Editorial illustration – A nation’s strength rests on citizens who put country before party—and build together across their differences.”
By Dr. Raymond Hamden*, OpEd.
Second article in the series of “Putting the country first”
Democracy depends on disagreement. It becomes endangered when citizens lose the ability to recognize their opponents as legitimate members of the same nation.
Americans need not agree on taxation, immigration, healthcare, or foreign policy. They must, however, preserve a shared commitment to evidence, lawful elections, constitutional limits, and equal citizenship. Without that foundation, political competition becomes a struggle over who has the right to belong.
Lebanon’s experience shows how destructive political identities can become when loyalty to a faction overrides responsibility to the country. America’s institutions and history are different, but Americans should take the underlying warning seriously.
For many citizens, Democratic or Republican affiliation has become more than a preference at election time. It helps determine which information they trust, whose mistakes they excuse, and whose motives they condemn. Political identity can become a filter through which every public event is interpreted.
A Pew Research Center survey conducted in March 2025 found that eight in ten Americans believed Republican and Democratic voters could not agree on basic facts about important national issues. Pew noted that this perception was essentially unchanged from a similar question in 2016.
That persistence matters. A country cannot resolve difficult problems if its citizens cannot establish enough common ground to discuss what is happening.
The danger deepens when institutions are judged according to partisan convenience. A court is legitimate when it delivers a welcome ruling and corrupt when it does not. An election is trustworthy only if the preferred candidate wins. An investigation is necessary for opponents but persecution for allies.
Such reasoning makes accountability almost impossible. It places political allegiance above the rules intended to protect everyone.
Independent assessments reinforce the need for scrutiny. V-Dem’s 2026 report downgraded the United States from a liberal democracy to an electoral democracy, identifying serious deterioration in checks on executive power and other protections. This is an assessment under a particular research framework, rather than a legal change in America’s constitutional status. Its findings deserve examination.
Political labels often make that examination harder. Calling every Democrat a socialist obscures distinctions among public services, social insurance, regulated markets, and state ownership. Calling Republicans communists would be equally misleading.
The more useful questions concern conduct. Does a leader respect constitutional restraints? Can critics speak freely? Are courts independent? Is public authority exercised under law or according to personal loyalty?
Authoritarian behavior can emerge from the right or the left. Its warning signs include concentrating power, intimidating opponents, undermining independent oversight, politicizing justice, and treating electoral defeat as inherently illegitimate.
Applying one standard does not mean pretending every party or leader behaves identically. Responsibility must follow evidence. Where one movement weakens constitutional safeguards more seriously, that conduct deserves correspondingly greater scrutiny.
Republicans must confront the extent to which loyalty to personality has displaced commitments to limited government, constitutional restraint, and institutional continuity within parts of their movement. Democrats must resist ideological rigidity, contempt for disagreement, and selective standards of accountability.
Neither side strengthens democracy by excusing its own misconduct.
Citizens also have responsibilities. Before sharing an accusation, examine its evidence. Before defending a leader, ask whether the same defense would seem acceptable if an opponent offered it. Before dismissing criticism, consider whether it identifies a problem that requires correction.
Compromise need not mean surrendering principles. It can mean recognizing that fellow citizens have legitimate interests and that durable government requires cooperation under shared rules.
America’s future cannot depend on one party remaining permanently victorious. A constitutional democracy must remain legitimate when power changes hands.
The test of patriotism is whether citizens will defend the country’s principles even when doing so inconveniences their own political side.
Opponents can compete fiercely and still build a nation together. Once they become enemies in one another’s eyes, the foundations of that shared nation begin to weaken.
Source note: Pew verifies the survey finding and its persistence since 2016. Its review of democracy assessments confirms V-Dem’s classification change; V-Dem’s own release details the institutional declines.
Other articles in the series of “Putting the country first”
Lebanon’s Warning to America: When Loyalty to Parties Comes Before Country
Dr. Raymond Hamden is a clinical and forensic psychologist and consultant in political psychology. His professional background spans 53 years of education and licensed practice, with consulting and professional services in more than 30 nations across five continents.
