by Sean Dempsey
03/01/2026
I staunchly believe President Trump should be impeached from office for war crimes and for violating his oath of office with respect to unilaterally waging a war without seeking authorization from Congress, as is constitutionally required under Article 1 Section 8 of the US Constitution.
And, guess what? I also staunchly believe biological men should not be competing in women’s sports, and that anyone who says otherwise is completely out to lunch.
Yes, believe it or not, I can hold BOTH of these opinions simultaneously because I am a free-thinking human being, and not a pack animal.
Shocking, isn’t it? Apparently in today’s America, the moment you voice one opinion, you’re expected to subscribe wholesale to an entire menu of partisan dogma. If I criticize Trump for actual high crimes like going to war with Iran without a formal declaration of war, the Red Team warriors spit froth and call me a commie traitor afflicted with TDS.
If in the next breath I say it’s insane for literal male athletes to dominate women’s sports, the Blue Team zealots lose their ever-loving minds and label me a transphobic bigot. One day they think I’m a far-left “woke” lunatic, the next I’m a right-wing deplorable. All because I refuse to toe the f’ing “party line” of either side.
It’s hilarious and pathetic at the same time watching their mental circuits short out because, as a free-thinking individual, I don’t fit neatly in their stupid little boxes.
This is the sad state of U.S. politics: blind partisanship has turned people into mindless herd animals.
Donkeys and elephants, two dumb mascot tribes braying at each other, each convinced they hold a monopoly on truth and morality. Meanwhile, critical thought is tossed out the window. Voters act like they’re at a football game, painting their faces red or blue and chanting fight songs. They don’t care what the play is, they just care that their team wins.
The result? Ideological conformity so rigid and absurd that it would be comedic if it weren’t so destructive. We’ve got supposed free citizens acting like Pavlov’s dogs. Hear the bell (a Trump tweet, a soundbite from Mamdai, take your pick) and start salivating on cue with outrage or applause as dutifully instructed by their masters at Fox News, CNN, or MSNBC.
The left loves to brag about being “open-minded,” champions of diversity and inclusion. Oh sure, they’ll include any identity… except someone who thinks independently. Diversity of skin color or sexual preference is fantastic to them; but diversity of thought? Not so much…
Step one inch off the approved progressive script and watch the knives come out. Suddenly the self-proclaimed tolerant turn into a digital lynch mob. They’ll cancel you, unfriend you, shout you down, all in the name of “compassion,” of course.
The irony is palpable. Most of these idiots are straight-up suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome (“TDS”), hatred of Donald Trump so intense that it blinds them to reality. If Trump cured cancer tomorrow, they’d probably accuse him of putting oncologists out of work. Their mantra is basically “Orange Man Bad!” over and over on repeat. They’ve completely lost the plot.
So obsessed with opposing everything Trump or the so-called ‘Right’ does, they’ll twist themselves into pretzels of hypocrisy. (How many “anti-war” liberals fell silent when their guys bombed countries? How many “feminists” are cheering as women’s records get smashed by trans athletes, because ideological purity matters more than obvious unfairness?) The left’s groupthink has them policing each other’s every word for deviation. It’s like a circular firing squad of purity tests: hardly the free-thinking enlightenment they claim to uphold.
And then we have the so-called right, which preaches all day about “freedom,” “conservativism,” and “individualism,” while marching in lockstep behind their anointed leader. These are the folks pointing fingers and yelling “TDS!” at liberals, but a ton of them are guilty of the equal and opposite lunacy: TDRS: Trump Dick Riding Syndrome (pardon my french, but if the shoe fits…).
This ongoing mental condition has people so far up Trump’s ass can’t see daylight. Their absolute worship and blind loyalty to this man has led them to abandon all logic and reason in a paranoid frenzy of sycophancy. It’s grotesque. They literally idolize Trump! Remember the golden Trump statue they wheeled out at CPAC? (Nothing screams small-government religious right like bowing to a 6-foot shiny graven image of a failed casino owner, amirite?)
