When the Tribe Becomes Your Moral Compass
A citizen’s framework for evaluating breaking news through ethics, the Constitution, and what we normalize next
Last week, I got out of bed tired—reaching for coffee like it was medicine—when my phone lit up with the kind of headline that makes your body lean forward.
A U.S. operation. Venezuela. Maduro.
Before I even opened the article, the social media comments did what comments do: they turned a developing story into a moral verdict.
On one side: Finally. About time. We’re saving Venezuela.
On the other: This is kidnapping. This is imperialism. We’ve become the bad guys.
Same headline. Same facts—at least the facts as they were being reported in real time. Two moral universes.
And that’s the part that grabbed me.
Not only what may have happened, but how quickly so many of us decided whether it was good or evil—not by evaluating the action, but by recognizing the tribe.
I don’t say that from above the fray.
I say it as someone who can feel the temptation in my own body: that little surge of satisfaction when the news seems to confirm what I already believe about them—or vindicate what I want to be true about us.
Partisanship is a shortcut for moral thinking.
It saves time. It saves energy. It saves us from the hard work of standards.
But it also makes us easy to manipulate.
The question we should ask first
When a story like Venezuela hits, the natural questions come fast:
Is Maduro guilty?
Did he deserve this?
Will Venezuelans be better off?
Does this protect Americans?
Does it weaken criminal networks?
Those are real questions. They matter.
But they’re not the first question—at least not if we care about ethics, the Constitution, and what kind of country we’re becoming.
The first question is simpler and harder:
By what standard is this action justified—and what limits that power next time?
Because if you can’t answer that, you’re not defending justice.
You’re defending a precedent.
Why Venezuela became an inkblot test
Here’s what I watched happen around me—both in other people and, if I’m honest, inside myself.
Some people heard “Trump did it” and their moral math was finished before they’d even scrolled. The story wasn’t something to evaluate; it was something to celebrate. In their telling, the normal rules don’t apply when you’re dealing with a dictator. Extraordinary evil requires extraordinary action. And if the outcome is liberation, the method starts to feel not only acceptable—it starts to feel righteous.
Other people heard “Trump did it” and their moral math was finished in the opposite direction. The story wasn’t something to evaluate; it was something to fear. In their telling, this is what happens when a leader treats law like a nuisance and institutions like obstacles. Even if the target is a villain, the method trains the country to accept force as a substitute for legitimacy.
That’s not just disagreement about Venezuela.
That’s disagreement about power.
And I think we’re living in an age where the most dangerous thing isn’t that we have strong opinions.
It’s that we don’t have shared standards—or maybe we do, but we don’t apply them when it costs us.
And here’s where I still believe America is a genuinely great country—at least at our best.
We’re not primarily bound together by ethnicity or race or class. We’re bound together by an idea. By a shared commitment—imperfect, contested, often betrayed, but still real—to freedom, democracy, justice, and the rule of law.
Which means the thing that holds us together isn’t “my people” winning. It’s our standards holding—especially when winning is tempting us to bend them.
If we lose that—if politics becomes nothing more than tribal loyalty and raw power—then we don’t just get uglier elections. We lose the very glue that makes a country like ours possible.
A three-lens test for the next headline
Here’s a framework I’m trying to use when the next big story hits. Not to remove emotion—emotion is human—but to keep emotion from becoming my only compass.
Because if our shared identity really is built on freedom and the rule of law, then we can’t evaluate power based only on whether our team is holding it.
And if I’m honest, I get why the shortcut is tempting. The whole system rewards instant certainty—especially online.
1) The ethics lens: ends and means
The question isn’t only “Is the outcome good?”
It’s also:
What means were used to reach it?
Who gets harmed in the process—especially people without power?
What would I call this if the other party did it?
That last question is the most revealing one I know.
Because if your moral evaluation changes based on who holds the pen, what you have isn’t ethics.
It’s loyalty.
2) The constitutional lens: authority and limits
This is where I want to be plain:
The Constitution is not a suggestion for peacetime. It’s restraint for moments when restraint is hardest.
So the questions become:
Who had the lawful authority to order this?
Was Congress consulted, authorized, or bypassed?
What’s the limiting principle—what stops a future president from using the same logic in a darker direction?
I’m not asking these questions because I think legal process is more important than human suffering.
I’m asking because power without boundaries is how nations lose their moral bearings—slowly at first, then all at once.
3) The precedent lens: what are we normalizing?
This is the lens most of us skip because it requires imagination and honesty.
Ask:
What tool did we just put on the table?
How will we feel when our opponents pick it up?
What new normal did we bless because we liked the current result?
If your only justification is “because he deserved it” or “because they started it,” you’re not applying a standard.
You’re endorsing a cycle.
Let me actually apply this to Venezuela (briefly)
Because frameworks can become a way of sounding wise without actually touching the hard part.
And I’m not immune to that.
So here’s what I can say without pretending to know more than what’s been publicly reported:
If the reports are accurate—if the U.S. effectively removed a foreign head of state through direct action and brought him to U.S. courts—then we are dealing with something morally and politically enormous.
