It’s a strange thing, isn’t it? How people can look up at the same sky and see different things. One man looks up and sees a vast, endless blue, a reminder of possibilities. Another sees the storm clouds rolling in, a warning. And yet, there’s always that third person—the one who insists the sky is only what they say it is. And if you disagree? Well, you must be blind.

That’s tribalism at its nastiest. It’s not enough for some folks to have their own truth—they need it to be the truth, the only truth. Dissent is not just disagreement, it’s betrayal. It’s dangerous. And if you let it fester, if you let it spread, well then, where does it end? Better to shut it down. Silence it. Cut out the infection before it spreads.

But here’s the thing—democracy isn’t about silence. It’s not about a single idea marching in lockstep across a nation. That’s not freedom, that’s control. And history tells us where that road leads.

Democracy, real democracy, is messy. It’s loud. It’s a room full of voices, some brilliant, some absurd, all clamoring for space. It’s arguments over kitchen tables, debates in town halls, the hum of discussion on front porches and subway platforms. It’s opposing ideas slamming into each other like waves on the shore, shaping the land, carving out something new.

That’s what the Founding Fathers understood. That’s why the First Amendment exists—not just to protect the speech we agree with, but especially the speech we don’t. The uncomfortable, the radical, the downright offensive. Because the moment we start deciding which voices matter and which don’t, we stop being a democracy.

So who am I to tell someone their opinion doesn’t count? No one. But who am I to challenge them, to question, to push back? An American. And that might just be the most democratic thing of all.