Molineaux is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and president/CEO of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
The shadowy politics industry is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Many Americans don’t know this industry exists. Before the 1990s, there were elections managers who helped candidates get elected. Often, these people might work for either political party. But during the Clinton administration something changed. A harder, more partisan approach became vogue. Then came the Citizens United decision, unleashing Super PACs and a new nirvana for political manipulators.
Technology advances were part of the equation, too. As our ability to target people with custom messages evolved, the new politics industry advanced to take advantage of the new technology. And then came social media to provide additional tools and niche marketing. Candidates are packaged in a formulaic manner to win elections. “Common good” ideals seem quaint by comparison.
This evolution was brought on by the politics industry of electioneers, party loyalists, marketers and conflict entrepreneurs, who together contribute to the toxic polarization we see in society. Individually, they are part of a Manhattan-like project, compartmentalized from one another, working their part of an election to subvert the common good in favor of winning elections. It’s time we have second thoughts about the value of winning “at any cost.”
The politics industry has brought us:
- All-or-nothing thinking.
- A disregard for the process of democracy.
- Paranoia that “they” are out to get us.
- Viewing other Americans as the enemy and/or evil.
- Nothing can happen unless we win.
- News bubbles that disallow for multiple viewpoints.
- A flawed census.
- An on going insurrection movement.
Collectively, our social norms have been eroded, exploded and imploded to the point where appeals to our basest survival instincts are used to create conflict among Americans. This is how nations fall. Appeals to our first instinct – that survival instinct – which resides in every human brain, easily manipulate and fool us into thinking our actions are righteous. They are not.
It is only on second thought, when we look around and see that our survival, in reality, is not at risk. Once we assure our survival, then we can engage with critical thinking. We can question “the answer” presented in front of us by the politics industry that “those people or ideas are evil.” We should stop and ask ourselves if there is another explanation and explore multiple perspectives.
In the wake of the leaked memo about the potential – and likely – Supreme Court decision overturning of Roe v. Wade, I received more than 50 appeals for money. Likely you did too. The politics industry will not let a controversy play out in the media when its practitioners could enrich themselves with campaign cash to lambast their opponents.
I am angry about this subversion of our democratic process.
Women’s health, like everyone’s health, is an issue I care deeply about. Yet I resist the knee-jerk reaction to be outraged or donate money to support my perspective. My outrage and money will not be used to support the politics industry that has taught us to follow our first (base) instinct instead of our second (rational) thoughts.
Like so many matters, this is a wedge issue that the politics industry is using to its advantage and our downfall. Maybe you recognize some of the other issues used in every election cycle?
- Gun rights and gun control.
- Immigration.
- Gender and sexuality.
- Vaccines.
- Free speech.
I posit that most Americans don’t realize the extent to which our thinking has been influenced by this shadow industry. Each of us believes our thinking to be infallible, because we live in our information bubbles without challenges.
This is our biggest danger.
It’s time we have second thoughts about any demonization of others. We need spaces and relationships to test what we believe using our critical thinking skills. When we challenge each other, we become stronger. We reweave our social fabric to co-create new social norms. The politics industry doesn’t want us talking to each other. It makes their job of winning elections harder. I say, let it be hard to subvert democracy.
Are we brave enough to follow our second thoughts?
A view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 25, 2026. President Donald Trump jolted Republicans during a fiery appearance at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, scrapping a housing bill signing ceremony and clashing behind closed doors with a party rebel who challenged him over the Iran war. Trump had been expected to sign the bipartisan housing.
Only Trump doesn’t care about housing
It was August 15, 2024. Then candidate Donald Trump stepped out of his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club’s columned clubhouse to a gaggle of reporters. He was flanked by tables of groceries and signs showing the rising cost of food. Also on one of the tables was a dollhouse, meant to represent the equally alarming rise in housing prices.
It was a speech about the economy, the single most important issue of the 2024 election cycle, full of promises that went right to the heart of Americans’ anxieties. While former President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris were contorting themselves to posture a good economy that just needed more time to recover from the pandemic, Trump was preying on voters’ very real fears of unaffordable gas, groceries, and homes. It was obviously a winning message.
In that speech, Trump promised, “We’re going to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction. We desperately need housing for people who can’t afford what’s going on now.”
As of mid-2023, there had been a housing shortage of nearly four million homes, according to the National Association of Realtors. Americans all over the country were either priced out of buying new homes due to low inventory, trapped in their existing homes by sky-high mortgage rates, or facing exorbitant rent hikes thanks to corporate investors buying up rental properties. Americans needed help, and Trump promised it.
Cut to March of 2026, when Trump reportedly told House Speaker Mike Johnson, “No one gives a sh*t about housing.”
That kind of thinking may explain why Trump this week suddenly announced he was canceling a signing ceremony for the bipartisan “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” a housing bill co-sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott that passed the House 358-32 and was approved in the Senate on Monday.
Trump instead demanded Congress pass the SAVE America Act, his controversial election grievance bill that doesn’t have enough Republican support to get passed in the Senate.
It’s just the latest in a line of policy self-owns where Trump has seemingly intentionally made life more difficult for Republicans hoping to keep their majority. Despite midterm elections occurring in the midst of a blistering economy and an unpopular war, they were surely hoping the housing bill would give them something — anything — to brag about when they returned home to their districts.
And very much to the contrary, Americans do give a sh*t about housing. According to a recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a whopping 79% say the cost of housing is extremely or very important to them. Eighty-three percent say Congress should take action on the issue — like it just did. Eighty-nine percent say the House and Senate need to work together to pass affordable housing legislation — like they just did. And 63% say they would be more likely to vote for a lawmaker if they helped pass legislation to build more affordable homes and lower housing costs — like they just did.
There aren’t many issues that unite Americans like housing does, and very few bipartisan policy wins Congress can point to, and yet, Trump is holding that bill hostage in order to get his pet project — which doesn’t even have the support of his own party — pushed through.
If you’re trying to make sense of something so nonsensical, as I’m sure many Republican lawmakers are, it’s certainly sad but not actually all that complicated. Trump said what he needed to get reelected and then promptly abandoned his promises in order to pursue his own self-interests, even if those interests are bad for Republicans and bad for voters.
That’s just the kind of guy he is.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.