Ever since Marjorie Taylor Greene broached the idea of a “national divorce,” it’s become a hot-button topic. Liberals claim she’s attempting to foment an actual civil war, while at least some conservatives seem to have given the idea a serious look because of the fractured nature of the American political landscape. Over at PJ Media, Stephen Kruiser confesses to having gone back and forth on the subject. But now, his pendulum seems to have swung in Greene’s direction, dejectedly noting that the current chasm may simply be too large to bridge. In a moment, I’ll offer a slightly more hopeful perspective.

Ever since my favorite loose cannon Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) mentioned a “national divorce,” many have speculated about what that might look like, or if it’s even possible. I go back and forth between thinking that we’re perilously close to it and that we’re in the middle of it now. I did a podcast at the beginning of the month saying that we’ve already had it so, yeah, I’m all over the place on the subject. One thing is certain: the Democrats are determined to make sure that our differences are irreconcilable.

I’ve spent most of my adult life in the entertainment industry, surrounded by my political opposites. For decades, we always found a way to make that work. Now when I look at American leftists, it doesn’t feel as if we’re living in the same country. I know I haven’t changed, politically, anyway. This is all on them.

Just looking around at what’s going on here early in the week, the news is full of evidence that there is a chasm between right and left in America that’s growing and more than likely has reached a size that can’t be bridged.

I can’t blame Stephen for holding that sort of perspective because I frequently have to grab myself by the collar and pull myself back from the brink. It’s true that a quick browse through the day’s headlines will provide any number of examples of how the left and right are at each other’s throats, sometimes in a literal fashion. And any day when Donald Trump’s name is in the news, more gasoline is dumped on that fire.

But that’s when I remind myself that I’m talking about media headlines and my job forces me to wade through that swamp pretty much seven days per week. When I’m not writing about it, I’m reading about it or watching opinion journalism TV shows or podcasts. The same is true for Kruiser and the rest of us in this business. Lots of other people who aren’t in the political media consume this content all day long. And when that sort of “infotainment” is being constantly mainlined into you, it’s easy to feel like the end is near.

But that’s when I have to remind myself that we represent an incredibly tiny portion of the total population. How many people tune in to watch Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity on any given night? Three million or so? How about CNN’s primetime lineup? Half of that if they’re lucky. Add in the remaining people watching MSNBC and you’ve got perhaps five or six million people in a country of 331 million people, more than 260 million of whom are adults.

I walk around my neighborhood pretty much every day when the weather is good enough to walk our dog. My next-door neighbors to my left are a younger, gay, male couple. They’re open about being Democrats and they’re two of the nicest guys you would ever want to meet, and they frequently help my wife and I when we need a hand with something. The people across the street from them are a retired Black couple, also some of the sweetest people you can imagine. My neighbor on the other side is disabled and struggles with being somewhere “on the spectrum.” We talk virtually every day. And all of us almost never talk about politics except at the local level. When we do, it never turns into a fight. The neighborhood is full of conservatives, liberals, and political agnostics. It’s a suburban cross-section of America. And it’s absolutely nothing like the howling and spitball contests we see playing out in Washington, on cable news shows, and on social media. Nothing. At. All. Like. It.

The reason that the beltway and political social media platforms are so much worse is that the loudest voices on both sides of the political divide are the ones that drive our two-party system in general and our primary elections in particular. Why do you think Donald Trump is polling so much better than Nikki Haley? Why do you imagine the leftist scolds from the far left like Elizabeth Warren and the members of The Squad draw all the headlines and carry so much influence while the old breed of moderate and even pro-life Democrats are all but extinct? It’s because those are the people who burn the torches the most brightly and attract the most campaign donations.

“You think we should have some reasonable limits on abortion? Hold my beer. I’m proposing the death penalty for abortion providers!”

“Your answer to mass shootings is a restriction on magazine capacity? Step off, Jack! I’m going to confiscate every legally owned gun in the damned country!”

The more we allow ourselves to be convinced that the only solutions are the most extreme choices because they drive “the other side” nuts, the more we ensure that we’ll be getting more extreme actors and ideas. So it’s totally fair to say that the political sector is nearing the point of a civil war or national divorce. But most people are not stocking up on ammunition or consulting an attorney about a separation. They’re out there living their lives. And I highly doubt that more than a fraction of them will sign up for either of those options. Or at least I have to allow myself to believe that they wouldn’t.