Welcome to Mike in the Middle!

I’m Mike and I hope to discuss issues affecting America and the politics around them.  I’m not here to convince anyone of anything, other than that we’re more alike than different and that understanding “the other side” is more important than “winning.”  I also want to be clear right up front that I’m not an expert in anything, nor do I claim to be.  I’m just an American citizen trying to make heads or tails of the state this country is in.  And I need your help.

Between social media and the diversity and leanings of news outlets today, it is frighteningly easy to construct an ideological bubble around oneself.  It’s harder NOT to live in a bubble these days since everyone instinctively drifts towards the media outlets that promote headlines that are interesting to them.  And everyone, more often than not, naturally surrounds themselves with friends and acquaintances that have similar interests and beliefs.  This is helpful when you are recruiting people for an outing or joining your hobby, but very bad for developing well-informed political ideas.  My personal bubble leans hard left, more left than I am, really.  This means my social network constantly reinforces liberal ideas and viewpoints while dismissing anything even slightly conservative.  This is neither healthy nor helpful.  When everything you hear strongly supports only one side of the political spectrum, it is VERY easy to dehumanize the opposing side.  From the liberal point of view, conservatives are greedy, self-centered, uncaring monsters.  The conservative side is more colorful spawning pejoratives such as “libtard” and “special snowflake.”

And this is the crux of the problem:  According to my bubble, all conservatives must be stupid, uncaring, selfish monsters.  However, I have several good conservative friends whose opinions I respect but are inexplicably not stupid, uncaring, nor selfish.  Not any more than the rest of us, anyway.  So, can my bubble be wrong?  Obviously it is, and the lesson is that politics, like so many other things, is not as black and white as everyone paints it to be.  More specifically, politics, just like every American, isn’t red or blue but varying shades of purple.  I can side with liberals on social issues, but still like some of the conservative ideas on economics.  The only things that are truly polarized in this country are the politicians and the media.  They invented and are maintaining this war between the left and the right and we have few options other than to pick a side.

Well, here I am hoping to find better options.  And it’s up to you more than me.  Can we honestly and sincerely talk politics and the serious issues facing this country without devolving into name-calling and dehumanizing the other side?  I really hope so, because the day when none of us can understand or respect opinions other than our own is the day this country is truly lost.

In the coming weeks, I plan to post short essays on various controversial subjects largely just explaining what I know and what I think it means, and then asking for your input as to what I got wrong and what I missed.  I expect to miss a lot.  I try to get my news from as unbiased a source as possible, but it’s really hard to be certain.  Also, just because a source is biased, doesn’t mean it won’t have a valid and important take on the issue.  Hopefully we can fill in the gaps in each others’ knowledge and distill things down to their core facts.

Please let me know what you think in the comments.  Suggestions on topics to discuss or improvements on this website (it’s my first) are always welcome.

Thanks for your time and opinions,

~Mike