Two weeks ago, several activists affiliated with the environmental advocacy organization, Greenpeace, scaled a crane near the White House to hang a banner that read “RESIST.” A Greenpeace spokesman stated that the protesters had acted “to resist the environmental, economic and racial injustice that Trump and his administration have already laid out and put into practice.”

The previous weekend, millions of people worldwide marched to “send a bold message to our new government on its first day in office, and to the world that women’s rights are human rights,” protesting President Donald Trump’s vulgar remarks aimed at women that came to light during the presidential campaign.

Protests are not tied solely to one political party or side of the political spectrum. It can certainly be said that the issue at hand is not one of justification — peaceful protests are explicit exercises of some of the rights outlined in the First Amendment to the Constitution. Rather, the issue is one of intellectual honesty.

“Resistance” — that is, peaceful opposition to a candidate’s policy proposals — should not go in and out of style every four years. Politicians work for us. It is our duty to hold them accountable — no matter what letter is next to their name. They should be judged by their actions and words, not by their partisan positions.

When a politician belonging to an opposing party does something that benefits society as a whole or says something that is true, it is not “betrayal” to your party to acknowledge either of these things. This is not to say that it is inappropriate or out of line to chastise the statements made or policies enacted by politicians of either major party.

On the contrary, each individual statement or policy proposal should be judged by its merit on a case-by-case basis, regardless of political affiliation. Politicians who have lied before are capable of telling truths. Politicians who generally tell the truth can make false statements.

It is unwise to dismiss a politician’s statement or policy proposal simply because he or she recently made an untrue statement or proposed poor policy, just as it is injudicious to assume everything a politician says or does is repugnant because the person is on the opposite side of the political aisle, or, worse, because you just don’t like the person.

Policies can be good or bad — the same goes for any given aspect of a policy. But discussion over how to amend those policies should not be a result of political affiliation.

Similarly, statements made by those holding political office are either true or false. Once we, as a society, abandon the realm of truth and untruth, we enter a realm in which we find ourselves defending bad policies and outright lies in the name of “party unity” or “loyalty.”

When Trump said “We had a massive landslide victory, as you know, in the Electoral College” and that millions of people voted illegally in the 2016 election, Republicans should have had no difficulty acknowledging that these statements are objectively false.

Similarly, when former President Barack Obama mentioned, in reference to potential consequences of the Affordable Care Act, “If you like your health care, you can keep it,” or when he likened the Islamic State to a “JV team,” Democrats should have acknowledged that these, too, were not true statements.

Of course, this is not to suggest that every member of or voter affiliated with the two major political parties has defended every false statement and every bit of bad policy enacted by politicians belonging to their own political party. But it is to say that politicians on both sides of the aisle have, in the past and to this day, either dismissed or plainly denied the falsehood of similar statements or the downsides of similar policies, mainly to avoid upsetting party leadership and steady party donors.

It is intellectually dishonest to demand the truth when a politician does not share your political affiliation, but brush off lies and legislative blunders when a politician shares many of your beliefs. In the same light, issues themselves are not party dependent.

If you believed that WikiLeaks was a direct threat to the security and privacy of the United States up until it released emails that suggested the Democratic National Committee had colluded to deprive Bernie Sanders the party nomination in favor of Hillary Clinton, it is wildly dishonest to now suggest that they are a force of good in a world of dark, conspiratorial secrets, simply because they may have given your candidate a better opportunity to achieve victory.

The reverse is also true. If you previously believed that Julian Assange was a misunderstood renegade running a peculiar but important organization, but now see him as the vile leader of a group seeking to destabilize the democratic underpinnings of the United States, solely because the WikiLeaks documents reflected poorly on your preferred party and favorite candidate, that is hypocrisy of the highest order.

Political parties and their constituents should prioritize truth and good policy, not unwavering loyalty to candidates of the same party, shaming of the opposing party, or, as is often the case, party victory.

Adherence to principle is the only hedge against partisan tribalism. Primarily seeking truth and justice — both of which are inherently measured using an objective standard — as opposed to political victory or demonization of the opposing party, leads to more honesty within politics, and, what’s more, better solutions to societal problems affecting members of all political parties.

When one begins to see policies enacted and statements made by politicians — on both sides of the aisle — as either being true or false, effective or ineffective, rather than spinning untrue statements made by politicians he or she supports and attacking every statement made or policy enacted by a politician of the opposing party, partisan divisiveness begins to erode, and politicians, held to a higher, objective standard of both morality and efficacy, are pressured to enact better policies for all and tell citizens the truth.