These people will excuse anything he does. Children in cages? “Fake news, Obama built those cages!” Approve massive, inflationary spending bills despite promising to clean up Biden’s overspending? “Well, he’s just fighting hard for American interests now!”
He said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose support, and disturbingly, he was right. You could show them video of Trump kicking a puppy and they’d rationalize that the puppy had it coming. That’s how cultish it’s become.
The same Republicans who once claimed to stand for moral values, fiscal sanity, law and order, or the Constitution…they flushed it all down the toilet to kiss the ring of a semi-charismatic con man. The party of Lincoln and Reagan got on its knees for a reality TV wannabe tyrant. Talk about selling your soul. During Covid, the MAGA crowd rightfully used to say “think for yourself,” but the second someone in their ranks actually does (*cough, cough*, Thomas Massie or Rand Paul), out come the torches and pitchforks.
Dissent even a tiny bit … say you acknowledge a basic fact like, oh, the Epstein Files are actually real and not a “Democrat hoax” or that U.S. Constitution doesn’t allow undeclared wars, and suddenly you’re a “RINO traitor” to be hated and excommunicated. Freedom of thought on the right, it turns out, extends only as far as fealty to Trump. Groupthink is alive and well in red America, just as rabid as in blue America.
Here’s the dirty secret: both sides are more alike than they’ll ever admit!
Each is locked in a frantic mirror dance of hatred and hysteria. They feed off each other. One side’s over-the-top craziness justifies the other’s in an endless doom loop. It’s a classic case of mutual delusion. The far left and far right are basically doppelgängers.
Each is a reversed reflection of the other, equally extreme, equally fanatic. Both engage in Orwellian doublethink, holding contradictory positions if it suits the party narrative. Both engage in their own forms of censorship and reality-denial: one will cancel you for using the “wrong” pronoun or believing unborn babies have rights, the other will say you’re “as bad as a dem” for criticizing Trump or acknowledging fiscal restraint is still a good idea even when a Republican is in office. Both shriek that the other side is destroying America, while they themselves happily burn down any norm or institution that doesn’t give them what they want.
They’ve both turned politics into a religion, complete with heresies and inquisitions. It’s cult mentalities, the lot of it.
George Orwell saw this coming. In 1984, he described the “Five Minutes of Hate,” a daily ritual where citizens collectively scream at the face of the Enemy of the People to vent their rage and solidify their loyalty to the Party. Sound familiar? Just turn on cable news. Watch five minutes of primetime on MSNBC or CNN and you’ll witness a modern Half Hour of Hate directed at Trump or “MAGA Republicans.”
Flip over to Fox News and it’s ‘the Five’ with an entire hour aimed at “the Radical Left” or they’re taking aim at men who don’t kiss Donald Trump’s ass, such as Rand Paul, Tucker Carlson, or Thomas Massie (who are essentially all “RINOs” because they still believe in principles over Party.)
The volume is always cranked to eleven, logic and facts be damned, just pure tribal emotion. Orwell also gave us Newspeak and Thought Police; well, hello Twitter mobs and Facebook outrage echo chambers, we’re living it. Each side has become an enforcement arm to punish any deviation from orthodoxy. We may not (yet) have a literal Ministry of Truth (as much as Biden tried during Covid by introducing his “Disinformation Governance Board”), but we’ve now got armies of trolls and pundits making sure inconvenient truths get drowned in a flood of war propaganda and “whataboutism.”
As for doublethink (holding two contradictory beliefs and accepting both) look no further than partisan hypocrisy. For instance, you’ll see right-wing commentators swear “All life is sacred!” one moment and then cheer on the death penalty or shrug at ICE shooting American protestors, because hey, #AmericaFirst.
Meanwhile left-wing pundits still loudly cry “Trust the Science!” on climate or vaccines but then insist biology means nothing when it comes to gender. Each side can spot the other’s nonsense immediately, but is completely blind to their own. It’s like watching two drunks brawl in a mirror, each accusing the other of being plastered.
Orwell nailed it: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” Replace “the Party” with either major political party today, and there you have it. We’re being commanded not to trust our own eyes and logic if it contradicts what the tribe decrees.
