I’m tired of the opposition. Not tired of disagreement. Not tired of elections or civic debate. I’m tired of the fallout—the damage that has gone far beyond which party wins or loses at the ballot box.
Many of us have watched longtime friends drift away, not because of something personal, but because politics now dictates who is safe to know. What was once a discussion has hardened into a division. Politics today feels less like a shared responsibility and more like being a Chicago Bears fan: loyalty first, reflection second, and criticism treated as betrayal.
The arguments have worn us down. Fifteen years ago, there was a sense—perhaps imperfect, but real—that engagement was improving. People were willing to speak up when something wasn’t right. There was still room to say, “That crossed a line,” without being accused of switching sides. Accountability mattered more than allegiance.
Then came a few election cycles that changed everything. Dissent spread like wildfire, moving well beyond candidates, platforms, and policies. Politics became a team sport. The face paint and hats—once reserved for rivalries on fall Sundays—found their way into everyday life. Yard signs became warning labels. A neighbor was no longer a neighbor if the sign out front was “wrong.” Friendship narrowed into ideological sameness.
In Idaho, this shift is cracking our communities at the seams. Thanks to two tax cuts for the top earners, we have a budget deficit when, just two years ago, we had a surplus. Our education system is constantly an ideological tug-of-war, where kids and their education have taken a back seat. It’s becoming harder to see a path toward a brighter future when that future is reserved only for those who think the same way or belong to the “correct” group. And that group isn’t large—it’s simply a newly realized divide between the haves and the have-nots of belonging.
The Idaho I grew up in focused on well-being, community, and protecting our land. That Idaho is slipping away. Idaho has long prided itself on community—on helping neighbors regardless of politics, on raising families who understood responsibility alongside independence. We didn’t need uniformity to function. We needed trust.
We must find our way back to civility and community. A new year is upon us, and none of us needs permission to start repairing what has been strained. We can begin with small, intentional acts: sharing cheer, offering grace, extending the goodwill that this season is meant to remind us of. We can be a community where our neighbors don’t go hungry. We can be a state where our kids receive a quality education regardless of where they live or what their parents believe.
We can disagree without dehumanizing. We can care without qualifying it by party. We can choose community over constant conflict. We can be more focused on the gathering than on which team is winning. We can welcome each other back into the parts of our lives that really matter and listen, rather than win. We can be the Idaho we once were—if we decide that belonging matters more than winning.