Opting Out Isn’t Weakness… It’s the Strongest Political Act We Have
Why rejecting hate doesn’t mean silence, denial, or apathy… it means fighting with love, science, and long-term vision.
When I was a teenager, Ross Perot entered the political stage. Later, Ralph Nader. I remember adults around me laughing it off: “Don’t waste your vote.” It made sense to me then. But decades later, I see it for what it was… a symptom of the sickness. Team-think. The belief that only two jerseys exist and you must wear one or you don’t matter.
Fast forward thirty-five years: the “wasted vote” mentality didn’t just limit options… it accelerated polarization. Instead of more moderate, thoughtful candidates, we got the opposite. Extremes feeding extremes, outrage fueling outrage. That’s the slow, chronic sickness that brought us here.
And here’s the irony: the only way to heal it isn’t to double down on hate. It’s to opt out of it.
The Big Idea
Opting out doesn’t mean silence. It doesn’t mean putting blinders on. It doesn’t mean pretending the world isn’t on fire.
Opting out means refusing to play the game of hate. It means debating fiercely but without dehumanizing. It means championing your values without making enemies out of your neighbors. It means rejecting leaders… on any side… who reduce people to caricatures, who sling insults like “libtards” or “repugnants,” who fuel division for profit or power.
Opting out is not passive. It’s the most active, disciplined stance there is. Because it means you are choosing influence over outrage. And influence is how real change happens.
The Breakdown
Why Hate Doesn’t Work
Humans don’t respond to logic when they feel attacked. This isn’t philosophy… it’s biology. The amygdala hijacks the brain. Fear and anger narrow attention. When someone feels “othered,” they double down. Psychologists call this reactance… when you push, they push back harder (Brehm & Brehm, 1981).
Think of it like selling Girl Scout cookies. If a driver pulls in with a loud muffler and you scream, “You asshole, your car is ruining the neighborhood,” good luck selling them Thin Mints. But if you smile, compliment their car, get curious—suddenly you’ve opened a door. Now you can tell them how sensitive you are to sound. Now they’re more likely to hear you. And maybe even buy the cookies.
Anger closes doors. Love cracks them open.
The Power of Understanding
Take Daryl Davis, a Black musician who has personally convinced over 200 members of the Ku Klux Klan to give up their robes. How? Not by yelling at them, not by shaming them, but by sitting down and talking. By showing curiosity. By treating them as human, even while rejecting their ideology. That’s next-level influence.
History echoes this. Gandhi facing down empire with nonviolence. Mandela emerging from 27 years in prison preaching reconciliation. Martin Luther King Jr. insisting on agape love—the recognition that even enemies are still human. Chenoweth’s research confirms it: nonviolent movements are twice as effective as violent ones. Love wins… not in a Hallmark way, but in a hard, practical, evidence-based way.
Warning: This isn’t harmless polarization… it can become authoritarian
We’re not just arguing over slogans. Some political movements, on both extremes (one currently worse than the other), are beginning to use the very tactics that dismantle democracy: delegitimizing the press, weaponizing law, celebrating political violence, and canceling dissent. The left has played its part, and now the right is doing many of the same things they once railed against. Cancel culture hasn’t gone away… it has simply changed jerseys.
Make no mistake… this is not benign. The scholars who study democratic erosion warn that these steps add up. They creep. They normalize. They harden.
And guess what? Team-think will cause you to miss it. When your side is the one doing it you don’t often realize it until it’s too late. And then, you’ll of course deny you had anything to do with it. This is the legacy left by individuals who ignore truth for team loyalty.
Opting out does not mean burying your head. It means seeing clearly without becoming what you oppose. It means naming the danger… and then choosing strategies that protect pluralism, freedom, and human dignity rather than strategies that fuel hate.
The Real Divide Isn’t Left vs Right
Political philosopher Jonathan Hopkin argues that the most dangerous divide in modern politics isn’t left vs right… it’s system vs anti-system. On one side are those, however imperfect, trying to work within and reform democratic institutions. On the other are those who reject the system entirely, seeking to tear it down rather than improve it.
