We Hold These "Truths": How to Spot the Myths that are Holding America Back

by Casey Burgat

In this clear-eyed guide, America’s political experts cut through the spin and expose the myths holding our democracy back.

Our political system is bogged down by convenient falsehoods, fueled by those who benefit from the chaos. These myths distort our view of government and prevent us from solving real problems, leaving many Americans feeling frustrated and hopeless.

In We Hold These "Truths", former congressional staffer turned George Washington University grad school professor Casey Burgat leads a diverse team of officials, academics, and experts from both sides of the aisle to expose the lies at the heart of our political dysfunction. They debunk talking points about term limits, lobbyists, money in politics, and more – offering real-world insights into how our government actually works.

Replacing myths with clarity and solutions, We Hold These "Truths" empowers us all to see past the distractions, understand the system, and demand the kind of government that will actually bring about positive change.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History

384 pages, Paperback

Published February 4, 2025

Reviews

[Mr. Book · Rating 1 out of 5]

You can also see this review, along with others I have written, at Mr. Book's Book Reviews.

Thank you, Authors Equality, for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Mr. Book just finished We Hold These “Truths”: How To Spot The Myths That Are Holding America Back, by Casey Burgat.

This book will be released on February 4, 2025.

It didn’t take long for the author to lose his credibility. Just in the first chapter, when writing about the Constitution, he claims that nobody knows what “high crimes and misdemeanors” is supposed to mean. He must be oblivious to the fact that the term long predated the Constitution, with English precedents showing what the words meant and the founders had no reason to go further than that. Then, he makes the claim that the Constitution doesn’t mention the cabinet, conveniently overlooking Article II, Section 2, clause 1, which clearly mentions the cabinet members: “… he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices …”

The chapter trying to claim that “the Supreme Court is too political” is a myth was a great way for any book to destroy whatever credibility it had left. And the discussion of the court didn’t even discuss the overt corruption of several of the sitting Justices. Instead, the author just made the claim that changing the members of the court isn’t a solution.

There are so many problems that this book has no interest in even addressing, such as, but certainly not limited to, corporate influence, how one party denies reality and facts, how one party will only peacefully certify an election if they won, gerrymandering, the sillyness of equal representation in the Senate and so much more. Those are the real problems that are holding the country back and this book just omits.

I give this book an F.

Goodreads and NetGalley require grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, an F equates to 1 star. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).

This review has been posted at NetGalley, Goodreads and Mr. Book’s Book Reviews

Mr. Book finished reading this on January 10, 2025.

[Grace Stafford · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF at 48%. Started reading this an eARC pre-election, and now it feels ridiculous to even try to pick this up again. This is a book written by a multitude of liberals that are obsessed with our government in a deeply uncritical way and most chapters feel condescending yet not all that informative?

Ultimately, this feels really tone deaf to be releasing in a second Trump presidency, and these are the least of our worries now.

[Tom Schulte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Subtitled "How to Spot the Myths That Are Holding America Back", this book has been called "This book is the crash course in civics that America needs." Attempting to explain mechanics and institutions, Burgat looks at the practical instead of the charismatic adoration of our populist era.

Before you blame Trump supporters for buying what he's selling, remember that anyone can be influenced by a charismatic leader. And once you have been, it can be hard to go back. We're all motivated to believe that we're smart, important, and good-and our brains naturally tend to choose reasoning that keeps us feeling this way. A manipulative leader takes advantage of this by counting on the fact that we hate to admit we've been tricked.

Largely educational and even enlightening from insider account of how government really does work, there is also some revelations on behind the scenes realities of some events in our recent dramatic and turbulent times. Alyssa Farah Griffin was the White House Director of Strategic Communications during Trump's first term and recalls bleach etc. remarks by Trump in a press briefing:

POTUS walked right past me without breaking stride, ignoring or missing my attempts to catch his attention. I followed him to the briefing room, and its big blue sliding door closed. I opted to watch from a stone's throw away in Upper Press, where my office and the White House press secretary's office were located. Then I watched as President Trump did far more damage than I ever could have fathomed.

"There's been a rumor that-you know, a very nice rumor-that you go outside in the sun or you have heat and it does have an effect on other viruses," Trump said from the world's most famous podium. He then turned to Coronavirus Task Force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx and directed her to "speak to the medical doctors to see if there's any way that [she] can apply light and heat to cure" the virus.2 Dr. Birx sheepishly nodded, afraid to contradict the president in front of the world. I worked closely with Dr. Birx and hold her in the highest regard. She served her country in uniform as an army doctor, then dedicated her life to fighting infectious diseases, including HIV and AIDS. I'll never fault her for not jumping to the podium to correct the president of the United States, for honoring the chain of command, though I don't envy the position it put her in.

