Critical Thinking Won’t Save Us If We Keep Lying About the Problem

Critical Thinking Won’t Save Us If We Keep Lying About the Problem

Someone posted this on their Facebook feed:

(When this is over, we need to focus on teaching critical thinking skills so we never elect a buffoon like this again.)

That line feels smart.

It isn’t.

Blaming the current state of the United States on one person, or one party, is not analysis. It’s intellectual laziness dressed up as concern. It lets everyone else off the hook. It turns decades of bad incentives, cowardice, and careerist rot into a personality problem. That’s horseshit.

If critical thinking is the end game, then start by critically thinking about the broken system that keeps generating the same garbage outcomes no matter who wins. Different face. Same dysfunction. As The Who said, "Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss"

Both parties helped build this mess. Slowly. Deliberately. Sometimes incompetently, sometimes on purpose. One side didn’t wake up and break the country overnight. This took years of performative outrage, short-term thinking, donor appeasement, and a total allergy to consequences.

We don’t need critical thinking so we can crown the “right” tribe next time. We need it so we can demand viable candidates from both sides of the aisle, instead of being told to choose between horrendous and horrifying like it’s a civic virtue.

The younger generation deserves to hear something we stopped saying out loud.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the singular individual.

That idea didn’t die. We stopped teaching it because it’s inconvenient. It requires sacrifice. It requires work. It requires adults that don't need power drinks, nap time, safe spaces or a feelings journal.

Hard work is not optional in good government. It’s the baseline. Reading the bill. Showing up. Doing committee work that doesn’t make the evening news. Negotiating without turning every disagreement into a blood sport audition. The ability to place ones opinion on the back burner and do what's right for the country.

Confrontation is part of daily life. Always has been. The problem is we replaced confrontation with theater. We scream past each other, raise money off the chaos, then call it engagement. It’s not. It’s just loud avoidance.

Feelings matter. They should inform policy. They should never dictate it. A country run entirely on vibes, grievances, and viral clips is not compassionate. It’s unstable.

Term limits are no longer a radical idea. They’re overdue maintenance. A 20-year cap on the House and Senate sounds reasonable to anyone not already fused to the chair. If public service is really about service, then leaving shouldn’t feel like exile.

Same goes for age limits. Seventy to take office for President or Vice President seems fair. That allows a full eight years and an exit before we start pretending stamina is the same thing as wisdom. Experience matters. So does cognitive honesty. Both can be true.

Immigration, healthcare, labor, housing. These aren’t new problems. They’ve been floating around for twenty years because solving them is hard, expensive, and politically dangerous. So instead we posture. We point. We fundraise. We swear the other side is evil incarnate, then quietly do nothing.

This country used to be the greatest on the planet. That didn’t happen because we were nicer, louder, or more morally superior. It happened because we built things, argued seriously, and accepted tradeoffs without melting down like toddlers.

We are not that country right now. Pretending otherwise is comfort food.

Here’s the part no one likes hearing.

Only we, the people, can fix it.

Not saviors. Not strongmen. Not charismatic wrecking balls from either side. Ordinary citizens willing to stop swallowing easy narratives and start demanding grown-up governance. Willing to piss off their own side when it earns it. Willing to say hold on, take a breath, even when it costs them friends, likes, or invitations.

If the past year taught us anything, it’s this, change isn’t optional anymore. It’s a necessity.

Both sides need a thorough spring cleaning. Not a branding refresh. Not a new mascot. A real cleaning. The kind where some things don’t survive the scrub.

Critical thinking won’t save us by itself.

But lying to ourselves about where the rot lives sure as hell won’t either.

By Brian Wilson, The Bipartisan Patriot