It wasn’t until a tour of Napa Valley that we ran into an entire bus of people who were on the opposite side of me politically. Once they found out what I did, I expected quite a bit of coldness or anger, but instead, we ended up engaging in very pleasant conversation and even a small bit of friendly debate. We ended up becoming friends with one couple that my wife and I still keep in contact with today.

However, there was one person on that bus who wasn’t so friendly toward me. Once she found out that I was an author on RedState and a frequent guest on OANN, she wouldn’t allow for any other conversation except answering her angry questions and attempting to corner me on some sort of hypocrisy or demand answers for someone else’s ideas or words. Even when the group attempted to move on from politics, she would angrily bring it back around. It got to a point where, annoyed with her, we all excluded her from the post-trip hangout.

Overall, it was a lovely time, but the lesson I pulled from it was of great importance.

Actually, the correct term is “lessons.”

For one, I’d been told by the mainstream media that I was a villain and that everyone else thought so too. I’d seen this reinforced through social media mobs, celebrities, influencers, and more. Yet, there was an entire bus that didn’t necessarily agree with me, yet weren’t unfriendly, angry, or cold. They outnumbered the person who actually was that way 20 to one. When I looked back on that, I realized that despite my knowing that the mainstream media are liars, I had still fallen into their trap of thinking that we were far more divided than we actually are.

Secondly, it was proof positive that even the left is annoyed with the left and that the media is also lying when they attempted to lump in every Democrat voter with Democrats. It was something I had already known, but it’s one thing to read about it and another thing to see in person.

Thirdly, it made brought the world into far more clarity in terms of what is and isn’t real. Dave Chappelle said Twitter isn’t real life and he’s increasingly correct. The media, as I’ve elaborated on ad nauseum, is not the public service they bill themselves as, but a business with a vested in interest in making you watch what they show you and believing it. Both are telling you stories that don’t track with what your eyes are seeing and your ears are hearing when you turn off the television and step out your front door.

The truth is that many Democrats aren’t the AOC, climate alarmist communists the media attempts to say they all are. Many aren’t supportive of cancel culture. Many would like to sit and talk pleasantly about politics with those they disagree with, not in an attempt to have a “gotcha moment” but in order to learn more about the world around them and to satiate curiosity about why others believe what they believe.

And judging by some of the events happening today, many of them are just as thirsty for an end to the division as we on the right are. Be it the 11 million listeners of Joe Rogan’s which consist of both sides of the spectrum, and the bipartisan support for the Candian convoy. There’s common ground to be found.

The worst fear of the radical left is that we find this out as a society and begin talking to each other. Conversation and understanding are the end of the radical left’s divisive narrative and the end of their takeover of mainstream society. With that in mind, the end-game for America isn’t one side totally dominating vs the other (an impossibility without resorting to tyrannical dictatorships) but conversation leading to a demand for a more moderate mainstream. This will push the Overton window back to the right, resulting in a far more moderate, if not slightly right-leaning America, and killing the radical left’s influence over the culture.

America is clearly annoyed with the hard-left and it’s time we walked away, lefties and conservatives, together.