And here's where the wheels fell off.

(Trump, who "doesn't kid", said he was being sarcastic.)

Back to the lessons in government, we are seeing as I type what feels like a crest of peak EO churn as executive orders seem Trump's tool for quickly reshaping government. So, it is helpful to learn of the history and development of this tool in the president's toolbox.

The impermanence of executive orders not only has created a land-scape of instability but has also become a powerful tool for presidential candidates looking to make immediate impacts. The promise to reverse a predecessor's executive orders has become a rallying cry on the campaign trail, with candidates often pledging swift action in their first 100 days in office. This tactic allows them to quickly chalk up wins by undoing the policies of the previous administration, appealing directly to their political base eager for change.

So while the early months of an administration are often marked by a flurry of executive action, much of that action involves undoing the work of the previous administration. For modern presidents, their first 100 days have transitioned into playing a game of Whac-A-Mole with the other guy's executive orders-just as fast as one policy pops up, it's smacked back down, and the clock is turned back. And the cycle continues.

Interestingly, The Heritage Foundation, an American conservative think tank, that took a leading role in the conservative movement in the 1980s during the presidency of Ronald Reagan when his policies were taken from Heritage Foundation studies. They offer their own EO analysis in "The Use and Abuse of Executive Orders and Other Presidential Directives".

More from Griffin:

Lincoln did not call his Emancipation Proclamation an "executive order," but it was. In fact, it was the most famous and impactful example of the president of the United States bypassing Congress and changing federal law with the stroke of a pen. But from where did Lincoln's power to issue such a proclamation originate? Despite their frequent use and significant impact, the term "executive order" (or any of its variations) is nowhere to be found in the Constitution. Instead, the authority for what's often called the "power of the pen" originates from the Constitution's "vesting clause." This clause simply vests in the president "executive power," a deliberately vague term that has evolved over time to encompass the wide array of administrative actions involved in managing the government's day-to-day affairs.

This vagueness has produced an eternal debate about the scope of executive power, how the Founders intended it to be used, and what it means for modern presidencies. Constitutional experts generally agree that executive actions are legal as long as they fall within the president's policy jurisdiction (read: matters for which there is a relevant federal department) and within a reasonable interpretation of existing court rulings. (Note that things the president cannot do within those bounds include lower gas prices, cut mortgage rates, reverse inflation, fix Social Security, protect abortion access nationwide, or many other moves that some constituents expect him to do.)

These actions-whether they're called orders, directives, or memoranda are official, legally binding mandates...

Speaking of things that seem to add more grandstanding than good government IMHO, there is here an analysis of the evolution of the now ubiquitous filibuster by Adam Jentleson, contributor to this anthology of essays. Jentleson is former chief of staff to Sen. John Fetterman and deputy chief of staff to Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid. Jentleson is the author of Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy and a regular contributor to various publications. He recalls "the golden age of the Senate, running through the first half of the 19th century, was a majority-rule institution where the filibuster did not exist." That was until Sen. John C. Calhoun

... envisioned a numerical minority empowered to counter the dominance of an unsympathetic majority. Whereas Madison wanted the minority to have a platform to air their views and delay the legislative process to make themselves heard, Calhoun believed the minority was entitled to a veto. Importantly, Calhoun had a specific minority in mind: slaveholders, for whom he was the nation’s leading advocate.

...[Sen. Robert “Fighting Bob” LaFollette's 1917 filibuster against arming American ships against German attacks] triggered a massive public uproar against the Senate-as Wilson described them, a "little group of willful men" and widespread calls for the chamber to reform its rules.

For a moment, it looked like the end of the filibuster. The Senate quickly reconvened and formed a committee to rein it in... But the committee made one change that would prove enormously and unintentionally-consequential. Instead of setting the threshold for cutting off debate at a majority, as in the original rule, they recommended setting it at a supermajority. ...Senate Rule 22, otherwise known as the "cloture" rule... is what sets the de facto threshold for passage at 60 votes...

For half a century after Rule 22, filibusters remained rare. From its inception in 1917 until 1970, the Senate averaged less than one cloture vote per year.16 During this time, those looking to stall a bill would talk for as long as they wished, and the majority would let them. But then and this is the key part once the minority ran out of words, they stopped talking. They voiced their opposition, and then

Rep. Steve Israel (D) who served in Congress from 2001 to 2017 offers insights into the realities of fundraising.

I learned early that there is only one area of instant bipartisan agreement: raise money.

Far from the resplendent white marble of the Capitol, I soon found myself shuttled into a "call room." Since it's illegal to fundraise within Capitol walls, members do their financial dirty work a few blocks away in a less auspicious building. Gray fabric cubicles. Flickering fluorescent lights. Members of the US Congress reduced to glorified telemarketers. For 10 to 15 hours every week, I would cold-call donors, delivering my well-honed 60-second pitch to raise the money required to stay afloat in politics and address the pressing issues I sought to tackle as a legislator.