History’s thinkers have warned us about this idiocy for ages. Mark Twain famously quipped, “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” Good advice that virtually nobody today is taking. In fact, they’re doing the opposite: doubling down on whatever the mob says, because it’s safe and warm to their confomity-laden sensibilities.
Just hit the retweet button when someone on “your side” said it! They’ll happily ride the bandwagon straight off a cliff as long as all their friends are aboard. Ralph Waldo Emerson had these party-line parrots pegged back in the 1800s when he wrote, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” In other words, mindlessly agreeing with your group just to be consistent (or “loyal”) is the hallmark of a small, cowardly mind. If every opinion you hold fits neatly into either the DNC’s or the GOP’s platform, you are not thinking!!!
No, my sheeplike friend, you’re actually outsourcing your brain to a bunch of suits in Washington and talking heads on TV. It’s rather pathetic, actually. You’re dumb. Sorry, but you are.
George Washington warned us in his farewell address about the “baneful effects of the spirit of party.” (Translation from 18th-century language: the toxic bullshit of partisan fanaticism.) Washington feared that one faction gaining absolute power and unwilling to compromise would lead to despotism. Well, congratulations America, we’re well on our way. The Founders must be rolling in their graves watching American idiots pledge blind allegiance to political parties like it’s some kind of sports cult.
Lest you not remember, this country was literally founded by independent-minded revolutionaries who told King George to shove it. Thomas Paine didn’t write Common Sense as a bland, neutral essay; it was a fiery pamphlet that yanked colonists out of their comfortable obedience to authority. He straight-up called the king a “royal brute” to shock people awake. The American tradition isn’t to be a docile herd; it’s to be bold, brash, free-thinking individuals. But here we are, 250 years later, acting like obedient little Red and Blue colonies, afraid to question the edicts of our respective party overlords. What a bloody disgrace.
Enough is enough!
I refuse to play this asinine game of tribal Simon Says. I am not obligated to adopt some prefabricated bundle of positions just because it’s what the loudest voices on “my side” demand. I can think Trump is a menace who should be held accountable and also think gender ideology has nuked the fridge in certain areas. I can condemn both a president who oversteps his constitutional bounds and activists who overstep the bounds of common sense.
If that confuses you, maybe you should try expanding your mind instead of insisting mine squeeze into your narrow box. I’m done mincing words: grow a spine and start thinking for yourself, you idiot!
Stop letting cable news hosts, party leaders, Twitter trends, or your Facebook feed dictate your beliefs. They’ve been doing your thinking for you, and they’ve turned you into a pawn. They want you addicted to outrage, loyal to the hive, incapable of independent thought. It’s disgusting and frankly un-American.
Ask yourself: when was the last time you disagreed with your own side on anything? If you can’t remember, that’s a huge red flag that you’ve drunk the partisan Kool-Aid. Life, politics, truth… believe it or not, it’s nuanced and complicated.
No party has a monopoly on right or wrong.
Why the hell should all your views line up perfectly with what either the Democrats or Republicans decree from on high in their mighty towers? Are you a person or a programmable parrot? Because from where I’m standing, I see a whole lot of parrots squawking the exact same talking points on cue. Groupthink at its finest. It’s like people have lost the capacity to say, “Well, my side is mostly right, but on this one issue the other side has a point.” Heaven forbid! That’s apostasy! Instead, folks contort reality to avoid any cognitive dissonance. They’ll rationalize their team’s worst atrocities and demonize the other side’s every mundane action. This isn’t principled political engagement; it’s a spectator sport for brain-dead fanatics.
The craziest part is how obviously we’re being manipulated by those in power. The politicians and their corporate backers love this division. While we’re busy hating each other and flinging poo like crazed monkeys, they’re making out like bandits. Think about it: as long as you see the other half of the country as the enemy, you’re not paying attention to the fact that often both parties are screwing you over in just different ways. The FED can print trillions of new dollars with impunity, causing the rich to get richer and the poor the get poorer. The government can hand billions to Wall Street, keep us in perpetual wars, violate our civil liberties, and we mindlessly let them, as long as our “team” is the one doing it, because we’ve been trained to either not notice or to excuse it. They toss us a culture war bone to fight over (say, a transgender swimmer or a kneeling NFL player or whatever outrage du jour) and while we’re tearing each other apart over that, they laugh all the way to the bank. It’s the old divide-and-conquer strategy, and we fall for it every single time. Our herd mentality is their weapon.
