The Open Book, 20th Day of Childwinter, 526 M.E. (Betelgeuse): "Love thy neighbor." Really, even if they voted for the Stable Genius? Three times?  

We're being divided, folks, by politicians, by the media, and by algorithms. White against black, men against women, citizen against immigrant, and right against left. By faith, by language, and by generation. Keep splitting the herd, and neither side will ever have enough numbers to make a difference.

In my life, back in simpler times, I've had a lot of conservative co-workers. Many I genuinely liked and admired, many I even considered to be friends. Back in the 1980s and even well into the 90s, we didn't discuss politics in the workplace, at least not overtly, but one's worldview was still fairly apparent.

Mid-90s talk radio changed some of that, and made culture wars and politics into water cooler fodder. Fox News made it even worse. By 2010, I was having heated arguments with coworkers and even left one company because the political environment was too toxic.

If this country is ever going to effectuate real change, in quality of life, in affordability, in freedom, in lasting international peace, we need to stop the bickering, stop the value judgements, and stop fighting our coworkers, who are trapped in the same jobs and same pay scale as us. A people united, and so on. 

Maybe we see different paths forward, maybe we have different values. But there are still commonalities. Where is the algorithm that focuses on what we have in common? When will politicians go back to building coalitions instead of exploiting grievances and differences? Will a source of facts ever emerge that we can all agree is trustworthy?

I don't have a solution. I'm an old man in the twilight of my life. But I once held progressive values yet still had conservative friends, and my conservative friends had conservative values yet had at least this one progressive friend. Can we ever find a way back to that again?