supporters as racists for doing the same.

As Martin Gurri writes in “What Both Sides Get Wrong About Immigration”:

A system that toggles between total laxity and harsh repression isn’t really a system at all…. The Democrats have come to treat illegality as a test of anti-racist virtue. The MAGA crowd looks on it as an “invasion” to be repelled by the terrible swift sword of the state—including, if need be, the military…. Here’s a common-sense proposition: Since we can’t invite the whole world inside our borders, let’s consider the matter as one of optimal limits. Once the need to restrain immigration is acknowledged, the next step should be to seek consensus on the practicalities—the maximum number the country can absorb each year, the skills we most urgently need to import, and, of course, the most transparent and fair process for those arriving, as I once did, on the shores of this fortunate land.

I am deeply committed to legal immigration in America. In July 2023, I wrote in Chapter 3.4:

The immigration system in the U.S. is widely acknowledged to be broken, but there is little consensus on how to fix it. There appears to be no political will to address the issue, and our polarized positions have pushed us toward a dangerous flashpoint.

Let’s start with a foundational fact: Unless you are a descendent of indigenous people, you are an immigrant or a descendent of one. Throughout history, the debate about immigration has brought out some of the deepest anxieties and biggest disagreements in America. A decade or two ago, the immigration debate was mostly about economics; today it’s been politicized and subsumed by the culture wars and our polarized discourse.

I want to make one other thing clear: I believe it is beyond debate that we have a crisis at the border. I don't believe it's reasonable to conclude otherwise.

Trump once said,

A nation without borders is not a nation at all. We must have a wall. The rule of law matters!

I agree with Trump that we need a safe, secure border, and I also agree, albeit ironically, given the source, that the rule of law matters. I also believe that there is a need for strong border security, and that a wall should be a component of a comprehensive strategy. For the first time in a decade of polling on the subject, that seems to be the majority position.

Where we diverge is how to implement an immigration system that provides legal pathways to citizenship and is in the best interests of America.

It is imperative that we quickly develop a common sense consensus on how to secure our border in order to stem the tide of illegal immigration, while agreeing upon acceptable legal pathways to citizenship. It's clear that we are gaining alignment on the former, but we are far from a consensus on the latter.

Like many of the topics I have explored, the parties have moved so far to the extremes in their perspective on immigration that finding a common sense solution seems to have moved out of reach. The pendulum continues to swing farther and farther away from the middle.

What's going on at the border is a tragedy and a complete failure of policy in large part due to the dysfunction in Washington.

Current Gallop Polling (2025)

• 79% of Americans say immigration is good for the country.

• 85% support citizenship for immigrants brought as children.

• 78% support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who meet requirements.

• 38% favor deporting all undocumented immigrants.

• Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today.

So Trump’s tactics seem to be shifting public opinion.

So what do we do?

We stop falling for the outrage. We stop letting media narratives weaponize empathy to shut down debate or vilify those who want law and order. We stop pretending this is just about Trump or Biden. Because the truth is, both parties have failed us.

Congress has had opportunity after opportunity to pass comprehensive immigration reform. In 2024, a bipartisan bill—crafted with input from centrists in both parties—almost made it to a vote. It included:

• Substantial funding for border security

• Streamlined asylum processes to reduce abuse

• Work visa modernization

• Legal pathways to citizenship for long-standing undocumented residents

But it died—because each party saw more value in campaigning on immigration than solving it.

Here’s what we need now: A modernized, enforceable immigration system that secures the border, protects American workers, and offers a fair and legal pathway to citizenship. One that includes provisions like biometric entry-exit systems, criminal background checks, and deportation of repeat violators. It includes a points-based or tiered pathway for undocumented immigrants and visa holders to earn permanent residency or citizenship. But also one that respects the dignity of migrants who have followed the law, paid taxes, and contributed to our communities.

This shouldn’t be controversial. It should be the starting point.

So here’s your call to action: Pick up the phone. Send the email. Post the op-ed. Push your representative to get back to legislating.

Tell them to revive the bipartisan framework—and improve it. Tell them you’re tired of performative politics and want results, not rhetoric.

Because the real threat isn’t who’s in the White House—it’s that the rest of Washington refuses to do its job.

And until we demand better, we’ll keep swinging from crisis to crisis, while families suffer, cities strain, and the rule of law erodes.

The War Powers Farce

War powers are located in two Articles in the Constitution.

Article I, section 8, clause 1 states:

“The Congress shall have Power To . . . provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.”

