The Simplest Revolution

Speak the Fucking Truth

Yes, Karoline, we know you're not taking any follow-ups. That this is all a performance of bullshittery. Which brings me to the topic of civic responsibility and what history and basic morality calls on Americans to do. It calls on them to do the most simple, yet radical thing: speak the fucking truth.

At the risk of being an also-ran on this now well-covered incident, with plenty of outrage to go around, I am here to provide my moral take. My moral charge against you, the American public.

Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. And the White House press secretary is actively avoiding accountability for a national security breach so catastrophic it should have already resulted in multiple resignations.

We are witnessing what happens when performance replaces substance in governance. The White House press briefing—historically a venue for the executive branch to explain its actions to the American people through the mediating lens of the press—has devolved into a theater of obstruction. Leavitt's dismissive “I'm not taking your follow-up” to CNN's Kaitlan Collins isn't just rudeness; it's a deliberate strategy to avoid answering fundamental questions about an administration that accidentally shared war plans with a journalist.

Let's be clear about what's happening: The Secretary of Defense texted “1415: Strike Drones on Target” and “THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP” in a group chat that included a prominent journalist. The White House's response has been to attack the journalist as an “anti-Trump hater” and claim, against all evidence, that no classified information was shared. When pressed on this obvious contradiction, Leavitt cuts off questions and moves on.

This isn't governance; it's gaslighting.

As I wrote yesterday, we are already inside the worst-case scenarios that political scientists and national security experts have been warning about for years. The constitutional guardrails that should prevent this kind of dangerous behavior are failing before our eyes, showing advanced signs of fatigue that should alarm anyone paying attention.

But what's even more concerning is how quickly we've normalized this level of dysfunction. The media dutifully reports Leavitt's non-answers as if they constitute actual information. Commentators analyze the political “strategy” behind the obfuscation rather than focusing on the underlying security breach. And the public largely tunes out, having grown accustomed to a level of governmental incompetence that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

This is how democracies die—not in a dramatic coup, but through the slow erosion of accountability, the steady normalization of incompetence, and the gradual acceptance of lies as an unfortunate but inevitable feature of political discourse.

The most radical act in this environment is also the simplest: speak the fucking truth.

Not the partisan truth. Not the convenient truth. Not the strategic truth. The actual truth. The truth that says a national security advisor who accidentally adds a journalist to a classified war planning chat is dangerously incompetent. The truth that says a press secretary who refuses to answer legitimate questions about this breach is abdicating her responsibility to the public. The truth that says an administration that responds to its own catastrophic mistakes by attacking others is fundamentally unserious about governance.

Speaking this truth isn't partisan—it's patriotic. It's the bare minimum requirement for maintaining a functioning democracy. When we normalize lies, when we accept obfuscation as just “how the game is played,” when we treat truth as malleable rather than foundational, we're not just enabling bad politics—we're undermining the very possibility of self-governance.

History shows us that times of crisis require moral clarity above all else. The courage to say what is actually happening, even when—especially when—powerful forces would prefer confusion and distraction. It's not complicated; it's just hard. Hard because it often means standing alone. Hard because it means risking relationships, opportunities, access. Hard because it means facing the full weight of what's at stake.

But the alternative is what we're witnessing now: a society unable to solve even the most basic problems because we can't agree on fundamental reality. A political system incapable of holding itself accountable because truth has become just another partisan weapon. A democracy slowly suffocating under the weight of its own lies.

The path forward is not complex, though it is difficult. It requires journalists to ask the follow-up question even when they're told not to. It requires officials to answer honestly even when the truth is unflattering. It requires citizens to demand substance over spectacle, accountability over performance, truth over comfort.

Most of all, it requires all of us to recognize that speaking the truth isn't just a personal virtue—it's a civic responsibility. In times like these, telling the truth is itself a revolutionary act.

So what does civic responsibility demand of us now? It demands that we call this what it is: a catastrophic security failure being covered up by an administration more concerned with avoiding embarrassment than ensuring national security. It demands that we refuse to accept “I'm not taking your follow-up” as an acceptable response from public servants. It demands that we recognize that the performance of governance is not the same as governance itself.

Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. And our democracy cannot survive if we continue to pretend that truth is whatever those in power say it is.

"In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." — Often attributed to George Orwell, though the exact source is disputed. So we’ll go with Orwell, I guess.