There's a new default setting in American life, and it isn't hope. It's opposition. Ask a neighbor what they're for and watch them stall. Ask what they're against and the floodgates open. Against the new development. Against the school board. Against the guy who revved his truck at 6 a.m. Against the app, the chain store, the candidate, the trend, the neighbor's political sign.
We have become a nation defined by what we reject, and it is quietly hollowing out the ties that hold us together.
The numbers tell a story we'd rather not read. Trust in major institutions—government, media, churches, schools—has been sliding for decades, and the slide has become a freefall. But something subtler is happening too. We're not just distrustful of institutions. We're suspicious of each other. The person bagging groceries, the parent on the PTA, the driver merging in traffic—everyone is a potential adversary, a moral failure, a member of the other team. We've traded community for commentary, potlucks for posts, handshakes for hashtags.
Consider what "against" has done to daily American life. It has turned the grocery store into a battlefield of silent judgment. It has made Thanksgiving a minefield and the cul-de-sac a cold war. It has convinced us that the stranger next door is not a neighbor but a representative of everything wrong with the country. And it has made us exhausting company—to others, and to ourselves.
The irony is sharp. We say we want connection, yet we curate our lives around conflict. Algorithms reward outrage, so outrage is what we get, and outrage is what we become. We don't debate anymore; we indict. We don't persuade; we punish. We don't build; we boycott. Every disagreement becomes a disqualification, every misstep a moral verdict. We have weaponized our values and forgotten how to live them.
This isn't about policy. Reasonable people can disagree on taxes, zoning, and school curricula. This is about a posture—a way of moving through the world with your guard up and your heart closed. It's the difference between saying "I disagree with you" and "You are the problem." One invites conversation. The other ends it before it begins.
And the cost is mounting. Loneliness is now a public health crisis, with the surgeon general warning that isolation carries risks as deadly as smoking. Civic participation is down. Volunteerism is down. Even simple neighborliness—borrowing a ladder, waving at a mailbox—has become awkward, as if kindness were a political statement. We are surrounded by people and starved for belonging.
What would it take to reverse course? Not a grand movement. Just a small rebellion against the reflex. The next time you feel the familiar surge of opposition, pause. Ask what you're actually for. Ask whether the person across from you is an enemy or just a fellow traveler having a bad day. Ask whether being right is worth being alone.
We don't need to agree on everything. We never will. But we can stop treating every disagreement as a declaration of war. We can choose to be for something—decency, patience, the modest hope that the person next door is not the enemy. That's not naive. It's survival.
**The closing word:** A society that defines itself entirely by what it opposes will eventually oppose itself. We are not each other's problem—we are each other's only solution. It's time to be for something again, before there's nothing left to be for.