Article I, section 8, clauses 11-16 state:

“The Congress shall have Power . . . To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
“To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
“To provide and maintain a Navy;
“To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
“To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
“To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress”

Article II entrusts the president with command:

“The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.”

As Lindsay Chervinsky writes in “The President's Awesome War Powers”

In theory, the division of responsibility is clear. Congress declares war and the president manages it. But as history quickly demonstrated, there is a lot of grey area between war and peace. Technological advancement and the increasing messiness of warfare have added additional complications. Additionally, very few of the conflicts in American history have been called traditional wars as the framers envisioned.

As this relates to Trump’s June 21, 2025 strike on Iran’s underground Nuclear facilities, this was not the first time a president bypassed Congress to launch military action. It followed a long pattern of presidents from both parties exploiting executive authority:

• Clinton bombed Kosovo beyond the 60-day War Powers limit.

• Bush launched the War in Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq under sweeping Authorizations for Use of Military Force (AUMFs), then stretched those authorizations across decades and multiple countries—with drone strikes, black sites, and indefinite detentions—all without new congressional declarations.

• Obama justified Libya by claiming it wasn’t “hostilities” (despite obvious evidence to the contrary). Obama dropped over 26,000 bombs on seven countries — Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen — in 2016 alone

• Biden continued many of those operations, withdrew from Afghanistan without congressional approval, and has used force in Yemen, Somalia, Syria, and Iraq—sometimes invoking Article II powers, sometimes citing the same post-9/11 AUMFs that Congress has refused to repeal.

The truth is, Congress hasn’t declared war since 1942. Presidents of both parties have been using their Article II Commander-in-Chief powers for over 80 years—and each party defends the practice when it suits them.

The War Powers Resolution was enacted to serve as a congressional restraint on the President’s power to engage in Military Action. Since then, Congress and the President have disagreed over the enforcement and constitutionality of the statute. Nonetheless, to date, the Judiciary has refused to enforce the War Powers Resolution, calling it a “political question.” So the legal gray zone persists—but the selective outrage does not.

In the weeks since President Trump ordered the bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities, many Democratic leaders have lined up to condemn the act as reckless, unconstitutional, even grounds for impeachment.

When Obama bombed Libya in 2011 without Congressional approval, where was Chuck Schumer’s outrage? When Bill Clinton defied the War Powers Resolution in Kosovo, where were the cries of impeachment? They were silent—or worse, supportive.

The uncomfortable truth is this: the legal and constitutional justifications Trump used are virtually identical to those used by Presidents Obama and Clinton and virtually every single US President since Franklin D. Roosevelt in prior unilateral military actions.

And now, as the political pendulum swings, the very same actions are rebranded—from “necessary leadership” to “unilateral warmongering”—depending on who holds the pen in the Oval Office.

This isn’t a defense of Trump (although on Iran I am unequivocal in my support), it is a condemnation of everyone who twists legal standards into partisan cudgels. If we’re serious about constitutional governance, it must apply regardless of who’s in power. Otherwise, we’re not defending democracy—we’re defending our own team.

Trump’s bombing of Iran was not a partisan action. It was a necessary one. And yet, the reactions have predictably split along tribal lines:

• Democrats who stayed silent when Obama bombed Libya are suddenly constitutional scholars.

• Republicans who sued Obama over war powers are now justifying Trump’s strike.

The hypocrisy is not just obvious—it’s exhausting and it’s making us less safe.

We should be united in defense of American sovereignty. Instead, we’re watching the same sick pattern unfold.

If you supported Obama’s strikes, you must at least grapple with Trump’s use of the same authority. If you backed Clinton in Serbia but accuse Trump of war crimes, that’s not consistency. That’s convenience.

This kind of moral relativism isn’t just ugly. It’s dangerous. It makes it impossible to hold anyone accountable—because no one has clean hands, and everyone has a justification.

We are not a perfect country. But we are a good country. And when a terrorist regime like Iran plays with nuclear fire, we must act—with strength, unity, and moral clarity.

That’s what Trump did. And now, it’s on us.

This is not a moment for petty politics. It’s a test of whether we can stand together as a people. If we fail, we don’t just hand a win to Iran. We prove the cynics right—that America is too divided to defend itself.

We must align and prove them wrong.

The Unitary Executive

We’re bombarded with headlines: “Trump is undermining democracy,” “Authoritarian overreach,” “Fascism in the executive branch.” But peel back the media hysteria and partisan framing, and a more complex—and frankly more honest—picture emerges. [See Chapter 2.3 for a discussion of the Unitary Executive Theory]

The truth is, like it or not, executive power has always been central to American governance. From George Washington’s first directive in 1789 to Abraham Lincoln’s wartime orders, to FDR’s sweeping New Deal programs, presidents have used executive authority to steer the country—sometimes boldly, sometimes controversially. The modern presidency is built on precedent, not improvisation.

