# The Death of Decency: How Karoline Leavitt’s Rise Signals a Dark New Era for American Civility
You’ve probably never heard of Karoline Leavitt. That’s the point.
But if you’ve scrolled through X (formerly Twitter) in the past 72 hours, you’ve seen the fallout. A 27-year-old former Trump White House press aide turned congressional candidate in New Hampshire, Leavitt has become the latest flashpoint in a war that’s tearing apart the very fabric of American daily life—not over policy, not over taxes, not over immigration, but over something far more fundamental: how we treat each other at the dinner table.
The viral clip is brutal. In it, Leavitt, running for Congress in New Hampshire’s 1st district, tells a room of voters that “the radical left wants to take away your hamburgers.” She’s referencing a Biden administration proposal about limiting red meat consumption for environmental goals—a proposal that, let’s be clear, doesn’t actually exist in any enforceable form. But that doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is the smirk. The sneer. The performance of outrage.
And the crowd? They *cheered*.
This isn’t a story about a policy disagreement. This is a story about what happens when we decide that lying is not just acceptable but *required* for political survival. When the hamburger lie becomes a badge of honor, we have crossed a line that no amount of “both sides” analysis can uncross.
Let me tell you what this looks like in your living room.
It’s the moment your uncle starts shouting about “fake news” during Thanksgiving dinner, and you realize he’s citing a post from an account named “@PatriotWarrior1776” that has 12 followers. It’s the moment your neighbor tells you your child’s school is teaching “critical race theory” to kindergartners, and you know—you *know*—that’s not true, but you smile and nod because you’re tired. You’re so tired.
Leavitt represents the logical endpoint of a political culture that has abandoned any pretense of shared reality. She’s young, telegenic, and utterly unburdened by facts. Her entire appeal rests on a simple premise: that truth is whatever makes your side feel powerful. And the media? The media is the enemy.
But here’s what the clip doesn’t show you. It doesn’t show the 67-year-old retired teacher in Concord who now refuses to watch local news because she can’t tell what’s real anymore. It doesn’t show the small business owner in Manchester who lost three customers last month because he posted a thoughtful op-ed about compromise. It doesn’t show the high school sophomore in Nashua who was mocked by classmates for asking a question about climate change in civics class.
This is the cost. Not in political terms. In human terms.
Leavitt’s rise isn’t an anomaly. It’s a symptom. According to a 2023 Pew Research study, 65% of Americans say they can’t trust each other on basic matters anymore. That’s not a partisan number. That’s a national nervous breakdown. When a candidate can stand before voters, tell a lie about hamburgers, and be rewarded with applause, we have officially entered a post-truth era where decency is the first casualty.
And it gets worse.
Because Leavitt isn’t just lying about hamburgers. She’s lying about elections. She’s lying about COVID vaccines. She’s lying about January 6th. And she’s doing it with a smile that says, “I know you know I’m lying, and I don’t care.”
That’s the moment. That’s the collapse.
Remember when political disagreements ended with a handshake? When your father could argue with his brother about taxes and still share a beer? That world is gone. And it’s not coming back. Because people like Karoline Leavitt have figured out that the lie is more profitable than the truth. The lie gets you on Fox News. The lie gets you a fundraising email. The lie gets you a standing ovation at a county fair.
But the lie also gets you a country where your child comes home from school and asks, “Mom, is it okay to lie if it helps our team?”
What do you say to that?
I’ll tell you what you can’t say. You can’t say, “No, honey, honesty is always the right path.” Because they’ll point to the TV. They’ll point to the politician smiling and lying and winning. And they’ll ask, “Then why does it work?”
You have no answer. I have no answer. And that’s the tragedy.
This isn’t about left or right anymore. It’s about up or down. Up is the standard of public discourse that we inherited from generations who understood that democracy requires shared facts. Down is the sewer we’re swimming in now—where a 27-year-old can become a national figure by telling people what they want to hear, regardless of whether it’s true.
The hamburger lie is a test. And we are failing it.
Because every time we share the clip in outrage, every time we amplify the nonsense, every time we treat politics like sports, we are feeding the beast. Leavitt doesn’t care if you hate her. She cares that you’re watching. And you are. We all are.
So here we are. A nation divided not by policy but by reality itself. A nation where the most important question facing voters isn’t “What will you do about inflation?” but “Can you tell me something true?”
And the answer, more often than not, is silence.
[To be continued...]
Final Thoughts
Here’s my take:
Karoline Leavitt is a textbook example of how the modern conservative movement has perfected the art of the counter-narrative, wielding the very media tactics she once criticized to become a formidable voice in the White House press room. While her bluntness and combative style may unsettle traditionalists, her effectiveness lies in her authenticity; she isn’t performing for the journalism establishment, she’s speaking directly to the base that feels abandoned by it. In the end, her rise signals a fundamental shift in political communication, where the old rules of decorum are dead, and the most powerful press secretary is the one who can turn a defensive posture into an offensive weapon.