One of the most dangerous shifts in modern governance isn’t happening loudly. It isn’t announced with sweeping legislation or dramatic court rulings. It’s happening quietly, through omission, selective enforcement, and political posturing by those entrusted to uphold the law—not reinterpret it.
At the center of this shift is a troubling trend: senior law enforcement executives increasingly engaging in political activism rather than enforcement.
The Unique Weight of the Badge at the Top
Unlike many political appointments, the selection of a chief law enforcement officer—police commissioner, chief, sheriff, or attorney general—carries a responsibility that transcends ideology. These roles are not meant to advance political agendas or signal virtue to a partisan base. They exist for one reason: to faithfully and impartially enforce the law as written.
That doesn’t mean leaders can’t hold personal views. It means those views must never eclipse their obligation to the rule of law.
And yet that is exactly what we are seeing happening across the country. In cities like Los Angeles, Portland, Minneapolis, Chicago, Philadelphia, D.C. and New York City, we are watching senior law enforcement executives quietly abandon the oath they swore to uphold the Constitution. Instead of faithfully executing the duties of their office, too many have chosen self-preservation—submitting to the political whims of mayors, governors, and party power brokers in order to keep their positions. In doing so, they trade principle for proximity to power, and the badge for a bargaining chip. The damage isn’t abstract: it erodes trust, confuses subordinates, and signals to the public that the rule of law is negotiable if one’s job depends on it.
When a law enforcement executive begins governing by personal belief, political loyalty, or public pressure instead of statute, the entire system begins to blur. The result is not compassion. It is confusion.
When Enforcement Becomes Optional
Laws are not suggestions. They are not talking points. And they are not meant to be selectively applied based on who agrees with them.
If a law is unjust, outdated, or harmful, there is a mechanism for addressing it: the legislature. Debate it. Amend it. Repeal it. That is how a republic functions.
What a society cannot survive is a system where governors, mayors, or law enforcement executives decide—unilaterally—which laws they feel like enforcing and which they don’t. That isn’t leadership. It’s circumvention.
And it sends a dangerous message to everyone watching:
If you don’t agree with a law, you don’t have to obey it.
The Damage Below the Surface
This ambiguity is corrosive, especially within the ranks of law enforcement.
Officers are hired to enforce laws, not guess political winds. When direction from the top becomes inconsistent—enforce this today, ignore it tomorrow, apologize for it publicly next week—it creates paralysis. Officers hesitate. Enforcement becomes uneven. Decision-making becomes reactive rather than principled.
That uncertainty doesn’t just affect morale. It affects safety.
At the same time, the public absorbs the lesson being taught. When enforcement appears arbitrary or politically motivated, compliance erodes. Boundaries blur. Tensions rise. And in that space—between unclear authority and emboldened defiance—catastrophic incidents are born.
Not because laws were enforced.
But because they weren’t enforced consistently.
Laws Belong in the Legislature, Not the Headlines
A society governed by laws cannot function if those laws are endlessly debated in the street instead of addressed in the chamber where they were created. Enforcement is not the place for policy experimentation. It is the final step in a process that should already be settled.
When enforcement becomes performative—applied or withheld to curry favor—it ceases to be justice. It becomes theater. And theater is a poor substitute for order.
The Principle at Stake
The phrase “a government of laws, not of men” exists for a reason. It is a warning against exactly this moment—against systems where personal ideology replaces institutional obligation, and where authority bends to personality instead of principle.
Once enforcement depends on who is in charge rather than what the law requires, the rule of law is no longer the foundation. It’s just another opinion.
And no society remains stable for long when the law itself becomes optional.
