There’s a saying in political circles that the only thing in the middle of the road is an Opossum that has met an untimely end from a car’s tire, and the victim usually has a yellow line painted over it by the highway department.

I’m hearing from friends on both the political left and right that they are beginning to feel no matter how carefully considered and measured their opinion, they have to avoid that truck that’s careening down the highway being violently jerked from left to right, depending on who is in office.

Just like the Opossum, we are mere inches from being flattened.

There’s a combination of extremism and vitriol that is hamstringing our ability as a society to move forward and get anything done.

We are not talking or campaigning on ideas anymore. We are slinging hate and intolerance, even among ourselves.

A Democrat friend was viciously attacked by members of his own party because he didn’t fall in line and worship at the altar of global climate change.

Republicans who don’t fall in with those on the extreme right risk getting branded a RINO (Republican In Name Only) or a closet liberal.

Or worse.

Those of us who have an affinity for critical thought know there are no simple answers, and recognize cookie-cutter approaches usually fail, but, to please the snippy extremists on both sides, we either remain quiet or allow some myopic, intolerant extremist to pin a label on us.

None of this will result in the best possible decisions. The ones that come from civil discourse and compromise often are win-win decisions but are not popular or preferred when a “win at all costs” mindset, instilled by the extremes, prevails.

The fact is that most of us are truly in the middle. We don’t want extremes. We want good sensible solutions. Solutions that, as a community, we will never arrive at unless we start having a respectful dialogue that’s devoid of those deal-breaking terms of “you always” and “you never.”

The political parties are doing this among themselves and effectively eating their young. They each have an echo chamber that is driven by their very own “lunatic fringe.”

In 2014, we had a seismic political shift in West Virginia. I never believed that we would be the solid Republican state that we are today. That political shift didn’t occur because the Republicans had better ideas and built a better mousetrap. It happened because the extreme left Democrats took over nationally and decided they didn’t like West Virginia’s values. Or West Virginia energy. Or the Second Amendment. Or anything that the average West Virginian did.

And like it or not, what they were selling was what you were going to get.

That didn’t work out well for the Democrats.

Now we are bringing the exact same extremism to our communities. I know there are Republicans who are against the consumption of alcohol of any kind and will find the activities and music at the Party on the Plaza abhorrent.

If you don’t like it, don’t go.

Just like there are Democrats who are not in favor of the LGBTQ community having their celebration on the same plaza.

Again, if you don’t like it, don’t go.

Your hate and vitriol aren’t going to change anyone’s mind. If anything, it will likely harden their position.

No one on either side of the political spectrum wants to be represented individually or as a group by a coarse extremist mouthpiece. As long as this continues, we will continue to receive bad government as if we have requested it.

It’s time for those of us in the middle, the Opossum, to take the reins, and return to reason, sanity and the superior decisions that only respectful civil discourse can deliver.

In the meantime, I have those tire treads to avoid.

Republican Dolph Santorine of Wheeling is secretary of the Ohio County GOP Executive Committee.