I don’t wake up in the morning thinking, “How can I blindly agree with a group of strangers today?” Apparently, a lot of people do. That’s the only explanation I’ve got left.

I’m independent. Not in the trendy “I say I’m independent but secretly vote the same way every time” kind of way. I mean I actually look at who’s running, what they’ve done, and whether they seem even remotely capable of not wrecking everything they touch. It’s not complicated. It just requires effort, which seems to be where things fall apart.

Somewhere along the way, politics turned into team sports. Jerseys on, brain off. You pick a side and defend it like your life depends on it, even when your “team” is clearly fumbling the ball, setting it on fire, and blaming the grass. And people still clap. That’s the part that gets me.

Voting straight down a party line isn’t loyalty. It’s intellectual laziness dressed up as conviction. It’s outsourcing your thinking because it’s easier than admitting you might have to actually evaluate something. Newsflash: no party bats a thousand. Not even close. Pretending they do just makes you look like you stopped thinking somewhere around 1997 and never rebooted.

And don’t get me started on how fast people turn on each other over this stuff. Friends, family, neighbors… suddenly everyone’s a villain because they checked a different box on a ballot. It’s like we collectively decided disagreement equals betrayal. That’s not strength. That’s insecurity with a loud voice.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: most of us want pretty similar things. Stability. Decent jobs. Safe communities. Maybe a little peace and quiet without someone yelling about politics every five minutes. But instead of focusing on that, we draw lines in the sand and act like crossing them is treason.

Getting along doesn’t require agreement on everything. It requires not acting like a self-righteous brick wall. You can think someone’s wrong without thinking they’re garbage. That used to be normal. Now it’s apparently a radical concept.

I’m going to keep doing what I do. Look at the person. Look at the record. Make a call. No team loyalty. No blind allegiance. If that makes me the odd one out, fine. I’ve seen what the “normal” approach looks like, and it’s not exactly inspiring confidence.

Maybe the problem isn’t that people can’t get along. Maybe it’s that too many people don’t even try.