Dear Fellow American,

Are you tired yet?

Tired of watching two political parties act like rival street gangs while pretending they’re defending democracy? Tired of hearing the same tired script—“The other side refuses to reach across the aisle, but we’re the reasonable ones!”—as both parties dig their trenches deeper? Tired of feeling like your only options are to pick a team or sit on the sidelines while everything burns?

You’re not alone. In fact, you’re probably part of the biggest political faction in the country: the Exhausted Majority. You’re one of the millions of Americans who just want things to work, who don’t believe every disagreement is an existential crisis, who can see through the tribal nonsense both parties are selling, and who—most importantly—are sick of being told that the only solution is to give more power to the very people profiting from this dysfunction.

Well, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that the system is broken because it was designed to be. The good news is that we don’t have to keep playing their game.

The Grift of Manufactured Division

Let’s get real: Neither party wants unity. They say they do, sure. They run campaigns on it. They beg for your votes in the name of bipartisanship and healing. But the minute they get elected, it’s back to the same “us vs. them” circus because division is profitable.

Think about it:

  • The right tells you the left wants to destroy America, erase your freedoms, indoctrinate your children, and turn the country into a socialist wasteland.
  • The left tells you the right wants to burn democracy to the ground, bring back segregation, put women in bonnets, and rule with an iron fist.

And in case you start to question any of this, they’ve got a handy name ready for you: “traitor.”

If you’re a Republican who even considers compromise? RINO.
If you’re a Democrat who suggests nuance? Sellout.
If you’re an independent? A wasted vote.

They need us at each other’s throats because if we ever stopped fighting long enough to compare notes, we’d realize both parties have been conning us.

And here’s what’s really absurd—if you refuse to fit neatly into one of their pre-approved boxes, both sides treat you like a traitor. If I express empathy for a transgender person as a fellow human being, I’m immediately written off as some leftist radical trying to erase gender itself. If I say our border needs stricter enforcement because national security actually matters, I’m suddenly a right-wing extremist who hates immigrants.

This is the problem: nuance is dead. The inability of the left or the right to think beyond a binary calculus is poisoning the country. Apparently, you can’t hold two ideas in your head at once without one side demanding your total allegiance and the other exiling you as a heretic.

But here’s reality:

  • You can support a transgender person’s right to live with dignity and still believe biological reality matters in certain contexts.
  • You can believe in criminal justice reform while also supporting strict penalties for violent offenders.
  • You can worry about the erosion of our democratic institutions while also supporting a cautious and strategic approach to foreign conflicts like Ukraine.
  • You can oppose government overreach in personal freedoms while also believing some regulations actually keep society from becoming a corporate hellscape.

But no, that kind of thinking doesn’t fit on a campaign slogan. It’s not what keeps the Outrage Machine churning. So instead of real conversations, we get tribalism. Instead of solutions, we get accusations of betrayal. And the people running the show? They love it that way. Because as long as we’re too busy screaming at each other, we never stop to ask why the people in charge never seem to fix anything.

The Reality They Don’t Want You to See

Here’s something that should be obvious but somehow isn’t:

  • Most people just want to live their lives in peace.
  • Most people aren’t extremists.
  • Most people care more about putting food on the table than about partisan purity tests.

So why are we letting the loudest, angriest, most power-hungry voices set the tone for our country? Why are we letting cable news screamers and Twitter warriors decide what America stands for?

So What’s the Solution?

Here’s where I’d love to give you a grand, sweeping fix. I’d love to tell you there’s some law we can pass, some election we can win, some magic trick that will make people in Washington suddenly remember they’re supposed to govern like adults.

But there isn’t.

The divide isn’t just in Congress. It’s in us. And fixing it starts at the only place it ever can: one person, one day at a time.

Step 1: Stop Letting Politicians Tell You Who to Hate

  • You can disagree with someone without believing they’re an existential threat.
  • You can think someone is wrong without thinking they’re evil.
  • You can hold strong political beliefs without treating politics like a blood sport.

Step 2: Remember That Washington Isn’t Coming to Save You

  • Neither party has a monopoly on wisdom or stupidity.
  • Neither party has all the answers.
  • Neither party deserves your blind loyalty.

You want a better country? Start in your own neighborhood. Be the kind of person who actually talks to people instead of assuming the worst. If your first instinct in a disagreement is to listen instead of waiting for your turn to yell, congratulations—you’re already ahead of 90% of Congress.

Step 3: Hold Your Side Accountable

  • If you call out the other party for their hypocrisy but ignore your own? You’re part of the problem.
  • If you demand compromise but only when it benefits your side? You’re part of the problem.
  • If your entire political identity is based on hating the opposition? You’ve been played.
  • If you insist the “other side” is a lost cause and simply cannot and will not engage in common sense dialog: You. Are. The. Problem.

The truth is, America isn’t dying because we disagree. Disagreement is good. It’s healthy. It’s how democracy is supposed to work.

America is dying because we’ve been tricked into believing that disagreement means war. That the person who votes differently is an enemy instead of a neighbor. That every political debate is a battle for the soul of the nation instead of what it really is: an argument among fellow citizens who want to make things better but don’t always agree on how.

We don’t have to let the worst voices define us. We don’t have to let outrage be our default setting. We don’t have to accept division as inevitable.

We just have to stop playing their game.

So, are you in?

Sincerely,
Brutus X