This matters, because when you’re caught in team-think you don’t notice that your “side” may be fueling the same anti-system dynamics you claim to hate. Cancel culture on the left, censorship and purges on the right… they’re mirror images of the same impulse: dismantle, delegitimize, destroy.
Hopkin warns that in the U.S., most citizens won’t rush to the barricades to defend liberal democracy. The danger isn’t just apathy… it’s the normalization of voices that tell you the system itself is the enemy.
The solution is not to silence those voices but to reform the system itself… to reduce its technocratic excesses, address corruption, and bring valid critiques into the democratic process. In other words, strengthen democracy by healing it, not by burning it down.
Here’s What To Do
Opting out is not checking out. It’s checking in more deeply. Here’s how:
Learn to spot divisive, dehumanizing language. Anytime a leader reduces people to labels or insults, you should see a red flag. Words like “libtards” or “repugnants” are not harmless… they are the fertilizer of hate.
Pull your support from those voices. Even if you agree with their policies, realize their perspective always leads to destruction. You can find leaders with the right policies and compassion in their hearts.
Redefine what it means to fight. Fighting with love doesn’t mean agreeing. It doesn’t mean weakness. It means empathy, curiosity, compassion. It means remembering that no one thinks of themselves as evil… and yet evil deeds happen every day. Good people, following bad ideas, commit atrocities. When you see the good in a person—even when you reject their policies—you keep them human. Vitriol will never do that.
Be an example. Say, “Yeah, I stopped following that person. I simply opt out of people who other. I am on team human. I reject political teams.”
Like it or not, compassion and empathy are the cheat code. This isn’t softness. It’s hard-nosed psychology. It’s survival of the friendliest.
If you’re thinking, “But one side is worse… we have to fight,” I hear you. The ladder down to authoritarianism is not a partisan stairwell… it’s a house with many doors. Sometimes the right is pushing hardest… sometimes the left has been guilty before it. The extremes feed each other. And right now, one side may smell more pungent, but both are rotting the air.
The remedy is not to scream louder at the opposite team… it’s to withdraw your support from any leader who traffics in hate or dehumanization, no matter how much you like their policies.
You want to fight fascism? Start here: pull your energy from leaders who divide and instead back the ones who defend institutions, speak with compassion, and remember that leadership means protecting all people… not just their team.
Practical Takeaway
Don’t confuse opting out with silence. Speak loudly. Fight fiercely. But never dehumanize.
When debating, start with validation: “I hear you.” “I see why that matters to you.” That opens the door. Only then can influence enter.
Remember: anger may feel powerful in the short term, but it pushes people deeper into their trenches. Love feels slower, softer… but it moves mountains over time.
Closing Thought
Opting out isn’t weakness. It’s courage. It’s saying: I will not feed the fire. I will not become what I despise.
Fight. Argue. Champion what matters. But do it with love in your chest, not hate in your throat. Because history is clear: hate divides, love unites. Hate hardens, love transforms.
That’s the third path. That’s the next level.
PS: If you’re ready to break free of the team-think sickness and become the kind of person who fights fiercely but with love, explore my Next Level Human coaching program today. Spots are limited… don’t wait. 👉 http://www.nextlevelhuman.com/human-coaching
References
Brehm, S. S., & Brehm, J. W. (1981). Psychological reactance: A theory of freedom and control. New York, NY: Academic Press.
Chenoweth, E., & Stephan, M. J. (2011). Why civil resistance works: The strategic logic of nonviolent conflict. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Davis, D. (2018). Klan-destine relationships: A Black man’s odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan. New Orleans, LA: New Orleans Music Company.
Hare, B., & Woods, V. (2020). Survival of the friendliest: Understanding our origins and rediscovering our common humanity. New York, NY: Random House.
LeDoux, J. E. (1996). The emotional brain: The mysterious underpinnings of emotional life. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.
Hopkin, J. (2020). Anti-system politics: The crisis of market liberalism in rich democracies. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press
this is probably one of the most important pieces that we're all missing.
Well said, thank you.
Perhaps instead of taking the “third” path, one could say the “middle” path to borrow from Eastern philosophy.
“Compassion is the radicalism of your times” -Dalai Lama