The Real Divide Isn’t Left and Right

Why the fight is vertical, not horizontal… and what we can do about it.

What if the fight isn’t between Republicans and Democrats, but between those clinging to control and those just trying to survive?

This week’s piece isn’t about defending a side. It’s about exposing the game. How we’ve been baited into fighting each other while the powerful keep cashing in. It’s a story of rage, shame, survival, and the systems that profit off our division.

But more than that, it’s a story of hope. Of descent instead of domination. Of solidarity instead of supremacy. Of the kind of shared ground that could actually heal us ... if we’re brave enough to stand on it.

If you’ve ever looked around and thought, this can’t be the best we can do, this one’s for you.

Watch or Listen

The Full Story

The comments section in my social media feeds has been something else lately:

“You’re full of ...”

… well, you know.

“Liar.”

“The left have no argument about anything they support.”

The line, “You’re an idiot,” followed by a laughing emoji.

I’ve even been called an Edomite, a slur from someone I assume is Jewish because I offered an interpretation of the Hebrew Bible through the lens of Jesus.

Yes, those are real comments I’ve received. Not because I said something outrageous. Not because I called anyone a name. But because I’ve told stories about immigration, a vision of Jesus pulled from the pages of Scripture, and of course, Donald Trump.

The end goal of all these stories? They’re not shouting partisanship, rather they all center on ideas about staying human in a world that’s perpetually assaulting our humanity. These are comments that come as I invite people to move from shame to embrace, from performance to authenticity, from exploitation to solidarity, and from consumption to re-creation.

What’s Behind the Comments?

Now I could write the comments off as trolls, bots, or partisan noise. But here’s the thing: I don’t think the problem is just trolls. I think the problem is much deeper. I think it’s spiritual. Emotional. Structural. And I think it lives in all of us.

Because this isn’t really about immigration. This isn’t about ICE or Democrats or Republicans or politics or even faith. This is about the stories we’ve been told to believe. Stories that keep us isolated, angry, and suspicious of one another. Stories that divide working people while the powerful keep their power.

You see, we’ve been conditioned to think the fight is between right and left. Red and blue. But that’s not the real line. The real line is vertical. It’s not right vs. left, it’s up-down. It’s about systems built to protect wealth and control, and the people trying to survive in the systems shadow, many of whom, at the end of the day, just want to live a decent life.

And here’s what makes it worse: when those systems fail, when healthcare breaks down, or wages don’t keep up, or housing gets snapped up by Wall Street, we don’t get angry at the people at the top. We turn on each other. We call each other names. We write each other off. We burn the bridges we need to cross.

And so this week, I want to tell a story about what it means to find common ground in a climate like this: where every disagreement feels like a betrayal and the loudest voices are the most divisive. Because I believe something different is possible. And not just possible, but necessary. At least if we want to stay human.

How Did We Get Here?

Perhaps the first question we need to ask is, “How did we get here?” How did a nation whose motto is, “Out of many, one.” find itself so divided that conversations of a second Civil War don’t feel particularly outlandish?

It’s not something that just happened overnight. Nor is it something rooted in our individual responses to the world as we see it. In other words, we don’t just have a rage problem in this country. We have a rage industry.

An entire ecosystem of algorithms, media outlets, political operatives, and think tanks, many of which are funded by billionaires and business lobbies, designed to keep us angry. Not at them. At each other. And this isn’t some new development. This machine has been under construction for decades.

The Powell Memo

Back in 1971, Lewis Powell, who would go on to sit on the Supreme Court, wrote a memo to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In it, he warned that corporate America was under attack. Not by weapons or mobs, but by ideas. Ideas rooted in the movements of the time: environmental protection, labor rights, civil rights, women’s liberation.

These weren’t calls to destroy capitalism. They were calls to expand the benefits of democracy to everyone. But to business leaders, they represented a threat. Because for nearly four decades, corporate power had been restrained. Since the New Deal, the government had played a much more active role in regulating markets, protecting workers, and redistributing opportunity. What Powell feared wasn’t chaos. What he feared was that everyday people might actually be winning.

