Rules for Thee, But Not for Felony: How One Side Must Be Perfect While the Other Gets a Free Pass to Destroy Democracy
Welcome to America, where justice is blind, but double standards have 20/20 vision. If you’re a Democrat, one misplaced comma in an email can spark a congressional hearing.
If you’re Donald Trump, you can be a convicted fraudster, a sexual predator, and a pathological liar, and the media will still ask, “But how does this affect his electability?”
Meanwhile, Project 2025—the extremist blueprint for an authoritarian takeover—is no longer a secret manifesto lurking in the shadows. It’s the actual playbook, and its chief architect, Paul Dans, just admitted the whole thing was in motion all along.
So why did Trump and his team lie about it? Simple. Because in today’s GOP, the only crime is getting caught.
Chris LaCivita co-managed Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign. On this episode of Deep Dive, he joins POLITICO White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns to share some of his secrets about Trump’s inner circle and to opine on where he thinks Trump’s presidency is headed next.
Pigsfly Newspaper Exclusive: The Great American Double Standard—Now Available in XXL Hypocrisy!
By Bob Lee
Ah, America—the land of liberty, justice, and whatever we feel like getting outraged about today. In this great experiment of democracy, we are governed not just by laws but by a mysterious, ever-shifting set of norms. Norms that apparently only apply to certain people, at certain times, under certain conditions—like an exclusive club where the dress code changes based on who walks through the door.
On one side, we have a former president who has been found guilty of fraud, sexual assault, and enough financial and moral corruption to make a Bond villain look like a choirboy. A man who lies so frequently that fact-checkers have essentially thrown in the towel and started drinking straight from the bottle. And yet, somehow, despite all of this, his supporters wave off every scandal like it’s a minor parking ticket.
Then, on the other side, we have Democrats held to a standard so high that if they so much as sneeze in the wrong direction, it’s a weeklong news cycle. Wear a tan suit? Scandal. Order Dijon mustard? Un-American. Show basic human decency? Clearly weak.
Nowhere is this absurd double standard more evident than in the rise, fall, and resurrection of Project 2025—the far-right fever dream designed to reshape America into a Christian nationalist utopia, complete with presidential dictatorship, elimination of federal agencies, and laws that might as well have been ghostwritten by the Handmaid’s Tale.
At the center of it all? Paul Dans, the man who was once the architect of Project 2025 before he became a political liability and was promptly tossed out like last week’s Chick-fil-A. Eight months ago, his radical plan to gut democracy was too extreme even for Trump—who, let’s remember, once encouraged bleach injections and called neo-Nazis “very fine people.” The Trump campaign scrambled to distance themselves, claiming Project 2025 was some rogue experiment they had never read (which, in fairness, might actually be true given their documented aversion to reading).
Fast forward to today, and surprise! Turns out Project 2025 wasn’t just a wild conservative wishlist—it was the actual playbook all along. And Dans? Well, now he’s back, basking in the warm glow of right-wing adoration, delighted that his vision of an authoritarian America is being implemented at breakneck speed.
“It’s actually way beyond my wildest dreams,” he gushed in a recent interview, eyes sparkling like a teenager who just got a surprise Taylor Swift concert ticket.
So let’s get this straight: When Democrats say that Project 2025 is a dangerous plan to dismantle democracy, they are accused of fear-mongering. When Trump distances himself from it, we are supposed to believe he had nothing to do with it. And now that it’s actually happening, conservatives suddenly want credit for its brilliance?
If hypocrisy were an Olympic sport, the GOP would be bringing home gold.
Of course, the media is also playing its part in the great American gaslighting. While Trump and his cronies are handed a permanent free pass for corruption, fraud, and outright lies, Democrats are under 24/7 surveillance for even the most minor infractions. They need to be perfect—morally spotless, scandal-free, and probably capable of turning water into wine—just to be considered adequate. Meanwhile, Trump could be caught setting the Constitution on fire while wearing nothing but a MAGA hat, and his base would shrug and say, “But what about Hunter Biden’s laptop?”
At the end of the day, this isn’t about norms. It’s about power. It’s about a system that bends and twists to protect certain people while destroying others. It’s about the audacity of a movement that cries about “cancel culture” while actively trying to cancel democracy itself.
And most of all, it’s about us—watching this slow-motion train wreck, knowing full well that if the roles were reversed, the outrage would be deafening.
But hey, at least Project 2025 is finally out in the open. Maybe next time, they can be honest and just call it what it really is: The Dictator Starter Pack.
