We talk a lot about left versus right in this country. But what if that’s not the real divide anymore?
In this clip from The Tony Michaels Podcast, I break down what I call The Great Realignment — how 9/11 changed the way Americans think about power, how we handed too much of it to the presidency, and why Trump’s tariffs might finally make people feel it in their wallets.
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You ever get that feeling that something in our politics just doesn’t make sense anymore?
Like everyone’s shouting at each other, but no one’s talking about what’s actually happening?
That’s what I’ve been trying to explain with what I call The Great Realignment.
Now, here’s the thing — this isn’t just about Democrats and Republicans swapping voters or issues.
It’s bigger than that.
It’s about power — where it lives, who controls it, and how we, the people, gave a lot of it away without even realizing it.
The last big political realignment in this country was probably during the Civil Rights era.
That’s when the parties flipped on race, on government, on what it meant to be “conservative” or “liberal.”
But since then, something new’s been happening — a slow, quiet realignment that started, I think, after 9/11.
Not because of the attack itself, but because of how we reacted to it.
See, after 9/11, Americans got scared.
And I don’t mean that as an insult — it was a national trauma.
But what we did with that fear… that’s what changed everything.
We decided that the President — whoever it was — should have more power to keep us safe.
We gave the executive branch basically a blank check.
The Patriot Act, the wars, the spying, the “emergency powers.”
We built this giant machine that said, “Hey, the President can do whatever it takes.”
And over time, that became normal.
Bush used it. Obama used it. Trump abused it. And Biden’s still stuck with it.
Now we’ve got a whole generation that grew up thinking,
“Well, that’s just how it works — presidents rule by executive order.”
That’s what I mean when I say we’re in the middle of a realignment of power.
The center of gravity in American democracy has shifted from Congress — the people’s branch — to the President.
Now, here’s where it gets weird.
This realignment is actually flipping the parties.
The Republican Party, which used to be all about small government and states’ rights —
they’re now the ones obsessed with executive power.
They want the President to be a king, as long as he’s their king.
Meanwhile, Democrats — who’ve always been fine with using federal power —
they’re the ones starting to say, “Wait a minute, maybe the President shouldn’t have this much control.”
You’ve got Democrats like Chris Murphy and Tim Kaine trying to take back Congress’s war powers.
You’ve got Republican libertarians — Rand Paul, Thomas Massie — saying, “Yeah, maybe we went too far.”
Even Marjorie Taylor Greene, who used to be all in for Trump, is now talking about how Congress should matter again.
That’s wild. But it fits.
It’s the realignment in motion.
And here’s the part people feel — the part that’s going to make this real for everyone: the economy.
Because you can ignore constitutional theory, but you can’t ignore your grocery bill.
Trump’s tariffs are the perfect example.
He calls it a “trade war,” but what it really is, is a tax on Americans.
He’s using executive power — not Congress — to slap tariffs on everything from steel to food to cars.
And those costs? They roll right down to you.
That’s not capitalism.
That’s royal economics — the President deciding who pays what, when, and why, all by himself.
That’s what I mean when I say “executive supremacy.”
It’s not just political. It’s financial.
It’s one man reaching into your pocket without your representative ever voting on it.
So when people start to feel the price of eggs, or cars, or housing going up —
and then they find out that the President can just “tax” them by signing a piece of paper —
that’s when the realignment becomes real.
Because people will start to realize:
“Hey, wait a second… I didn’t vote for that. I didn’t approve that. How does one man get to decide this?”
That’s the moment the country wakes up.
That’s when folks on the left and right both start to see the same thing —
that this isn’t just a party problem. It’s a power problem.
We’re living under Article II America — a government of the executive, by the executive, for the executive.
And the Constitution wasn’t built for that.
It was built for us — the people.
Article I. Congress. The first branch. The one that’s supposed to represent us, not rule us.
The whole system feels chaotic right now because it’s trying to correct itself.
That’s what realignments do — they tear things down so something new can take shape.
And what’s forming now isn’t left versus right anymore.
It’s authoritarian versus democratic.
It’s people who want power centralized in one man,
and people who still believe it should belong to the many.
So when you see chaos in the headlines —
when Trump talks about “unitary executive power,”
or Democrats start questioning the war machine —
remember: this is part of a bigger shift.
The realignment’s already happening.
The only question is, which way will it break?
Will we keep worshiping kings?
Or will we take our power back?
Because that’s what this is really about.
Not red versus blue.
Not left versus right.
But whether the people still own their government —
or whether the government owns the people.
That’s the Great Realignment.
And that’s what we’re living through right now.
If this message resonates with you — share it.
Let’s get this conversation into every living room, every feed, every inbox in America.
Because once people understand what’s really happening, they’ll see that the fight isn’t about sides — it’s about sovereignty.