So he offered a plan: build a media and academic infrastructure to reshape how the public sees business and power. Use think tanks, well-funded university programs, political candidates, and media pundits to promote the idea that what’s good for business is good for everyone. That memo helped launch institutions like the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the Federalist Society, and others that reshaped the political and legal landscape.

And it worked. Not just because of legislation or court rulings, but because they told a better story. A story designed to keep us afraid of each other instead of afraid of unchecked power. That’s how rage became profitable. It became televised. Sponsored. Clickbaited.

The Media and Manufactured Consent

Which brings us to Noam Chomsky’s idea of “manufactured consent.” In other words: you don’t need to censor people when you can control what they talk about. And so the media doesn’t need to lie outright. It just needs to frame the world in such a way that war, inequality, and corporate rule seem natural.

And anyone who questions that narrative? Dangerous. Unpatriotic. Irrational. Socialist. Communist. “Woke.” This is not a conspiracy. It’s just … marketing. With billions of dollars behind it.

And the human cost is that we lose sight of one another. We start seeing each other not as neighbors but as enemies. Not as fellow workers, but as freeloaders. Not as allies in struggle, but as threats to our way of life.

Division Remixed

But this tactic of the corporate class dividing working people isn’t new. The rage machine is just the latest upgrade.

Back in the late 1800s, during the rise of American industry, factory owners were terrified of one thing: solidarity. So they pitted workers against one another. They offered certain immigrant groups (Italians, Irish, Slavs) the status of “whiteness,” just enough privilege to make them feel like they had more in common with the bosses than with their Black and brown co-workers.

They were still poor. Still exploited. But now, they were “better than.” Whiteness became the bribe. The illusion of belonging. And it worked. Labor movements fractured. Class warfare was recast as racial resentment. And the people in power laughed all the way to the bank.

So if it feels like this whole thing is rigged to keep us divided, that’s because it is.

When blue states threaten to withhold tax dollars from red states in retaliation, that’s not a solution. That’s just a Liberal clap back remix of the same divisive logic. When someone calls a Trump supporter “garbage” just for existing, or someone calls a young trans kid a slur because they don’t uphold gender norms, that’s the rage machine doing its job.

And it’s working. Because we’re angry. We’re exhausted. We’re scared. And instead of reaching for each other, we think our fellow worker is the problem and we lash out.

But what if the real betrayal isn’t disagreeing with someone on immigration, or gender, or who they voted for? What if the real betrayal is believing the lie that they’re the enemy even though it’s the systems keeping you both stuck that hold all the cards?

Facing the Rage Machine

What if the most radical act you could do is refuse to take the bait? Because the rage machine doesn’t need your agreement. It just needs your participation.

And despite another comment thread this week at insisted that white people are inherently violent, which was a strange addition to a post featuring a white guy speaking against exploitation, I don’t think anybody is born hateful. Nor does anyone just wake up one day thinking, I want to destroy my neighbor.

But what happens when you spend decades working hard and the world still tells you you’re falling behind? What happens when the house gets more expensive, the job gets more demanding, the town empties out, and the future starts to look like a threat instead of a promise? What happens when your story, about what it means to be a good man, a good woman, a good American, or a good Christian, starts to unravel?

That’s where the wound lives. And that’s where the rage begins.

The Lie We Were Sold

We were told, starting in the 1980s, that what’s good for business is good for all of us. That if we made the economy more “efficient,” if we gave corporations more freedom, if we cut taxes at the top and deregulated industry, the benefits would “trickle down.” That was the promise. And it was a lie.

Because what actually happened is that wages stagnated. Pensions disappeared. Healthcare costs skyrocketed. Communities got hollowed out. And wealth, unimaginable wealth, moved upward and out of reach.

The social contract wasn’t just broken. It was shredded. And in its place, we got slogans. Sound bites. Side-taking. Culture war. Anything to distract us from asking who profited when the ladder got pulled up.

A Deeper Struggle

But beneath all that, beneath the rage, the memes, the tribalism, the contempt, there’s something else still pulsing: Fear. And shame. Shame says, You’re not enough. Fear says, You’ll never be seen as enough. And together, they drive a relentless search for some system, some belief, some identity that will make us feel whole again.