I'd envisioned long hours spent on the House floor in great debates with partisan foes, hashing out hard-fought compromises and passing legislation that would improve the lives of my constituents. The reality was a financial arms race that would lead me to spend over 4,200 hours dialing up donors during my 16 years in Congress. That's almost half a year of my life.

Stephen I. Vladeck, an expert in constitutional law who has argued over a dozen cases before the US Supreme Court, has a prescription for SCOTUS:

...the indictment that SCOTUS has become too political rests on an assumption that rarely gets questioned. It assumes that, in some bygone kumbaya era, things were different. The court was better and could be trusted because justices of yesteryear were above (or, at least, aloof from) politics. They kept their personal views quiet and considered cases with cold judicial neutrality. In other words, they stayed in their lane, which is to just "call balls and strikes," as Chief Justice John Roberts famously described his would-be job at his 2005 confirmation hearing.

That idea certainly does sound nice. Only one minor snag: It's completely false. The belief in an apolitical judiciary is a myth-and a dangerous one. The Supreme Court has never been above politics. Even more to the point, the Supreme Court shouldn't be above politics. And if anything, the view that the court is supposed to be above politics has helped precipitate the true crisis facing the Supreme Court today.

That true crisis is not the one we think of whenever the press reports another divisive SCOTUS decision. It is that, to an extent that we have never seen in American history, the justices are not accountable to the other branches of government, especially Congress (or really, to anyone). Nor do they believe they should be. Justice Samuel Alito said this quiet part out loud in a July 2023 interview with The Wall Street Journal, asserting that "no provision in the Constitution gives [Congress] the authority to regulate the Supreme Court-period."

Alito is wrong as a matter of text (Article III of the Constitution expressly authorizes Congress and only Congress among other things, to make "regulations" of the Supreme Court's caseload). He's wrong as a matter of history (he himself holds a seat created by Congress in 1837). And he's wrong as a matter of common sense (without congressional approval, the court would have no money, no building, no staff, and no ability to do much of anything).

To me it has been interesting to muse that in our government, Congress enacts laws which the Executive branch, well, executes. As a result, congressional activity builds executive branch power. Over time, I feel congress has been ceding additional power to executive branch, specifically the president in areas such as not demanding its role for declaring war delivering advice and consent, etc. Add to this a lack of comity due to hyper-partisanship and we have a servile legislative body serving only to amplify or allow presidential freedom of action. The rather analytical “Bipartisanship Is Dead” from Dr. James M. Curry and Dr. Frances E. Lee recalls the McCarthy Speakership when

Congress still needed to pass spending bills that fit within the agreed-upon framework. Hardline Republicans, frustrated with Kevin McCarthy and the Republican leadership, began rebelling against unrelated bills their leaders tried to bring to the House floor. By fall, tensions reached their limit. To avoid a government shutdown, McCarthy finally brought a bill to the floor that would give Congress more time. It passed overwhelmingly, though 90 Republicans opposed it. And just a few days later, McCarthy was booted from the Speakership by his own party. His crime? Compromising with Democrats.

Did compromise die along with McCarthy's leading role? No. Mike Johnson (R-LA) eventually emerged as the new leader, promising to fight for his party's goals. But a change in leadership could not change the underlying dynamics at play. Republicans were still divided and held a narrow majority. The parties were still miles apart on spending policy. There was no way forward except to cut a bipartisan deal.

The final spending package, agreed to in March 2024, largely resembled the deal cut between Kevin McCarthy and the White House in May 2023. The bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in both chambers. Conservative Republicans, who would have liked to go it alone, didn't like it. But the American system of government didn't really give them a choice.

A similar pattern has repeated over and over again in recent his-tory. Lawmakers on one side or the other want to do big, bold things to deliver on their campaign promises. They don't want to com-promise. But they discover, eventually, that to achieve anything at all-to move the ball forward on any of the issues that are important to Americans-they must.

Cooperation is required for efficient and effective legislation as the same writers point out.

...the majority rarely succeeds without the minority's support. Most times it's either teamwork or stalemate.

Are there exceptions? A few. Across the 295 party agenda items, we found just 13 (4 percent) that ended with one party achieving a clear policy victory over the sustained opposition of the other. These rare, partisan laws loom large in our political consciousness: Obamacare, the Republicans' 2017 tax law, some of the Bush tax cuts. But they are unusual.

This last point is key. It's not that Democrats and Republicans work together all the time. It's that if a majority party wants to actually come through on its promises, it needs the minority to help do it.

Congressman Pascrell, who represented New Jersey in Congress from 1997 to 2024, recall's last year's aborted border bill in a critique that touches on failure to compromise due to gerrymandering-supported partisan gridlock.