So no, Trump didn’t invent executive overreach. What’s changed is the erosion of a functioning congress. The legislative branch has surrendered responsibility. The courts have become political battlegrounds. And in that vacuum, any president who exercises power—especially one as confrontational as Trump—is branded a tyrant.

But if we’re serious about restoring balance, we must stop treating executive authority as illegitimate only when we oppose the person wielding it. This isn’t just about Trump. It’s about the system—and how we lost the boundaries that once kept it in check.

Let’s take a step back from the headlines and ask: What does the Constitution actually say about the bureaucratic state? What norms have developed around it? And who is really guilty of breaking them? The Supreme Court has begun to weigh in on this issue and as the NY Times stated on July 14, 2025:

The Supreme Court agreed on Monday that the Trump administration can proceed with dismantling the Education Department by firing more than a thousand workers.

This is the first of many rulings that will begin to coalesce on this issue. So let’s look at some of the ways in which Trump is reshaping the executive branch.

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The Civil Service and the Constitution we Pretend to Defend.

Critics of Trump point to his efforts to reclassify civil servants under Schedule F as a “purge” of career professionals. But let’s ask a simple question: Who do civil servants work for?

The only honest constitutionally grounded answer is that they work for the executive branch. Article II of the Constitution vests the power of that branch in a single President. That’s not a partisan interpretation—it’s a structural reality. Civil servants are not free agents. They do not answer to Congress. They are not their own branch of government. They exist to execute the law as directed by the person elected to do so.

Yet over the decades, through laws like the Pendleton Act of 1883, the federal workforce has been insulated from political accountability in the name of “neutral competence.” That idea was noble at the time—it ended the spoils system—but it has evolved into something quite different: a self-replicating, ideologically captured class of government insiders who answer to norms, not voters.

The phrase “serve the office, not the man” sounds good—until you realize that the policies of “the office” are defined by the man or woman who won the election. Otherwise, democracy is replaced by bureaucracy.

If civil servants are allowed to ignore or undermine the administration’s policies—because they dislike the man/woman elected or disagree with his/her ideology —that’s not “public service.” That’s insubordination disguised as virtue.

When a president like Trump tries to reassert control over a resistant bureaucracy, it’s called authoritarian. But what do we call it when bureaucrats actively undermine an elected administrations agenda against the will of the people? That’s not service. That’s sabotage.

And yet, the outrage only seems to exist when a Republican tries to restore control.

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Politicizing the DOJ: One Party’s Weapon Is Another’s Justice

We’ve now had back-to-back presidents accused of using the Justice Department to punish enemies and protect friends.

Trump critics say he’s turned the DOJ into a political weapon.

Trump supporters point to Biden’s DOJ prosecuting the leading Republican candidate during an election year, with open partisans staffing the investigation. They also point to the weaponization of intelligence agencies during the Russia probe, the use of FISA courts to surveil campaign associates, and the two-tiered standard in how leaks, riots, and civil rights cases are handled.

The real tragedy? Both sides are right. And both are wrong to think the problem started with the other.

Our system is broken not because one party is evil, but because every branch has drifted from its constitutional role:

• Congress no longer legislates meaningfully. It performs for the cameras and punts responsibility.

• The Courts have become the de facto policymakers—especially when gridlock reigns.

• The Executive has grown too powerful—but only because the other branches let it.

Presidents govern by executive order because Congress won’t do its job. Courts impose nationwide policy because legislators won’t make laws. And when a president pushes the bureaucracy to carry out his agenda, he’s accused of dictatorship—for daring to act like the actual head of the executive branch.

Fairness means calling out hypocrisy—on both sides.

• If you defended Obama’s executive orders, but condemn Trump’s: You’re not defending democracy. You’re defending your side.

• If you denounced Trump’s war-making, but said nothing when Clinton bombed Belgrade or Obama bombed Libya: That’s not about the Constitution. That’s about political convenience.

• If you claim Trump is a fascist for firing insubordinate officials, but cheered when Biden fired inspectors general who investigated COVID fraud or Afghanistan contracts—you’re not concerned about norms. You’re protecting your narrative.

If you think only one party weaponizes justice, you’re not seeing the whole picture.