For some, that looks like clinging to whiteness, nationalism, or religion weaponized for control. For others, it looks like career addiction, moral superiority, or burning bridges to stay safe. But it’s the same story underneath. I want to be enough. I want to be safe. I want to belong. And that’s what makes this moment so combustible.

Because when people feel like the world doesn’t see them, when they feel small, forgotten, powerless, they start looking for enemies. Not because they’re evil, but because their nervous systems are hijacked. Their identities are crumbling.

And your invitation to empathy, or equity, or grace? It feels like a threat. It sounds like you’re saying they don’t matter. And so they strike back.

Shame and Fear at the Top

But here’s what’s so often missed: That same shame and fear, the ones driving so much lashing out, also live in the hearts of the exploiters. In the boardrooms. In the lobbyist class. In the people building the rage machine itself.

Shame isn’t just a tool used against the oppressed. It’s the engine that powers those who oppress. Because if you believe you are what you produce, what you earn, what you control, then your whole identity is built on never falling behind. Never looking soft. Never admitting you’re scared.

So the cruelty isn’t random. It’s armor. Beneath the rage is the wound. And beneath the wound is the hunger. The hunger to be enough. To be known. To be loved.

Telling a Different Story

And that’s where this turns. Because if rage has become the currency of our age, what does it look like to stop spending it? What happens when we stop trying to win the war of opinions and start healing the wounds underneath?

You see, while the story that dominates our world says you have to climb higher. Shout louder. Win bigger. There is another story. One rooted not in conquest, but in descent. The mythology of a God who by all our earthly measures had every right to dominate, but instead chose solidarity. Chose embodiment. Chose to be human. And maybe, just maybe, that story, whether we embrace it as truth or metaphor, has something to teach us about how we find our way forward.

Oddly, in theory, this story links to the one that shaped much of Western imagination. Although, it’s often been distorted and contorted into a story of conquest. But the actual story, the true story, the story when stripped clean of all the abuses, begins with descent. Not domination, but incarnation. Not a God demanding allegiance from above, but one who slips into vulnerability from below. Who does not win by overpowering enemies, but by refusing to play the game at all.

In Philippians 2, there is an old poetic hymn the early church used to sing. It tells of Jesus, who “did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage, but emptied himself.” It is a line that haunts me. Because in a world obsessed with winning, where every comment section is a battlefield and every difference is a threat, what kind of story tells us that the path to life starts with letting go?

Not just letting go of privilege or power, but of the need to prove yourself. Of the compulsion to be right. Of the fear that if you do not win, you will disappear.

That is the move Jesus makes. He goes downward. Into humanity. Into poverty. Into the margins. He does it not as a detour, but as the very shape of love.

Solidarity Not Passivity

This is not a story about avoiding conflict. It is not a passive call to “just be nice” or “agree to disagree.” It is a story that exposes the machinery of domination in religion, politics, and economics, and says: this is not the way.

Because at the heart of staying human is not superiority. It is solidarity.

Solidarity with the wounded. Solidarity with the misrepresented. Solidarity with those on the other side of the political fence, not to appease them, but because they too are human. And that is the scandal.

Grace does not come for the righteous. It comes for the raging. For the lost. For the scapegoated and the scapegoaters alike.

It refuses to divide the world into clean and unclean. It looks at every broken heart and says, You still belong. Even if you have been part of the harm. Even if your fear turned violent. Even if your story was used as a weapon.

Belonging is not the same as endorsing. It is not an excuse to avoid accountability. It is a declaration that no one has to stay trapped in the story they were given. Because there is another story. And the only way into it is down.

Not in shame, but in humility. Not in fear, but in shared flesh. Not as conquerors, but as co-sufferers. That is what descent means.

It means we stop pretending that people who voted differently are monsters. We stop pretending that safety comes from winning the argument. We stop pretending that dignity is something earned instead of something intrinsic.

Descent is the story of a God who stepped into the dirt to show us how to love again. And maybe that is where common ground begins.

