Some political opponents are literally trying to harm you. Trying to pretend otherwise is not just naive, but actively damaging. They are literally passing or trying to pass the laws that are literally harming "me or my close ones" and then celebrate the harm.
> Understanding that your political opponent is not an enemy, or a bad person
J.D. Vance, Donad Trump and Putin are bad people. They are all my political opponents.
Yea, like... One side wants us to be a little kinder to each other (while selling us out to corporate interests) and the other side wants to create a quasi-fascist religious state and detain, enslave and execute some of us (while selling us out to corporate and Russian interests).
What a difficult challenge to determine which one to support.
The real answer is of course "neither", but unfortunately the US's politics are broken into two parties, and nobody will be truly satisfied with their choice.
While that's true, you also can't opt out of politics/government/society (unless you have the means to expatriate yourself), so the lesser of two evils is still less evil. IE, votes still matter. Yes, even if your district is gerrymandered to hell and back.