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Civil Rights: Double Standards in Moral Leadership

When Trump acts to protect Jewish Americans from rising antisemitism—by investigating universities, threatening federal funding, or calling antisemitism a national security threat—he is branded as authoritarian. Media coverage frames it as overreach, political theater, or even a threat to free speech.

But compare that to how other presidents have defended minority communities:

• Dwight Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little Rock in 1957 to enforce school desegregation.

• John F. Kennedy federalized the National Guard to protect Black students at the University of Alabama.

• Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act and deployed federal agents to enforce civil rights in the South.

At the time, many of these actions were controversial, denounced as federal overreach, and deeply unpopular in parts of the country. Eisenhower was called a tyrant in the South. JFK faced accusations of autocracy. Johnson lost the South for a generation. And yet, with the benefit of hindsight, we now recognize those moments not as authoritarian overreach—but as acts of presidential courage and moral clarity. Necessary. Controversial. Ultimately, courageous.

Viewed through that same lens, Trump’s defense of Jews shouldn’t be controversial either.

Yet it is framed by many as a threat to liberty when the target is antisemitism, but they view other actions as a triumph of justice when the target is other forms of racism.

Why is defending Black and Latino Americans called progress—but defending Jewish Americans is framed as censorship or control?

This isn’t just hypocrisy. It’s corrosive. And history will prove Trump right.

Civil rights are civil rights. They don’t belong to one party, one ethnicity, or one moment in history. The same moral standard must apply to all, or the standard becomes meaningless.

Trump isn’t storming campuses with tanks. He’s using the same tools other presidents have used to protect marginalized groups: federal funding leverage, civil rights investigations, public rhetoric. The only thing different is the group he’s protecting—and the reaction that follows.

Until we apply the same principles to antisemitism that we do to racism or xenophobia, we will continue to divide the country along manufactured moral lines.

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Political Violence: Hypocritical Reactions to Riots and Insurrections

Let’s conclude by examining one additional stark example of this partisan hypocrisy in action: the wildly inconsistent reactions to the 2020 George Floyd protests-turned-riots and the January 6th Capitol breach.

On one side, many Democrats and their media allies downplayed the summer of 2020 as “mostly peaceful” demonstrations for racial justice, even as violence erupted in over 200 cities, racking up $1-2 billion in property damage, claiming at least 19 lives (including police officers and bystanders), and forcing curfews nationwide—often labeling it as understandable outrage against systemic injustice rather than outright domestic terror.

Flip the script to January 6th, a single-day event where a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to disrupt the electoral certification, resulting in five deaths (one from direct violence, others from medical emergencies or later suicides among traumatized officers), about $2.7 million in damage, and injuries to 140 law enforcement personnel—and suddenly, it’s branded an “insurrection” or the “most violent moment in recent history,” with relentless congressional probes and over 1,500 prosecutions. Meanwhile, Republicans like Congressman Wesley Hunt counter by pointing out the racial double standards (e.g., the shooting of unarmed white protester Ashli Babbitt by a Black Capitol officer, imagining the uproar if roles were reversed) and argue that 2020’s chaos was the real threat, minimizing January 6 as a partisan witch hunt.

Both events were unacceptable outbreaks of violence fueled by deep grievances, yet the tribal lens warps them: what’s excused as righteous fury for one side becomes existential treason for the other. This selective outrage isn’t just intellectually dishonest—it’s gasoline on the fire of polarization, breeding the very “authoritarian” backlash we see in figures like Trump, who millions view as a necessary disruptor against a rigged system. If we applied consistent principles—condemning all political violence without caveats, holding leaders accountable regardless of party, and addressing root causes like echo chambers and institutional decay—we could break this cycle. Instead, the Political Industrial Complex thrives on our divisions, ensuring the dysfunction continues unless we demand better from ourselves and our system.

And then there's the role of protests in the duopoly playbook—events that appear grassroots are often seeded with paid operatives and funded by shadowy networks to manipulate public sentiment. Look at pro-Palestinian demonstrations: While many participants are genuine, investigations reveal organizers like the Plenty Collective in Canada distributing cash (up to $20,000 monthly) for "actions," prioritizing BIPOC applicants, or firms like Crowds on Demand hiring for crowds, as seen in U.S. lobbying efforts against menthol bans where protesters were paid $80 a head to rally in matching T-shirts. What makes it insidious is that many of the well intentioned protesters are blithely unaware that they are being manipulated and “whipped up” by these paid operatives.

Even "No Kings" protests against the Trump administration are political actions backed by political parties and their backers as well as political organizations like the ACLU, Indivisible, and SEIU—progressive powerhouses that "organize" turnout, blurring the line between authentic dissent and manufactured outrage.

