Chaleff is a speaker, innovative thinker and the author of “ To Stop a Tyrant: The Power of Political Followers to Make or Brake a Toxic Leader.” This is the fifth entry in a series on political followership.
We recently read in The Washington Post that men in Afghanistan are regretting that they did not stand up sooner for the rights of their wives and daughters, now that the Taliban is imposing severe standards of dress and conduct on them.
Duh.
That’s the oldest regret there is when it comes to oppression:
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
— Martin Niemöller, Lutheran Pastor
Niemöller was initially a Nazi supporter … until the Nazis began to target the Lutheran Church. Once they come for you, it is too late. Start worrying when they come for your neighbor.
But here’s the trick. You can’t just leave it to the “opposition” to speak up. Of course they are going to speak up. And they will get tuned out.
It’s the loyal supporters who need to speak up early. Theirs is the voice that makes a difference and, as I explain in my new book “ To Stop a Tyrant,” they can apply the “brakes” to toxic behavior. Here’s the interesting news: They can do this while still supporting the leader if he or she accepts the boundaries of communal decency.
Take Anna Kilgore. It was she who filed a police report blaming Haitian immigrants when her cat went missing. Whoops.
Miss Sassy was found several days later in Kilgore’s own basement. But the Republican presidential and vice presidential candidates were already using the story to whip up anti-immigrant fever.
What to do? Kilgore is a Trump supporter. Because her cat story is already uber-public, this could make the candidate she is supporting look bad. Despite this, what does she do? Anna Kilgore sends an apology to her Haitian neighbors
In Yiddish there is an expression for that: being a mensch. A mensch, while literally meaning “a man,” colloquially means an ethical person who does the right thing.
We need “menschkeit” (the quality of being a mensch) in every walk of life, on both sides of the political aisle. Ideally, this comes from our political leaders. But let’s not depend on them. We, the political followers, have the power to do what is right and — let’s go out on a limb here — the moral obligation to do so.
A colleague of mine is famous for asking, “How many people did Adolf Hitler kill?” Her answer: none.
There is no evidence of Hitler ever having pulled the trigger on a single person other than himself at the very end. Who did kill the millions of prisoners in extermination camps? His followers who did not stop his frothing hate speech early enough to avoid their own horrible complicity, while they still could.
Look around. Who is being targeted now by political vitriol? If it is not you, surely you can go back to sleep. Or can you? Who should you be speaking up for now, so that later there is someone left to speak for you?
When someone does speak up, here’s another wild idea: Support them! When a neighbor, Erika Lee, heard that Kilgore found Miss Sassy, she was appalled that she had inadvertently triggered a national frenzy by having written a Facebook post about the missing tabby. She took down the post. Lee has publicly regretted contributing to the story based on something she heard from yet another neighbor who also heard it from someone …
Whoops again. Whether online or over the clothesline, we are all responsible for verifying salacious tidbits before spreading them throughout the system. (No need to feel guilty. Just don’t do it again.)
The Taliban is at it once more in Afghanistan. Whose behavior needs standing up to here, in our own political system? If we oppose them, have at it. If we support them, it’s even more important to stand up to their overreach.
After all, if they don’t listen to us, who will they listen to?
Another wise man said, “If not now, when?”
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a“ Steel Across America” event ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks on the Ellipse near the White House on Sept. 8, 2026 in Washington, D.C. President Trump welcomed 9/ 11 first responders to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’ s“ Steel Across America” event featuring a 16,900- pound, 21- foot steel beam recovered.
For Trump, even 9/11 is an opportunity
There was a reason organizers of the 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan told President Trump he could not speak at this year’s memorial service.
A good one, it turns out.
Because in a speech he gave on Tuesday in Washington, he did exactly what they were presumably worried about — he made it about himself.
According to The New York Times, Trump had wanted a speaking role at the service, but the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, which oversees the site, said no, as they’ve maintained for the past decade-plus that the venue and event should be nonpartisan.
Trump has long used awful tragedies to either puff himself up, trash political opponents, or sell lies to the American people.
He blamed a deadly plane crash at Washington National Airport last year on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. He blamed Puerto Ricans for the devastation they endured after Hurricane Maria in 2017. He reportedly considered withholding disaster relief after the California wildfires based on the way affected regions voted. In an interview on Fox News meant to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, he used the occasion to slam former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…with graves of the dead behind him.
And now, as we approach the 25th anniversary of what many New Yorkers consider the darkest day in modern history, Trump has done it again.
He told a rambling, nonsensical story — one he’s told before — about going to Ground Zero just after terrorists flew two commercial jets into the twin towers. In the story, which no one has been able to verify, despite multiple attempts, he says firefighters had to carry him out of One Liberty Plaza, also known as the U.S. Steel Building, because they thought it was about to collapse.
As CNN fact checker Daniel Dale notes, there’s no evidence Trump went into this building, especially at a time when NYPD and NYFD had locked down the area. There’s no evidence that building was collapsing — in fact, it was deemed structurally sound and reopened within two months of the attacks. There’s no evidence he was carried out of it by firefighters.
But the lie isn’t even the worst part. Pretend it was all true — why would the leader of our country, and a New Yorker, decide to make that tragic day about himself?
Because that’s who Donald Trump is. He’s a malignant narcissist.
He’s also, incidentally, a terrible and ineffectual president, who’s made ill-fated decisions that he has to keep defending, and there’s nothing he won’t do to make himself look and feel better.
Within the first two minutes of his speech, he was cravenly using 9/11 to justify and promote his dumb war in Iran — two events separated by 25 years and 6,000 miles.
“And I will tell you, we’re right now fighting because we have a certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon, they were very close to getting it, and now they have no chance at getting it. They will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And they’ve been punished greatly. As you know, we’ve really taken it to them.”
As a New Yorker who lived through 9/11, still one of the worst days of my life, I’m utterly sickened by Trump’s crass, political, and self-promotional framing of that awful day.
And I’m relieved he won’t be given a platform to do it again on Friday’s anniversary in lower Manhattan.
Because for Trump, everything is his for the taking, and absolutely nothing is sacred.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.