Well I, for one, am not signing up for the herd. Herds are for cattle. And in case it’s not clear: we’re the cattle in this scenario, if we keep mindlessly aligning with Red or Blue no matter what. It’s time to break out of the pen. It’s time to remember that free thought is not a crime, it’s a requirement for a healthy republic.
Be a contrarian.
Piss off your own side once in a while; it’s good for the soul!
If your friendships or social circles can’t survive you holding one heterodox opinion, that says more about them than about you. Frankly, we need more people willing to be the “black sheep.” I’ve been called that and worse, and I wear it as a badge of honor.
America was built by unruly individuals who didn’t give a damn about conforming to groupthink. They questioned everything. They argued, debated, challenged authority. That spirit of liberty does not mesh with today’s cookie-cutter partisanship. So I’m reviving that spirit here and now, consequences be damned. Call this a manifesto or a rant or a broadside. I don’t care. I am sick to death and tired of watching my countrymen devolve into unthinking partisan robots. Left, right, both of you, wake the hell up! Snap out of the trance! TDS and TDRS are BOTH pathologies! Seek a cure, fast, because this polarized lunacy is tearing our country apart at the seams.
I know it’s possible to hold nuanced views. I’m doing it, plenty of others do it, and it’s the only way we’ll ever dig out of this hole. So the next time someone tries to force you to buy the entire package deal of a political platform, tell them where to stick it. You are allowed, no, obligated, to think issue by issue, on the merits, not based on what your chosen tribe dictates. If that means you end up agreeing with liberals on one thing and conservatives on another, so be it. That’s called being a normal, thoughtful human being.
It’s called using your brain instead of renting it out.
I’m beyond done with the mendacity of groupthink. I reject the false binary that I either have to join the left’s hive mind or the right’s hive mind. Screw both your damn hives! I choose my own mind. Imagine that: an American citizen exercising independent judgment! These days that’s practically a revolutionary act. As once Orwell wrote, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” Well, here’s some truth: both your political parties are lying to you, manipulating you, and turning you against your fellow Americans for their gain, not yours. They want you to be a pawn in their power game. They do not want you to think freely.
So, I’ll conclude with this: Think freely anyway.
Be the glitch in the matrix. Be the individual among the masses of conformists. Challenge your own side’s BS with the same fervor you challenge the other side’s. Dare to commit the sin of independent thought. If enough of us do that, maybe we can yank this country back from the cliff’s edge. Maybe we can have dialogues instead of screaming matches, principles instead of party idols, unity in values instead of uniformity in groupthink. And if not… if the lemmings of left and right insist on hurtling themselves (and the rest of us) into the abyss then at least I will have retained my soul and sanity by refusing to join them.
I am not a Democrat sheep. I am not a Republican sheep. I am not a sheep, period. I will not bleat on command or run with the herd off that cliff. I’d rather be the lone wolf calling out that both flocks are lost, even if neither flock wants to hear it. Go ahead and be mad. Call me what you want. Heretic, centrist, RINO, Progressive, Bigot, fence-sitter, whatever helps you sleep at night in your echo chamber. I’d rather be hated for thinking than loved for regurgitating someone else’s evil and wrong talking points.
America desperately needs more people who aren’t pack animals. So step out of line. Betray your tribe (you’ll be saving your country in the process). Have the guts to say “I disagree” even to those on your side when it’s warranted. Free your mind from this Red vs. Blue mental prison. If enough of us do that, maybe we can actually start fixing things in this nation instead of constantly tearing each other apart. And if that day never comes, at least I can go to my grave knowing I didn’t live as a damned partisan zombie. I will think for myself until my last breath. And that, my friends and enemies alike, is what it truly means to be a patriotic American in this era of herd insanity. That is true #AmericaFirst.