Now run the lenses.
Ethics: Even if Maduro is guilty of grave crimes, does guilt authorize any method we prefer? What collateral risks did this impose on ordinary Venezuelans? Did it heighten danger for Americans abroad? Did it escalate violence inside a country that already has too much of it?
Constitution: What is the lawful basis for this kind of operation? Where does that authority live—Congress, the executive, a covert finding, some other mechanism? And if the basis is “we can do this because he’s a dictator,” then the next question isn’t about Maduro. It’s about the standard we just created.
Precedent: Are we comfortable with a world where powerful nations seize leaders they deem criminal and bring them home for trial? Would we call it justice if China did it? If Russia did it? If our allies did it?
You might still conclude the operation was justified.
But if you conclude that, you should be able to say why in a way that would still hold when the president has a different letter next to his name.
The best argument on both sides (and why it matters)
If we’re going to be serious, we have to treat the strongest version of the opposing view as something more than stupidity.
Here’s the best pro-operation argument as I understand it:
Maduro’s regime has done catastrophic harm. Elections have been manipulated. Opponents have been repressed. Corruption and criminality are not side effects—they’re the operating system. In a world where dictators rarely face consequences, decisive action can save lives and create a path toward real liberation. Process is meaningless if it becomes a shield for tyrants.
That is not a cartoon argument. It’s the cry of people who are tired of watching evil win.
Here’s the best anti-operation argument as I understand it:
Even if Maduro is a monster, legitimacy matters. If America claims the right to forcibly remove leaders abroad, we erode the rule-of-law principles we say we’re defending. It destabilizes norms that keep the world from sliding into pure might-makes-right. And it teaches Americans—quietly, dangerously—that a “good outcome” is enough to justify almost anything.
That is not “softness.” It’s fear of what history does when nations start calling force “justice.”
My concern is that too many of us don’t actually weigh these arguments.
We simply choose the one that flatters our existing loyalties.
A note about the “Monroe Doctrine” defense
I’ve seen some people respond to criticism with a line like: Read the Monroe Doctrine—this is our hemisphere. There’s nothing illegitimate here.
I get why that argument feels grounding. It has the comfort of tradition. It feels like “we’ve always had a framework for this.”
But even if you believe the Monroe Doctrine captures something strategically real, it still doesn’t answer the core question:
What is the limiting principle?
A doctrine can describe a posture. It can explain history. It can even reveal how America has often behaved.
But it doesn’t magically turn raw power into legitimate authority, and it doesn’t replace constitutional questions about who can authorize what—especially when the stakes are this high.
If your defense ultimately becomes “we can do this because we’re strong,” then at least be honest: that’s not constitutional restraint. That’s imperial permission.
And permission is the one thing power never uses modestly.
The hardest sentence in American politics
Here it is. I don’t like it either:
A good outcome does not automatically make an action legitimate.
And a “bad person” does not erase the need for lawful authority, accountability, and limits.
Yes—Venezuelans have suffered. Yes—dictators don’t step down politely. Yes—there is a deep human longing to see evil answered by justice.
But the question remains:
What makes this justice instead of simply force?
If we can’t answer that—carefully, soberly, and consistently—then we’re not forming citizens.
I don’t like how quickly I can become a fan.
Two practices I’m trying to adopt (and you can steal)
When the next big headline hits, I’m trying to force myself into a slower posture before I speak.
1) The Swap Test
If the other party did this tomorrow, what would I call it?
Courage? Corruption? Tyranny? Necessary evil?
If your answer flips instantly, that’s a signal—not that you’re bad, but that your standards may be captive.
2) The Standard Sentence
I try to finish one sentence before I argue:
I support/oppose this because ______ principle matters.
The limiting principle is ______.
I’m willing to live with this standard even when it hurts my side.
That last clause is the difference between a citizen and a partisan.
One communal practice (because this can’t be solo work)
Most of this essay has been about personal discipline. But I don’t think we fix tribal thinking purely by thinking better in private.
So here’s one practice I’d love to normalize:
Before debating the conclusion, ask the other person what standard they’re trying to protect.
Not “what side are you on,” but:
What are you afraid will happen if we normalize this?
What are you trying to prevent?
What would “restraint” look like to you?
What would “justice” look like to you?
That conversation won’t make us agree.
But it might keep us human.
Closing grace
I’m not writing this because I’m naïve about evil—or because I think America should never confront tyranny.
I’m writing it because I’ve watched what happens when our hatred of the other side becomes the engine of our moral reasoning.
That isn’t justice.
It’s corrosion.
And it spreads—first to our politics, then to our institutions, then to our souls.
I still think we can choose better. Not by pretending we don’t have tribes, but by refusing to let the tribe replace the standard. That’s what citizenship looks like in a country built on an idea.
So I’ll end with a question I’m asking myself, and trying not to dodge:
What’s one standard you refuse to trade away—even for a win?