It’s Almost Over…For Now

By Tom Greene

It’s almost over. The ads, the debates, the text messages and robocalls from candidates who want me to know how great they are. Yes, it’s almost over. Mercy.

Before this thing ends and we go back to constant ads for Jardiance and Skyrizi, we ought to talk about how we got here. When did belonging to a political party become more important than belonging to a community?

For generations, many Americans found meaning and belonging in faith, family, and community. They went to church, knew their neighbors, and didn’t talk about politics. Somewhere along the way, many of those connections began to fade. But the need for connection didn’t disappear. Nature abhors a vacuum, and so do we. We still want to believe in something bigger than ourselves. We still want to feel that we belong somewhere and that our lives mean something. So, politics has become our new national religion. It has a moral code and a community of like-minded people. There are heroes and villains, saints and sinners, and the promise that if our side can just defeat the villain, we might finally create a better world. All we have to do is win the next election. And the one after that. And probably the one after that, too.

Many people remain deeply committed to their faith. But politics has a way of creeping into our churches, families, and friendships, until we see almost everything through the lens of which team we’re on. How sad. When politics becomes our personal identity, our faith, disagreement can feel like a personal attack. Someone who sees an issue differently is no longer just a neighbor with another point of view. They become the enemy.

And there are plenty of people willing to encourage that way of thinking. Politicians raise money by warning us about the other side. Cable news needs us to keep watching. Social media platforms compete for our attention, and few things get our attention quite like being told we should be angry. Then we take to social media, where total strangers hurl insults at each other like a room full of fourth graders jacked up on fruit punch and cake. We call that a debate, although I’m not sure anyone has ever changed their mind because a total stranger called them a threat to democracy.

To be fair, politics matters. Elections have consequences, and reasonable people can disagree passionately about the future of the country. Caring deeply doesn’t make someone a fanatic. Sometimes it means they’re paying attention. The problem begins when we decide that everyone who disagrees with us must be stupid, corrupt, or a liar. It gets even worse when we give our own team a pass for the very behavior we condemn in the other.

Take executive power. Americans have worried about concentrating too much power in one person since the founding of the country. But do we oppose it on principle, or only when the person exercising it belongs to the other party? That requires us to look at our own team with the same skepticism we reserve for everyone else. Meanwhile, many of us are lonely. We join virtual communities where everyone agrees with us, and before long, the people outside those communities begin to look a little strange. Maybe even a little scary. It’s easier to believe the worst about people we never actually see. It’s harder when the person voting for the other candidate is the neighbor who brought dinner over when you were sick or helped your daughter change a flat tire. You may still disagree with them, but it’s difficult to reduce them to a caricature when you know their name.

So where do we start? Maybe we invite a few people over for dinner, including someone who sees the world differently. Maybe we work together on a local problem or volunteer somewhere. Maybe we get to know a neighbor without first finding out which candidate has a sign in their yard.

None of that means we have to surrender our convictions. It means remembering that the person across the table has a life, a family, fears, and hopes that probably look a lot like our own. We might even ask a question and listen to the answer without preparing a rebuttal. Many years from now, when you’re taking your final breaths, I doubt you’ll be thinking about who won the midterms in 2026. I suspect you’ll be thinking about the people you loved, the time you spent together, and perhaps the conversations you wish you’d had. The election will end, and one team will win. The question is whether we can remember that, when it’s over, we still have to live together.

I’m just a guy sitting in a Waffle House booth pecking on a keyboard. Leave me a message at t@tomgreene.com. I promise that you’ll hear back from me ‘cause, you know, I’m a real person.