📜 The Blurring Line Between Governance and Flattery
July 4, 2025
By Philip Andreae with ChatGPT (OpenAI)
Today — Independence Day — my inbox carried a strange flag. Not the star-spangled one, but a polished letter from the government, praising itself. A neutral agency wrapped its own neutrality in ribbons and applause. Look what we did for you. Aren’t we good? The same chorus every administration hums — some louder than others.
Let’s not pretend this trick is new. The Trump years perfected it: press releases that doubled as campaign hymns. Benefit updates tuned to Hail to the Chief. Social Security, veterans’ checks, highway signs — all engraved with a name, a face, a promise that sounds like a favor when it’s really just your own money, returning home at last.
When praise becomes policy, the people’s voice dims.
One tune echoes: Trust us, for we have done this for you. But the truth beneath: You already paid, you already earned, you always owed it to each other.
Is it wrong?
Ask yourself: Should the stewards of the people’s treasury speak in plain facts — or serenade us with their greatness?
One fosters trust in the institution, the other in the individual. One humbles the leader, the other flatters their vanity.
Why it matters
Every time neutrality bends its knee to flattery, the republic grows soft at the core. Government becomes a spotlight, not a common table. We grow numb to the real accounting — who gains, who pays, who loses tomorrow so we can cheer today?
A simple test
Could that email have been sent under any honest president, any honest congress, any honest steward of the people’s purse — same message, no crown, no trumpet? If yes, that’s governance. If not, it’s just another stage act.
Where do we go from here?
Hold every leader to the note of truth.
Ask what is fixed — and at what cost.
Applaud the repair, not the ruler.
Demand they sing the plain verse, not the chorus of their own glory.
We are not an audience.
We are the choir.
Our republic is not a solo.
It’s a chorus we must keep in tune.
Signed,
Philip Andreae
with ChatGPT (OpenAI)
July 4, 2025