Red, Blue and the Walls Between Us

A Facebook friend recently responded to one of my posts with a comment that stopped me in my tracks. Her words carried the raging voice of a divided nation: red states versus blue states, with red painted as poorer, less educated, and more dependent on government assistance. The post itself was about blue states withholding funding from the federal government to “pay back” the red team for cutting funds to blue states. My immediate reaction was simple: all that strategy would do is hurt people.

It was the familiar us-versus-them story. And for a moment, I felt it pull at me—the urge to argue, defend, separate. But instead of shutting me down, it gave me food for thought. Because the truth is, this is the spell we’ve all been under: a cycle of political fighting that forgets we are all in this together. We will either rise together or fall together.

The Pendulum Trap

Our politics has become a bipolar pendulum, swinging right to left, Republican to Democrat, conservative to liberal. It keeps us dizzy and reactive. And who benefits? Ego-driven leaders who exploit division, redraw districts, and pass one-sided policies that serve their base, not the greater good. These policies protect their grip on power rather than serve effectively.

The pendulum feeds on outrage. It thrives on red vs. blue, us vs. them. And the longer we stay under its spell, the more exhausted, resentful, and fractured we become.

Good People, Bad Spells

Here’s what I know: most people, regardless of where they live or how they vote, want the same things. To be treated with dignity. To be respected. To be heard. To be understood.

But when we get swept up in the pendulum, we forget that. We become good people trapped under bad spells—corporate spells, political spells, even personal spells that tell us our worth depends on choosing a side and defending it at all costs.

I know, because I’ve been there. When I resigned from my last corporate job in 2020, just before the pandemic hit, I realized how much of my identity had been tied up in spells: performance metrics, office politics, even the unspoken rules about what could and couldn’t be said. It was suffocating.

When I finally resigned, I was a “loud quitter.” Years of bottled-up resentment came out in a flurry of words—some necessary, though not always delivered gracefully. But even that messy exit was a form of freedom. It was me breaking through the illusion that silence and compliance would keep me safe.

The Walls We Keep Building

But walls aren’t only political or professional. They’re deeply personal. I’ve lived behind them myself.

After my bipolar diagnosis in 2003, shame became a wall I built around me. I shielded myself because I didn’t want people to see the cracks. The “I’m okay” wall is one so many of us carry, smiling on the outside while inside nothing is quiet on the western front. Those walls may protect us for a time, but they also keep joy out.

Families build walls, too. We avoid the hard conversations. We say “don’t rock the boat” when the truth is aching to surface. These silent walls whisper: don’t bring that up, don’t show that side of yourself, don’t make things uncomfortable.

But the longer we keep silent, the thicker the walls become. They protect ego, not love. And in protecting ego, they cost us connection, healing, and hope.

The reality is that we all run the risk of hitting our breaking point. Nervous systems can only take so much before they fray. A psychotic break, a nervous breakdown—these are not signs of weakness but reminders of our humanity. When society piles walls of silence, stigma, and shame on top of already heavy loads, it’s no wonder so many collapse under the weight.

Breaking the Spell

And yet, walls are not permanent. History shows they fall. Berlin. Jericho. Even the walls we build around our own hearts. But they don’t fall by accident. They fall when we name the illusion, face the wound, and choose love over ego.

The Middle Way

So here’s my question: What if the real act of rebellion in America right now isn’t to push the pendulum harder, but to step off it entirely? What if the way forward isn’t building higher walls, but breaking them down?

This is what I mean by the Middle Way. Not middle as in lukewarm or indecisive. Middle as in balanced. Rooted. Clear. A place where dignity and respect are non-negotiable, and where “we” finally means all of us.

Closing

The next time you feel the tug of us versus them, pause. Notice the pendulum. Notice the walls—political, professional, or personal. And then ask yourself: Who benefits from this spell?

It’s not you.
It’s not me.
It’s not us.

America doesn’t heal by choosing sides. It heals when we remember that the walls between us—between parties, between families, between past and present—were never meant to be built, and they were never meant to last.