Much of what drives the conversation in my mind around philosophy and modern politics comes indirectly from an obsession with the Simpsons many years ago. I don't even watch television anymore, but during my formative years, through college and a little bit beyond, I was a steadfast watcher of the Simpsons, and when I worked for Fox IT in the early years of my career as a software engineer, I bought the first 10 seasons on DVD at the commissary. I have not watched much beyond that 10th season, which is what I would consider to be its golden age.

At its best, that show was truly a mirror of American lifestyle and pop culture, because it did not pull punches and was bold enough to make politico-cultural predictions, many of which have come true over the years. One of those concepts that has stayed with me is "the guy who doesn't live there," which is a measuring stick that I use to uncover what I consider to be meaningless frustration. It's a question of perspective, and framing, and it showcases a tendency that is either simply human, or perhaps decidedly American: which is that of finding perceived enemies against a backdrop of manufactured victimhood.

The Guy Who Doesn't Live There

So let me back up a little bit. The set-up is pretty simple. On one episode, ex-President Gerald Ford moves across the street, as he and Homer have a short-lived, yet endearing friendship ("Two Bad Neighbors," 1996). This is after both Homer and Bart have a full out brawl with previous neighbor, George Bush senior, but that's not particularly relevant to this essay. The moment I'm talking about happens right after George HW moves out, & just before Ford moves in. After we see a montage of the Bush family leaving, and the house stays empty for a while, we see Homer shaking his fist at the empty house. His wife, Marge, asks him what he's doing.

Marge: who are you mad at, Homer?

Homer: the guy who doesn't live there!

And for whatever reason, that very short interaction has stayed with me for decades. And this is because, to me, it perfectly encapsulates the sort of lazy thinking, victimization, and oversimplification that drives much of modern discourse around perceived conflict. I am not the first to see Homer as a sort of everyman, whose trials and tribulations are meant to model the universal 'ups and downs' of middle-class life, and in this case, Homer feels self-conscious. His feelings are hurt because it appears to him that no one wants to live next door. So instead of having an honest conversation with his family about that, something that would no doubt take some effort and force him to be vulnerable about his feelings, he instead paints himself as a victim, and creates a sort of straw man enemy. He's directing his anger at a thing that doesn't exist. It's the definition of pointlessness.

To this day, in the back of my mind, when I feel frustrated, or I want to be angry at someone or something, I always ask myself: am I mad at the guy who doesn't live there? Basically, is there a way to look at this conflict in a way that allows me to resolve it using the powers of communication and ownership, without having to lean on the presence of an enemy? Put another way, am I angry because I just don't want to externalize my own feelings? Have I created an enemy that does not exist, and therefore cannot participate in a conversation? Because to me, if you're going to be angry, you had better make it an anger at or with someone that you can talk to. Make it an anger that has a possibility of resolution. Otherwise it's a waste of energy, and if you hold anger that has no possibility of resolution for too long, truly, you will pay the price for that. Anger always metastasizes into something worse: something that can affect your mind, your body, or both.

Now, there is an anger that I do consciously hold, even though there is no possibility of a resolution. That is the rage I have against a political system that is completely broken. There are other facets to this, which is a media environment that is also completely broken, and a corporate system that thrives on low information and has, by design, absolutely no moral compass. But when I indulge in that sort of anger, I acknowledge that it is a bit self-serving. I can't have a conversation with the president, and the House of Representatives, and Congress. I can't sit down with David Ellison and talk to him about the importance of real, demonstrable truth-telling. I can't have a friendly conversation with Bari Weiss about her hidden agenda. And I certainly can't talk to the Supreme Court about the widespread damage that has been done by the rollback of Roe v. Wade, or the Idaho v. U.S. decision, Citizens United v. FEC, or Trump v. United States. Those doors are closed to me, which is ostensibly why we have a so-called representative democracy. I'm not supposed to have access to those things.

Therefore, it is very easy to just become angry, shake one's fist at the guy who doesn't live there, and call it a day; but that is a closed loop. There is no redemption. That way lies dragons. But on some level, it does feel nice to just be the permanent victim. How dare they, we say. What a shit show this is. If only everyone could see the world the way I do. if everyone was like me, we wouldn't be in this mess. And that may well be true, but in what world is homogeneity the answer? Is that really the preferred outcome, to somehow mould the world into our own image, diversity be damned? I don't agree with that. There is a larger prize to be had. Although the concept of a utopia is a slippery one, to me, it makes sense as an ephemeral goal. It's the logical extension of personal fulfillment. As individuals, we should strive towards the most effective expression of our true selves. This is not meant as a goal that should be completed, rather, the journey is the prize. Similarly, as a society, we should strive towards the most effective expression of our collective identity. We are not meant to get there, per se, as much as we are meant to enjoy the journey that comes with it. At the heart of that concept is collectivism, the simple idea that everyone's personal goals are worth something, and everyone should have a say in how we move forward. That concept, in turn, is one that unlocks the conversation around centrism.

The Myth of Centrism

Of course, centrism arose as a middle-ground between liberalism and conservatism. I don't think this is up for debate. But what that means to me, in a larger sense, is that centrism is a stand-in for the idea of arbitration. Extending this concept of collectivism that I mentioned above, centrism makes sense as a compromise among a large group of individuals. If we accept that any cross-section of individuals will necessarily contain a diverse set of world views, and by extension, a large set of contradictory positions, then it is an attractive concept, perhaps an intoxicating one, that some individual might have the ability to put their mental arms around the collective as a whole, and figure out whose ideas belong inside the circle, and whose don't. But how is this any different than shaking a fist at the guy who doesn't live there? How could we possibly agree, as a collective, on a single arbiter of what is realistic and what isn't? And the final layer to this is that this very sense of frustration is, as they say, a feature - not a bug. We are meant to feel separated. We are pushed via social media algorithms, and a deeply disingenuous media landscape, to feel that only our ideas are the right ones. Often, this is called an echo chamber. To me, it is the destruction of our collective sensibilities.

