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<\/p>\nI don\u2019t really like talking about politics.<\/p>\n
I have my own opinions, leaning off-center, but I won\u2019t say which way, because it shouldn\u2019t matter. What I care about more than declaring my political lean is holding space for honest conversation. What matters more to me are the people in my life. I have friends who lean the opposite way from me and that\u2019s okay. They\u2019re my friends. When they say something I find disagreeable, I\u2019ll push back. I\u2019ll debate back. We don\u2019t physically fight. We spar. Verbally. No one\u2019s mind is ever changed, but the verbal jousting clears the air. Then we go out for a beer and laugh about the dumb things we did when we were younger.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a healthy conflict. It\u2019s frustrating, but it\u2019s safe. Nobody bleeds, nobody goes to jail, nobody gets buried.<\/p>\n
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What astonishes me about our world today is how much activism has become fused with violence. The recent assassination of Charlie Kirk isn\u2019t the reason I\u2019m writing this, but it is one of the reasons. Among the many others: the June assassination of Minnesota legislator Melissa Hortman, the April firebombing of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro\u2019s residence. And those are just this year.<\/p>\n
The list of political violence from the last decade is staggering. The 2017 Congressional baseball game shooting. The 2020 kidnapping plot against Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. The 2020 attempted assassination of Judge Esther Salas. The 2022 attempt on Brett Kavanaugh\u2019s life. The brutal attack on Nancy Pelosi\u2019s husband. The shooting spree against New Mexico officials in 2022\u20132023. Two attempts on Donald Trump in 2024, just weeks apart.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t a partisan problem. This is both sides of the aisle. And this is the United States of America.<\/p>\n
Voting with your gun is not a new thing in the United States. The assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy are among the best known. The assassinations of presidents James Garfield and William McKinley are almost forgotten in our common lore. Reagan was shot and lived. Teddy Roosevelt took a bullet in the chest and went on to deliver a 90-minute speech. We romanticize the frontier, but do we really want frontier justice back in the public square?<\/p>\n
Is violence a legitimate means of expressing one\u2019s political opinion? Is it free speech? Protected speech? Think carefully about the world that would create. A nation where assassination becomes routine is not a democracy. It is a battleground and battlegrounds don\u2019t host elections. They host wars. Is this what the highest levels of democracy embodies for us?<\/p>\n
What unsettles me most is not just the violence itself, but the creeping sense that it is becoming ordinary.<\/p>\n
Some say that the United States has not been this divided since the Civil War, when conflict became state against state, neighbor against neighbor, brother against brother. I have two friends, brothers, whom I\u2019ve known since high school. One is a year ahead of me, the other is a year behind. We grew up together \u2014 ate in each other\u2019s kitchens, annoyed each other\u2019s mothers, survived adolescence in the same small circle. Their bond was unbreakable. Except, it was broken. One brother wrote a politically themed book in 2024 and that created a conflict with the other brother, a conflict so bad that they have not spoken since.<\/p>\n
I am still friends with both, but they are not friends with each other. I agree with one. I don\u2019t understand the politics of the other. But the question that nags me is this: does politics really have to decide our friendships? Couldn\u2019t we skip the ideology and still be friends, challenge a mountain, challenge a bar, dare each other at the zoo\u2019s lion exhibit? (Spoiler: it\u2019s never the lion who blinks first.)<\/p>\n
Their broken bond feels like a mirror of the country. We are one people split down the middle, daring each other to cross the line. So where does this lead? Do the parties pick up arms and settle it by force? Do we fracture into two nations, the Liberal States of America and the Conservative States of America? Or do we rediscover that democracy is not about dominance, but about coexistence?<\/p>\n
There aren\u2019t many paths. We could double down on violence until no one feels safe. We could retreat into echo chambers until the other half of the nation feels like foreigners. Or \u2014 harder, slower, but better \u2014 we could work at rebuilding trust. That means listening without planning our rebuttal. It means remembering that the person across the table is still a neighbor, still a parent, still a human being who laughs at dumb jokes.<\/p>\n
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Perhaps the most thoughtful path is to acknowledge that the middle ground isn\u2019t a political compromise, but a social one. It\u2019s the space where we can recognize that the person on the other side of the aisle is a human being with their own fears, hopes and beliefs. The path forward might be less about changing minds and more about restoring trust and shared values, not just in our political institutions, but in each other. It means finding the humanity in our opponents, treating them as neighbors rather than enemies. It\u2019s about remembering that the verbal sparring we once enjoyed can still exist without the risk of bloodshed.<\/p>\n
The middle ground is not glamorous. It doesn\u2019t trend. It doesn\u2019t draw clicks or campaign donations. But it is where trust lives. It is where values can be shared again. The middle ground isn\u2019t about politics. It\u2019s about friendship, civility and a future where our disagreements don\u2019t threaten our existence as a society. The middle ground is the neighbor who disagrees with your vote, but still shows up with a shovel when your driveway is snowed in. Political assassination may be making headlines, but it doesn\u2019t have to write our future. We can. And if my two friends ever find their way back to each other, maybe the rest of us can, too.<\/p>\n
America can\u2019t lead the free world if we can\u2019t even manage ourselves.<\/p>\n
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I don\u2019t really like talking about politics. I have my own opinions, leaning off-center, but I won\u2019t say which way, because it shouldn\u2019t matter. What I care about more than declaring my political lean is holding space for honest conversation. … Continue reading