Our Kids Deserve Better Than Politics’ Endless War | Opinion

Our nation is ensnared in a destructive cycle. The loudest voices — left, right, and all points in between — seem to believe (at least, based on their behavior) that strength is found through division, derision, and the silencing of dissent.

Politics may have been intended as a tool for progress. Still, for one reason or another, it has morphed into a reckless game that glorifies agendas over humanity, leaving our children to bear the brunt.

Take a recent opinion piece by Tom Murphy, former mayor of Mamaroneck. In it, he brands the current administration as greedy, reckless, and cruel. USA Today featured it in an Op-Ed on February 26, 2025.

Trump is a bully who glorifies greed and recklessness. We have to stand up.

He calls for “good people” to rise up and resist this “storm of inhumanity.” It’s a passionate cry, but yet again, it's rooted in one side’s moral outrage and precisely the rhetoric that fuels the fire — brandishing words filled with ad hominem attacks.

But there’s another Tom Murphy — the OTHER Tom Murphy — who sees a bigger bully: politics itself. The founder of Sweethearts & Heroes, Tom Murphy, has stood in front of millions of students, educators, and parents, from deep-red states to blue strongholds, not to vilify one group or set of principles but to sit in Circle with EVERYONE, hug them, and listen to their brokenness. The true enemy isn’t a single figure — it’s the system tearing us apart.

The ex-mayor of Mamaroneck believes the light of decency will return if we fight the right villains, but he’s playing the same old political tune, pointing fingers and rallying one side against another.

The other Tom Murphy sees a different path. He’s witnessed the hopelessness that governs our discourse firsthand: school auditoriums packed with kids who feel unseen, unheard, abandoned by adults too busy shouting past each other. While one side screams DEI and the other demands a return to “old ways,” both appear blind to the real struggles of today’s youth. Both sides clutch their agendas like lifelines, but it’s drowning us all.

Our kids watch these grown-ups bicker, entrenching themselves deeper into their camps. They’re learning to mimic this bullying — this refusal to listen, this zeal to demonize the “other,” this widening chasm of hate where disagreeing in the least is a sentence of excommunication from friends, community, and even family.

When does it end?

The other Tom Murphy doesn’t care about red or blue. His agenda is human — rooted in compassion, empathy, and love. He’s seen kids from every background — rich, poor, rural, urban, white, black — crumple under the weight of a world where adults model division instead of unity. Instead of stoking the flames with calls to resist, this Tom Murphy rejects the destructive decisions of political posturing entirely.

He trades megaphones for small acts of kindness, the kind that rebuild H.O.P.E. (Hold On, Possibilities Exist) one FREE HUG, one conversation, one tearful breakthrough at a time. He knows we’re sacrificing our children on an altar of ideology — whether it’s the left’s sanctimonious wordplay or the right’s rigid nostalgia — and he’s begging us to stop.

We can’t wait for politicians to lead. They’re too entrenched and afraid to step outside the script. If there is anywhere we SHOULDN’T look, it’s in the political landscape.

But the ex-mayor’s right about one thing: good people must act. Not to pick a side in this endless war of words, but to act by standing up for the voiceless in your neighborhood — those lost in the noise of these agendas. Support efforts that unify communities, not fracture them. Call every elected official — red, blue, or otherwise — and demand an America that doesn’t leave our children as collateral damage.

The other Tom Murphy isn’t here to win debates or wave flags. He’s here to save lives — because our kids, every one of them, deserve better than the mess we’ve made.

Years ago, Sweethearts and Heroes adopted Einstein’s words. Words that have become our ethos from day one.

“The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of evil people, but because of those who choose to do nothing about it!”

What are you going to do? The choice is yours. Choose wisely.