When every citizen of the United States, one by one, shakes his or her hand at the guy who doesn't live there, when we relegate the raw energy of outrage and rebellion to a void of manufactured victimhood, we cede the power of collective action even as we lose hold of the narrative. The first thing that needs to go is this myth of centrism. Valid centrism can only exist outside the context of a dynamic Overton window. That ship has sailed. This is also known as the ratchet effect. Yesterday's centrist is today's 'antifa'. Today's centrist is lost in a sea of cognitive dissonance. The very notion that there is a common ground between genocide, vampire economics, manufactured consent, and the politics of the 'left' is itself an illusion. These things (genocide, inequality, dishonest media) are decidedly at odds with the road to a healthy world and society. You can have those things, or you can have personal liberty, but not both. We need a new metric for the quantification of progress towards the ideals of liberalism. Like they say in poker, if you don't know who the sucker at the table is, then it's you. This is a unique moment in the evolution of humanity itself: and if, right now, you are advocating for some measured response to the onset of fascism, then you've already lost the plot. Today's hero has a firm grasp on the courage of their convictions.

One thing that has emerged from the truly overwhelming sense of political chaos in this second term of the Trump administration: from the sycophantic support of Israel's genocide, to the rollback of common-sense healthcare funding, to the illegal kidnapping of a sitting head of state, to the indiscriminate murder of innocent civilians on the high seas (because accusation does not equal guilt), and now the unleashing of a modern gestapo on blue state metro areas like the Twin Cities, Portland, Chicago, and New York City, is that many of our citizens have decided to finally get on record in opposition to the madness. To that I say, welcome to the resistance: this is a marathon, not a sprint. I wish I could say I knew where this was going, but the future is not yet written. It's possible that despite all of our best efforts, that we will continue to slide into the serrated lap of fascism. But it's also possible that we will prevail. If we are right to point out that the arc of the universe bends toward justice, then let us not lose sight of the fact that this journey must contain sacrifice. But even that is not enough. We need clarity. Solidarity, even.

A New Model

So, to replace this unfortunate fantasy of centrism, that unfounded equation of being moderate with reasonableness, that attractive, but ultimately flawed idea that finding a 'middle ground' is always the answer, we need to completely upend the concept of in- and out-groups. Because the list of so-called traitors is long and exhaustive. This is why that right-wing meme of a so-called purity test found such traction, because much of it was founded in reality. Political communities on the left are well-known for purging their own, and to what end? For too long, the Democratic party's idea of a 'big tent' was always to reach across the aisle, at the same time that they abjure anyone to the left of their decidedly moderate positions. To wit, even with the ascendance of Zohran Mamdani to the governorship in New York City, an official endorsement never came. These are the same forces that pushed out Bernie Sanders, that pushed out George McGovern a generation prior. To be clear: purity testing against a candidate's platform is necessary; purity testing against a given voting block is political suicide. More wooing, less eschewing: we need to come together, end stop, around the things we believe in.

Intolerance Cannot Be Tolerated

Tolerance itself is an important political vector. This includes the embrace of diversity, lifestyle, and multiculturalism. Privacy is also important here. As long as someone else's rights are not being infringed upon, I see no need for a spotlight on personal habits. We can agree to disagree on number of issues, including things like smoking, eating meat, alcohol consumption, THC, and even personal vehicle choices. Maybe ostracizing Tesla owners was a bad idea. Big tent, people. Keep your eye on the prize. But as was so eloquently pointed out by Karl Popper, intolerance itself cannot be tolerated. That's the one thing that needs swift retribution in the service of an otherwise open continuum. The quality of tolerance is an entrance requirement to the arena of liberal thought.

Honesty

Honesty means there is a price for lying. Honesty means anything that calls itself a news outlet will be vigorously fact checked. Honesty means a return of the equal time rule. It means we hire more moderators. It means we stop pretending like we can't push back against the forces of spam, disinformation, and scorched-earth policy-making. Honesty means the return to a transparent political process, which is the only way to reverse the damage that has been done to public perception around the integrity of corporate media. It means a swift and public death to the scourge of bothsidesism.

Justice

We have to prioritize a return to the rule of law. So much damage has been done already, and so much still hangs in the balance. it's not over yet, but the future is precarious. We cannot abandon the responsibility of bringing all of these perpetrators to justice. Jonathan Ross, who murdered Renee Good in cold blood, and the other ICE personnel that also have blood on their hands for the death of Keith Porter, and so many others, will need to be held to account. Hegseth, Bondi, Noem, Miller. I would say Trump himself, but he's obviously in the end stages of dementia.

Read the Room

Many have come to this conclusion already: sound the alarms. this is not a drill. We are in the midst of a fascist takeover, so act accordingly. Please don't fall in that trap of centrism, or by directing your anger at something that isn't there. Do the things that are tangible: stock up on food. Have a serious talk with your neighbors around security. Get a lawyer on speed dial. If you are able, make it clear that you are available to shelter refugees. We don't know what this is going to look like, but it won't be pretty. All we have is each other, and the good news: that is more than enough. Talk to your local government. Talk to your senators and your Congress people, but don't look away. Be ready to pull out that camera and document what is happening. The world is watching, and we will always remember.