It seems like every day we grow more divided. CNN and Fox News, Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals—these categories create opposition with little space for nuance, and increasingly so as the middle ground fades away, making room for the extreme voices to get louder.

Today we rely on traditional media, such as news outlets and television, along with social media for our news more than ever before. With the continual rise of competing news outlets and online political personalities like Hasan Piker and Andrew Tate, our political realm is increasingly presented as a really bad reality show. Our representatives now have their own YouTube channels, posting things such as “Angry Republican/Democrat gets owned in heated debate,” and the comments sections become flooded with love and hate from supporters and detractors, respectively. Our new president puts his past experience of firing people on national television to good use, marketing himself with all-caps X posts emphasizing the record number of viewers who streamed his inauguration and hammering home the idea that visibility is inherently a good thing. That may not always be the case, though.

A recently recirculating clip of the show we call our political system has been an unpleasant exchange early last year between Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett and Republican Rev. Marjorie Taylor Greene. In this spat, Greene claimed that Crockett’s “fake eyelashes” were preventing her from understanding the point of the hearing. Crockett slyly responded after hesitating to take down Greene’s words, asking if it would be considered improper conduct if she were to, hypothetically, say Greene had a “bleach-blonde, bad-built, butch body.” In response, Greene quickly posted a video of herself working out in her at-home gym, much to the delight of the American people looking for a chuckle.

Just last week, a midair collision involving a jet and an army helicopter killed 67 people. In response to the crash, President Donald Trump blamed Democratic diversity initiatives despite a glaring lack of evidence. When questioned on the matter, he responded, “You have to go by psychological quality, and psychological quality is a very important element of it … But certainly for an air traffic controller, we want the brightest, the smartest, the sharpest. We want somebody that’s psychologically superior. And that’s what we’re going to have,” clearly implying that an increase of diversity in high-stake matters can only lead to disasters and catastrophic decisions. This is an incredibly dangerous, social Darwinist-leaning claim that’s chilling to hear. It implies that biology has an overwhelming stake in intelligence and capability—and it does nothing but drive political opposition and marginalized groups further away from his initiatives, the opposite of his job as the nation’s leader.

American politics today are increasingly unserious, and unfortunately, rage bait titles and content have become the fastest way to gain the support and division of the American people. In an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez interview from The ReidOut, AOC addresses the phenomenon of the “AOC-Trump voter,” a voter who voted for her or another Democratic candidate for the congressional election and Trump for president. After reaching out to her Instagram followers to receive answers on why a voter would decide to vote that way, she explained that many of the responders treat her as a primary source of information when making political decisions. She inferred from this that these same voters must similarly be considering Trump to be a primary source of information. This becomes a problem, though, when the candidates in question are not being completely truthful with their audience, instead collaborating with certain media outlets hungry for views or staying silent to spin a story that very quickly spirals out of control. 

By having such staunch opposition to each other in our political sphere, we can find ourselves perpetuating false information, such as the idea that systemic racism is not real, anyone can become extremely wealthy in America, people who enter the country without documentation must be violent criminals, people of certain religions and cultural backgrounds are terrorists and more. Corrupt media outlets and the desire to be distinguishable from the other, “wrong” side willingly promote confusion, opposition and panic. These media narratives alienate us from human empathy, promoting fear between people of different backgrounds, genders, races and values.

While third places continue to disappear from the public with poor distribution of taxes, we are pushed further into the cramped corners of our own homes, and an ironic expanse of isolation between the country’s members is born. Most adults only interact with those in their workplaces or their small circle of friends, creating an echo chamber of the same opinions and fears. With this being the reality, what else are we to do other than merely resolve to accept the stories that our phones and TVs feed us? They become our “outside” perspective. They become our truths.

Consider stepping out of your bubble today. Our political system may often be run more like a television show with the sensationalism of a sports game than a court making life-altering decisions, but we are the ones who give politicians their power. Don’t believe everything you see on TV. Instead, support media sources that have shown themselves to be largely objective rather than inflammatory and manipulative. While bias is likely to exist in all sources, it is our duty to be patient enough to sift through the bias to uncover our own opinions. That is how you find the true root of the problem.