I came across a comment on a political post that stopped me cold:
“I am just super tired of people bashing my friends.”
That statement was honestly alarming, not because friendship is bad, but because it showed how easily loyalty can override morality.
I genuinely hope most people still know the difference between right and wrong, between moral and immoral actions. And I hope that when a friend steps onto the wrong path, we have the courage to guide them back, not leap to defend them simply because they’re “our people.” If we can’t hold our own friends accountable, how can we expect anything better from the politicians who claim to represent us?
The fight to keep politics on the side of good, the honest side, is constant. It requires every one of us to insist that our leaders and our political parties stay grounded in integrity. If we look the other way, we become complicit in the very corruption we claim to oppose.
So at what point do we finally stand up and say, “This is wrong,” even when the ones doing it are friends, allies, or members of our own political circle?
At what point do we admit we’re no longer working for the betterment of the community, but instead protecting a political agenda – ours or our friends’ – at the expense of the truth?
And this leads directly to what we’re seeing right now.
When a political party sends out rallying cries telling people to flood City Council because their preferred group didn’t win a grant, or to pressure the County Clerk to violate lawful signature-verification procedures that have already been upheld in court, that is not “standing up for the community.”
That is not “election integrity.”
That is not moral leadership.
That is partisan loyalty overriding truth, and it is a dangerous path.
When a group demands that public officials abandon established law simply to protect their political allies, we are no longer dealing with civic engagement, we’re dealing with corruption. It is a path of destruction, not unity. A path where the community comes second, and the agenda of “my friends” comes first.
And once we allow that, even just a little, we have become part of the problem.