Solidarity Not Submission

That said, descent is not surrender. Solidarity is not submission. To stay human in the face of dehumanizing systems is not to lie down and take it. It is to rise up in the full force of your sacred worth and say, no more.

Jesus says, “If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to them the other also.” At first glance, it sounds like a call to passivity. But dig deeper, and you’ll find something radical.

In Jesus’ culture, a strike to the right cheek would have been a backhand, the way a superior struck an inferior. The left hand was reserved for sanitary purposes, so the only hand you could hit with is your right. You don’t punch someone on the right cheek with your right hand. You backhand them. It was the slap of domination. The reinforcement of hierarchy.

And turning the other cheek? That wasn’t submission. That was resistance. Because now the one doing the striking has a choice: Disgrace themselves by using the unclean left hand, or punch you with the kind of blow reserved for equals. Either way, your act of turning reclaims your dignity. You demand to be seen. Not as a victim. Not as a pawn. Not as a scapegoat. But as human.

Solidarity Not “Getting Along”

And that is the heart of true solidarity: not the erasure of difference, not a kumbaya we-all-agree-now myth, but the refusal to play by the logic of domination. It names harm. It demands repair. It insists on dignity for the exploited andaccountability for the exploiters.

We cannot pray alongside those who build the rage machine without also calling them to dismantle it. We cannot talk about grace if it leaves oppressive power untouched. We cannot settle for being tolerated when we were made to be honored. Common ground is not middle ground. It is sacred ground. It is the space where every person’s humanity is upheld, where wounds are acknowledged, and where power is rebalanced in the name of healing.

That’s what Jesus did. He didn’t just come to offer comfort. He came to confront systems that devalued the image of God in others. And he did it by entering the very flesh they tried to crush.

Because common ground isn’t found by ignoring pain. It’s found by tending to it, together. That means crossing the lines we’ve been taught to guard. Not in a gesture of niceness, but in a radical act of mutual liberation.

Enacting Solidarity

And that begins, not by asking what will benefit the already powerful, but by asking: Who is hurting most? Who is most exploited? And how do we design a world where their flourishing becomes our shared foundation? This is where solidarity becomes public. Not just a feeling, but a policy. Not just a posture, but a plan.

One of the most powerful ways to live that out is through universal programs. Not means-tested scraps or partisan handouts, but expansive policies that lift everyone by first lifting those at the bottom.

Think about it: If a healthcare system works for those who are uninsured, unhoused, or disabled, it will work for you. If housing policy protects the most vulnerable renters, it will create stability for the middle class, too. If income support keeps a single mother afloat, it cushions your fall when the market crashes.

That’s the beauty of what theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez called the “preferential option for the poor.” It’s not exclusionary. It’s the foundation of a society where no one falls through the cracks. Because when you build for the margins, everyone finds a place to stand.

Even some economic conservatives have recognized this. Milton Friedman, a pillar of free-market thought, proposed what he called a negative income tax: Instead of complicated welfare bureaucracies, guarantee a minimum income for every citizen. If they don’t earn that amount in a given year, at tax time, they get a refund to bring them to that income level. As people earn more, the supplement gradually phases out. It was, in many ways, an early version of universal basic income. Simple. Dignifying. Efficient. And quietly redistributive, not in rhetoric, but in result.

Why does that matter? Because when we talk about staying human, we’re not just talking about how we treat one another in conversation. We’re talking about how we structure the world. A world where food, housing, healthcare, and rest are not rewards for winning capitalism, but basic rights of being alive.

Where worth isn’t measured by productivity, but by breath. By belovedness. By the simple, sacred fact that you exist.

That kind of world cannot be built by one party or ideology. It can only be built when we stop seeing compassion as weakness, justice as partisan, and shared dignity as some fringe fantasy.

We have to stop fighting each other and start fighting for each other. It’s the only way for us to stay human.

Practices To Counter Fear and Shame

This week I am offering three practices that will help you counter fear and shame. Whether your day only allows for a 60-second reclamation reflection, your week a one-hour resistance ritual, or you find yourself ready for a full on rebellion against a world that assaults your humanity, I have something for you.