Dear America: We’re better than this.

You’re convinced that the other side’s presidential candidate is a demon. Your friends are sure your candidate is the devil incarnate.

But it’s worse than that. How could those people have ever been your friends? They are horrible people for supporting that candidate. Total fools. Completely misguided, living in a bubble. How could they possible want such a terrible person as president?

They think the same thing about you. You must be going through life with blinders, living a life disconnected from reality! How could they ever have thought you were a reasonable person? How can you support such a horrible presidential candidate?

We can’t even have a conversation with each other about politics any more without the hate spewing forth. We only hear the worst things about the other candidate, and they confirm EXACTLY what we already thought! Those things that they say on those other sites about our candidate are TOTALLY not true! It’s the media! It’s corruption! It’s rigged! You’re an idiot! No, YOU!

How did we get to this?

My Mom always says “consider the source”.

And you should!

This Wall Street Journal site (“Blue Feed, Red Feed”) is one of the most valuable resources to have at your fingertips this election season: visit it to find out what your friends are reading. You know, your friends who quit talking to you. They live in a world of alternate facts from yours, alternate sites and alternate storylines, written by alternate people — people you may never have even heard of! Of course, THEIRS are just WRONG.

How can they believe such things? They’re obviously total fools.

But they’re NOT. And neither are you.

Today I’m cutting down a tree in our yard. And it makes me sad. What a weird feeling. I grew up in a rural area, near Mt. Rainier in Washington State, and every house’s yard was a five acre plot of raw forest. We cut down trees for firewood for the winter, we cut down trees to make room for a garage, and we cut down trees to make a path to drive the ATV through. No big deal.

Now I live in an urban area, in Seattle. I only HAVE four trees. Cutting one down feels like a crime against nature. But it’s a crime I have to commit today for the long-term stability of the house. Today I’m a different person, in a different circumstance. The way I’m reacting to the SAME action is different.

And so it is with you and your friends.

Consider that we all want what’s best for ourselves, that we’re all coming from different perspectives. No candidate is actually a demon or a devil, and their supporters aren’t idiots or fools, but we may have different concerns and priorities. In a democracy, we expect that government exists as a way for people to find the middle ground that still propels us forward as a country, that solves problems in a way that maximizes the greatest good, for now or for the future.

Finding that middle ground can be messy.

Fortunately government is designed to accommodate the mess.

We all complain about the slowness of government, but imagine what a mess a new elected official could create if government always acted rapidly. The deliberateness of government prevents a single individual from screwing things up too much, yielding time for challenges to be identified and solved before they become problems. If we want a government that encourages many people to be involved, and we do, we need it to have the ability to accommodate people who are new to it and who may accidentally cause problems.

We also find that our government tacks back and forth from left to right in successive administrations, depending on which party is in power, frustrating one group and then frustrating the other. But on average, taking a long view, that enables our country to find a middle path that accommodates more perspectives.

This is how it should be, isn’t it? In a government for all the people.

But in order to get things done, it requires us to talk with each other.

This election cycle, we all seem to have become so sure of our facts. I heard it on the news! My friends all agree with me! That article says so!

But consider the source. That news site you’re reading probably pays its bills through advertising, so it needs to maximize views. Could it be exaggerating in order to get you to read, to click? How do you know if what you are reading is the truth, or a stretch of the truth, or actually not true at all? With each site echoing the others in its universe (again, see the WSJ site above), it can be very hard to discern.

So go to the facts if you can. Go to original sources. Don’t believe the hype.

But wait, I know that you’re busy. I’M busy. Who has time for that?

There are sites which are devoted to fact checking. Some of them are quite good. But I hear what you’re thinking: how do I know if THEY are telling the truth?

Then I ask you to keep Occam’s Razor in mind: life typically favors the simple solution, not the complex one. So if you think the other candidate is evil, lying and scheming — perhaps in reality they are just making mistakes and trying to cover them up. But I head that candidate is a horrible person! Wait, says who? Could it be that the site you’re reading about them which says how horrible they are is exaggerating in order to get your ad impressions? Could it be that people are deliberately trying to make you upset, for their own benefit?

How can you know?

We all must talk to each other. Through conversations you will find people that you disagree with, and can then find middle ground. That’s what life is about. It’s how we move forward: in our families, in our local communities, and in our government. Government doesn’t work without having conversations.

We may disagree with each other, but we don’t have to be disagreeable. In fact being disagreeable frequently ENDS the conversation. America is founded on the idea of “out of many, one.” It’s not “he who talks last or loudest, wins.” We historically celebrate our differences, those things which make us unique, and enjoy our shared humanity. Why is that so different this election season?

Let’s not lose that which makes America so great. Talk with your friends, especially the ones you disagree with. Reach out to one of them today. Learn from each other. And then vote.