Political Gaslighting: The Government’s Latest Playbook for Dismantling the Constitution

“That was when they suspended the Constitution… There wasn’t even an enemy you could put your finger on.” — Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

What we are witnessing is not a government of the people, by the people, and for the people; it is a government over the people.

Call it what it is: political gaslighting — the regime says one thing while doing the opposite, and insists on the citizenry’s trust while dismantling the very checks and balances that make trust possible.

So when the powers-that-be claim to be protecting the Constitution, they’re dismantling it at every turn. In this way, the mechanisms of constitutional government — separation of powers, federalism, due process, and the Bill of Rights — are being hollowed out in plain sight.

Although this dismantling did not start with President Trump, it has accelerated beyond imagining.

What was once a slow bleed is now a hemorrhage — and it is not random. The damage is unfolding on two parallel tracks: a steady, methodical, bureaucratic erosion (rule changes, executive orders, new databases) paired with shock-and-awe surges (National Guard deployments, mass round-ups, headline-grabbing prosecutions).