It’s funny, in a way, to see how differently people on the party fringes can see the same instance—say, the decision by the Arkansas Supreme Court to keep the abortion amendment off the November ballot. Those of us in the middle (the independent, unaffiliated, centrists, pragmatic … however you want to term it), who outnumber either of the two main camps, can only laugh at times to keep our sanity.

Sanity was clinging by a thread by the way the court conducted itself in this case, stretching to make its ruling (because the law only means what it says when it coincides with the governor’s agenda), when it could have offered a cure period to at least give the appearance of fairness. Instead, it stank of hyperpartisanship run amok, and like some people were afraid to give the voters their say on abortion bans.

Partisan politics are why I so often despair for our nation. The hyperpartisan on both sides are the loudest, but they don’t speak for the majority. Their dominance needs to end if we have any hope to survive as a country pledged to the ideals of our founders. If those of us in the center (that’s the whole center, from center left to center right) don’t speak up for decency, the rule of law, and fairness, we’ll have abandoned our ideals simply because we don’t want to make waves.

I know, it’s asking a lot since most of the time our moderateness demands we don’t cause a ruckus, but this is more important than ever this year.

Sure, there have been campaigns in past centuries that were especially nasty (Thomas Jefferson didn’t play nice, for example, and neither did Grover Cleveland’s opponents), but this year so much of it seems tied up in meanness and pettiness that’s no better than playground bullying. (I mean, seriously, making fun of a boy for loving his dad … why is this even a strategy? I remember when the GOP held itself out as the family values party, but I guess loving family relationships are not what they care about anymore.)

I know of many within a certain party who don’t echo the divisive sentiments of its leaders, and of even more who left the party because they could no longer stomach what it has become. (My paternal grandmother, a Reagan Republican, likely would be among them were she still alive. She couldn’t stand the sort of theatrics they engage in now.)

The other party often puts forward ideas that might sound good in theory (and some that are, or at least sound, more than a little wacky), but paying for them would cost several arms and legs.

Both major parties have been catering of late far too much to those on their fringes, forgetting that most of us out here don’t hold extreme views and just want our government to work (it’s government, after all, that takes care of things like public infrastructure, which everybody uses).

For government to work, though, it’ll take determination. It’ll take candidates who are open and honest about what they hope to achieve, and who have more than bumper-sticker slogans and playground insults in their quivers. It’ll take voters who are willing to look beyond party labels and do the research for themselves to figure out which candidates offer the best chance toward success. It’ll take all of us getting past the whole winners-and-losers paradigm.

Yeah, I know, crazy, but our democratic republic is not a game to be won; it’s a diverse nation of people and ideas than needs to work together in the best way possible. If our focus is always on winning, quality of life suffers, especially for those not on the “winning” side, and especially when the “winners” behave with such arrogance.

We once had public servants, not performance artists, on Capitol Hill. I know I bring them up a lot, but Dale Bumpers and John Paul Hammerschmidt weren’t merely politicians.

Sure, they could stump for their parties with the best of them, but ideology wasn’t what drove them. It was doing the best for those they served—not just the people who voted for them—to make government work for the bulk of the people. Reaching across the aisle, cooperation, compromise—that was what made things function more or less as they should.

There have always been political performance artists, but it wasn’t until the past several decades that we began to let them get out of control (usually they seemed restricted to state legislatures where they wouldn’t do so much harm, but now they’ve taken over legislatures and gotten a toehold in D.C.). Once, extremists were kept in check by those of us in the center, and didn’t have a lot of success getting into office, or staying there, but now, with extremism held in such esteem by some, aided by gerrymandering, 24/7 media and social media, we can’t seem to rid ourselves of them.

So what do we do? Do we just say, “the heck with it,” and keep voting for the same people who got us into this situation? Lord, I hope not.

For those of us in the center, it’s more important than ever that we vote. I didn’t vote for a long time because I work in a newsroom and didn’t want to give the appearance of favoritism, but that was wrong; I’m allowed to have an opinion and voice on the direction of my country. If the centrists, the bulk of the electorate, vote, we can start to move the needle back to an era of working together for the best outcome for the most people, and weed out those whose sole purpose is to sow discord. (I’m looking at you, Lauren Boebert, Paul Gosar, Marjorie Taylor Greene and others.)

We know that few things are straightforward black and white; most are various shades of gray, with nuance and human nature to be considered, and that’s being ignored or made into culture-war fodder. We pay more attention to what’s going on than some think, but we don’t exercise our vote enough.

In 2016, voters (OK, really the Electoral College) spoke their mind on the arrogance of a presidential candidate consigning supporters of the other candidate to a “basket of deplorables.” This year, voters can and should have their say on the arrogance of a party that deplores “childless cat ladies,” post-menopausal women and people who demonstrate joy and/or familial connection.

Sitting on the sidelines isn’t going to cut it anymore. We need to make sure that candidates are willing to listen and talk honestly with voters of all sorts, not just those who support their views. If they play continually to their base, they’re the only people they intend to serve.

Neither of the main party presidential candidates has been completely truthful, but only one has been more consistently dishonest. Neither is innocent of making fun of the other side, but one has been more consistently mean-spirited.

We should be proud of our votes, but that can be hard. For me, it comes down to a couple of questions: Who more clearly shows a willingness to work for all the people, and to govern responsibly? Is governing more important than saying you won?

I know my answers. How about you?