On February 4, 2024, a trio of US senators made a momentous announcement. James Lankford (R-OK), Chris Murphy (D-CT), and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) unveiled a legislative deal to address America's southern border crisis and frayed asylum system.

The package was the product of months of painstaking behind-the-scenes negotiation among the senators on one of America's most pressing issues. The effort had been declared dead by reporters and congressional insiders more times than you've accidentally been on

Matt Fuller considers the doubt and suspicions of mainstream media in light of news consumer expressed desires.

What I can tell you from working in both types of settings is this: People want drama. They crave it. When Marjorie Taylor Greene calls Lauren Boebert a "little bitch" on the House floor, that's the story that gets clicks. It's juicy; it's immediate; it's got all the elements of a good old-fashioned political brawl. Readers are far less interested-and I've got the numbers to prove it-in my 6,000-word story on why Republicans turned on funding a war in Ukraine. (It's a great piece and you should read it!)

...

The truth is, the power to change the media starts with us-and it always has. If we want a more balanced, less sensationalized media environment, it's up to us to stop rewarding the content that perpetuates division and start demanding something better.

Part of the difficulty is, many of the people in power don't want us to.

The author's website offer more content along these lines including his substack for a "crash course in civics".

[Lisa Schilling Dalton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Plenty of interesting civic reminders and information to reframe the current status of our country. Appreciated the various perspectives of folks who collaborated on the chapters. Most interesting to me were the chapters on media and politics and sports and politics. Definitely encouraged to learn more about the "hows" rather than the whys of government.

[Maria Lewis · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a collection of opinion essays relative to our Government and it's "systems"... a book that took a variety of commonly held "myths" about how our government doesn't work and strategic authors, politicians and opinion writers gave opposing opinions on why said myth existed and if it was really true or not....although published this year (2025) it is already out of touch, IMO. It was written before the Trump Re-election and after one of the authors has passed away. I found myself getting impatient and irritated, just like watching TV and reading articles....it's all biased and solves nothing. We all know the "systems" have been broken for 40 years and not one party is fixing it. Why? Because they don't want to and there is no gain for any politician or party to work "for the people". Did we really need another book telling us straight up that we don't matter and they don't care to fix it?

[Tanner Kreider · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, this was a good book.
I almost didn't read it because I was afraid everything in it would have a radically liberal slant, but almost everything was reasonable and truthful, and I'm glad I read it! Granted, there were two or three chapters that I didn't completely agree with, but even these had solid, factually based and convincing arguments. The writers were skilled and knew what they were talking about. The best point he made was that there is no "silver bullet" fix to our nation's political problems, and comes about slowly. But it starts with the way we view things.

My favorite chapter was the one about Congress; super enlightening! However, almost all the chapters are highly relevant to today's headlines, especially the chapter about presidential power.

[Paige · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whew this one will go crazy once it includes the last 6 months

[Margo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I highly recommend this book about the inner workings of government and ways that our system could be fine-tuned for a better government.

[Lisa Horsch · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciated getting copies of this through the Little Free Library and have one copy in my box. The collected essays all address some aspect of our government and commonly misunderstood aspects of how things work in politics. Unfortunately it was all written before the current administration won the vote and came into office. I’d like to see some additions to these essays. I thought they were fair in showing a typical day of a Congress member and the crazy amount of time spent fundraising to be part of Congress. I would put campaign finance reform at the top of my list for ways to fix or improve Congress. Hard to get real work done when you have to constantly raise money to be there. Traffic jams and cockroaches are more beloved than Congress, and it doesn’t take a genius to see why. And the Supreme Court is not far behind with their refusal to stop taking gifts that might influence them.

I loved the quote from Thomas Jefferson showing that the idea of “fake news” is not new at all. Social media just makes it so much easier to disseminate false narratives. I’m so disgusted by what some people post and believe. I thought the “news” vs “entertainment” labels would help, but who gets to decide that? I just don’t understand how people buy into conspiracy theories so easily and can’t seem to discern truth from lies spouted enough that they seem to become true eventually. And I don’t understand why some leaders get to lie with impunity. Deny and deflect - gets old quick.

I had no idea that the first Kentucky Derbies were run with black jockeys and that was over when jockeys began to earn real money. And why can’t we teach these things in schools?

I appreciated the statement of “If we start seeing those who disagree with us as dumb, wrong, evil or unpatriotic, we’ve already lost. Give grace.” I was called a “bad American” by a friend because I can’t support the current occupant of the White House. I was at a loss for words that night, but felt better later when I wrote my “I’m a bad American because” list to explain my thinking and the actions I would support.

It will be interesting to see the future unfold, and I continue to be an optimist, mostly.