Editorial of August 20, 2026
It Takes a Village…But We Have To Be Willing Participants
Recently, we’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be left, right, red, blue, moderate, independent, and—ultimately—what it means to be Americans living under the same flag but at odds with one another.
For us, being proud to be an American doesn’t mean we agree with everything happening in this country, or that we condone every part of our nation’s history. It doesn’t mean we’re blind to the stories that have been neglected or pushed aside to fit someone’s agenda. What it means is that we value the ability to sit in a restaurant, walk through a park, or show up to a community event surrounded by people of every creed, religion, gender and identity. That diversity is something we love deeply.
We also love the ability to sit down with people from completely different walks of life and have hard, honest conversations, even when we disagree with them every step of the way. Some of the best conversations we’ve ever had were with people whose views are nowhere near our own. People we’ve disagreed with—politically, economically, and socially—are still people we care about. They’re part of our community. These aren’t just acquaintances; they’re family in the broader sense of the word. Disagreement doesn’t erase connection.
What we’ve learned is that we’re often not as different as we think. We may believe in different paths, but many of us share the same end goals: safety, stability, opportunity, dignity. When we actually sit down and talk, we start to see those similarities. And that matters, because it truly takes a village to make change. If we cut out half the population simply because we disagree politically, we lose half the ideas, half the perspectives and half the solutions.
A quote from Marcus Aurelius echoes this same belief. “We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural.”
We shouldn’t be fighting with our neighbors—the same neighbors who lend us eggs, watch our kids when we’re sick, or show up when we’re hurt. Community is built on care, not division. We’ve lost too much of that in this country, and we need it back. The heart of bipartisan conversation—real cooperation, real listening, real compromise—is where progress begins. When we invite people in, when we really get to know those already living beside us, we create shared spaces where conversations can happen without anger, bias or influence.
At the end of the day, it takes a village. And we’re still that village—but only if we choose to be.