Fact-checkers may debunk mass "paid crowds" as conspiracy, but the reality is more insidious: These aren't fully organic; they're amplified by the duopoly's machine (DNC/RNC-linked firms stirring "support") to exploit emotions, from fear of "the other" to righteous fury, all while vilifying opponents and ignoring root causes like our fractured civic engagement.

As Brigitte Gabriel warns in her critiques of identity-driven extremism, we can't afford to give anyone immunity based on labels—it's a path to further polarization.

The silent majority must wake up, demand consistent standards (no free passes, no manipulated mobs), and push for reforms like mandatory public service to rebuild our sense of shared duty. Otherwise, we're just pawns in a game where emotions trump facts, and the system wins while America loses.

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So what do we do now?

We stop changing the rules depending on which party is in charge.

We stop confusing norms with laws, and partisanship with principle.

We start demanding that Congress reassert its legislative role, not just when the “other side” is in power, but always.

We start defending civil rights for all Americans—with one moral standard, not selective outrage.

Here’s your call to action:

• Contact your representatives—both parties—and demand reforms that restore real checks and balances:

  • Rein in executive overreach through legislation, not tweets.

  • Protect whistleblowers and Inspectors General across administrations.

  • Enforce neutrality in the DOJ, not just when it benefits your party.

  • Codify civil service accountability—ensuring neutrality without insubordination.

• Speak up—on social media, in your workplace, in your community. Challenge the hypocrisy on your own side first.

Because if we only see tyranny when our opponents govern—and virtue when our side does the same thing—then we are not defending democracy. We are defending a team.

And that’s not sustainable. Not morally. Not politically. Not culturally.

This is the moment to rebuild a shared understanding of how our system is supposed to work—and to insist on it.

If we don’t fight for constitutional clarity now, we will have no ground left to stand on when the next crisis comes. And it will.

The Real Crisis is Partisan Politics

The Constitution is drifting—and the rot is bipartisan:

• Congress no longer legislates—it performs.

• The courts legislate from the bench.

• The executive governs by fiat.

This moment doesn’t have to break us. It can wake us up.

Not to take sides—but to take responsibility.

We’ve seen what happens when outrage rules and trust erodes. When every disagreement becomes a moral war. But beneath the noise, most Americans still believe in fairness, truth, and a system that works for everyone.

That’s the promise of our democratic republic—and it’s still within reach.

If we’re willing to look past the party labels.

If we’re willing to apply the same standards to our side as we do to the other.

If we’re willing to fight not against each other, but for each other—and for the principles that make us a nation worth defending.

Not because we’re naïve—but because we still believe that truth cuts through noise. That courage is contagious. And that unity, when rooted in principle, is still possible.

Let’s prove it. Here’s how I see the path forward:

1. Reject Partisan Media Narratives

   Stop watching cable news. Take a break from social media. Curate a few trusted sources from both sides. Detox your brain from the algorithms of outrage.

2. Apply Consistent Standards

   If executive overreach is wrong, it’s wrong no matter who does it. If speech matters, it matters for everyone. If civil rights are worth defending, they’re worth defending for Jews as well as for Blacks, Latinos, Muslims, and LGBTQ Americans.

3. Hold Institutions Accountable

   Don’t romanticize the past. Push Congress to do its job. Demand that the courts stay in their lane. And insist that presidents—whether it’s Biden, Trump, or anyone else—respect the limits of their power.

4. Build Civic Literacy

   Most Americans couldn’t pass the citizenship test. That’s not an accident—it’s a strategy. A civically illiterate public is easier to manipulate. Let’s change that. Let’s educate, not agitate. We need to incentivize National Public Service in meaningful ways as I suggested in Chapter 5.1). One of my friends suggested that we should move the age when an adult can vote from 18 to 21 unless you serve in the Military. An interesting idea on many levels, unfortunately the 26th Amendment makes the idea impossible to implement. It’s ironic because the U.S. lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 in 1971 via the 26th Amendment, largely in response to the draft during the Vietnam War. The rationale was: if you could be conscripted to die for your country, you should have a say in its leadership. The Vietnam-era rallying cry was: “Old enough to fight, old enough to vote.” Feels like a missed opportunity to have only lowered the age for those that serve.

5. Call Out the Duopoly

   The two-party system is not a constitutional requirement—it’s a business model. And it’s failing us. Real change will require ballot access reform, open primaries, and new civic coalitions. FairnessMatters will keep pushing in that direction.