Exhausted by the Political Yelling

Why the quiet middle matters more than the screaming extremes.

I’m not someone who spends hours a day reading political commentary. I don’t have a podcast or a platform. I’m just…normal. I think I represent what a lot of people feel — somewhere in the middle, not extreme, just trying to live life, raise a family, and do right by people.

And yet, when I look around, it feels like the only voices anyone hears belong to those on the far ends. The people screaming the loudest. The ones who thrive on outrage. And quite honestly? I’m exhausted by the yelling. Aren’t you?

I’ve already lost people I love to politics. My sister-in-law hasn’t been in our lives since the last election. That silence sits heavier than any debate. And on Facebook, I watch friends write things like, “I cannot tolerate intolerance.” I get it. I do. But isn’t that just another way of saying, “I refuse to tolerate you”? How does that help?

I remember calling a friend during the election who votes differently than I do. We talked. We disagreed. Neither of us changed our minds. But we didn’t hang up angry. We hung up still friends. Why can’t more of us do that? Why have we decided that difference equals disconnection?

My husband loves seafood. I can’t stand it. We don’t argue about it. We don’t cancel dinner. He eats shrimp, I eat steak, and we both leave the table fed. Why can’t politics work the same way?

Most of us aren’t living on the far ends. We’re here in the middle — quieter, more tired, but maybe more representative of what this country actually looks like. And maybe it’s time our voices matter again.

Because if we keep letting the yelling define us, if we keep walking away until only our own echoes are left, we’re going to lose more than elections. We’re going to lose each other.

So here’s my hope: that we get back to the table. That we stop letting outrage drown out the ordinary. That we remember disagreement isn’t danger, and difference isn’t the enemy.