SUNDAY REVIEW / HYPOCRISY: THE LAST BIPARTISAN TRADITION.

   

"Spieglein, Spieglein an der Wand, 

   Wer ist die Schonste im ganzen Land?" 

--Brothers Grimm, "Grimms' Fairy Tales," 1812 

Original Grimm illustration by Otto Kubel

GUEST BLOG / By Albie Frank, PillartoPost.org Essayist--It’s easy to spot hypocrisy in others—it flares like a neon sign in the dark. The politician caught bending the truth. The neighbor railing against gossip while spinning their own tales. The celebrity preaching moderation before hopping a private jet. We catch it, shake our heads, and feel righteous. 

But it’s harder—sometimes almost impossible—to catch ourselves in the act. Part of the reason is that our own hypocrisies rarely feel like hypocrisies. They feel like exceptions. The rules we believe in apply… except here, except now, except in this one little corner of our lives. We convince ourselves the gap between what we say and what we do is a special case, a justified lapse, a harmless contradiction. 

Consider the environmentalist who never misses a climate march but drives a gas-guzzling classic car on weekends because “it’s only once in a while.” The hard-nosed fiscal conservative who buys overpriced gadgets on impulse. The health-conscious eater who “cheats” on vacations. Hypocrisy doesn’t always look like villainy—it often wears the comfortable sweater of self-forgiveness. 

And in our current climate, it’s impossible to ignore the most volatile example of all—politics. Political hypocrisy might be the most radioactive kind, the one that turns holiday dinners into hostage negotiations and old friendships into cold wars. We’ve all seen it: people who demand integrity in “the other side” but treat the scandals, lies, and incompetence of their own party as minor blemishes—or, worse, justified tactics. It’s easier to believe that your team is flawed but noble while theirs is corrupt to the bone. 

 Admitting your political party is full of, well, “&((&^,” feels like treason not just to a political cause, but to your own identity. We choose silence over confrontation, ghosting over compromise, because politics today isn’t about issues so much as tribes. To concede your side’s hypocrisy is to risk banishment from the campfire, and no one likes being left alone in the dark. So we swallow our doubts, double down on the talking points, and avoid the uncomfortable truth that hypocrisy is a bipartisan pastime. We’d rather lose a friend or dodge a family reunion than look across the table and say, “Yeah, my side’s a mess, too.” 

And perhaps that’s the heart of it: hypocrisy, at its most common level, isn’t malicious. It’s human. We are all layered, conflicted, and pulled by competing desires. We want to be better, but we also want to be comfortable, admired, indulged, or safe. We live in a constant negotiation between our ideals and our appetites. 

Maybe the question isn’t whether we’re all hypocrites about something—we almost certainly are—but whether we’re willing to admit it. Admitting it is the only way to keep hypocrisy from curdling into something darker: cynicism. Once we acknowledge our own contradictions, we can treat others’ with a little more humility and a little less self-righteous glee. 

In the end, hypocrisy is less about being a fraud and more about being a work in progress. The trouble is, most of us prefer to be seen only after the work is done. 

And if that’s true, then maybe hypocrisy isn’t the flaw we should fear most. Maybe it’s the mirror we keep covered—because deep down, we know exactly who’s looking back.