Contemporary politics is characterized by polarization. The American right just can’t pull far or flamboyantly enough to the right, it seems, nor the left to the left.

The intra-party crises of confidence and identity felt now by “both sides” should leave an opening for people and ideas that dare to stray closer to the middle, people like Maine’s 2nd Congressional District Rep. Jared Golden.

The great tragedy is that these crises aren’t doing that; if anything, they’re driving both members of the public and political leaders to yet more distant ideological corners. Taking stock of this challenging and inhospitable landscape, Golden decided to call it quits.

Last week, an outspoken Democratic socialist became mayor-elect of New York City. The sitting president, who controls his own faction of freewheeling Republicans, won’t rule out pursuit of an unconstitutional third term. The U.S. government has been shut down for, at the time of writing, 37 days. A Wall Street Journal story about Golden published on Oct. 26 was headlined “The Lone House Democrat Who Thinks His Party Has the Shutdown All Wrong.”

Lone, indeed. Rare, and therefore very important.

The op-ed outlining Golden’s surprise decision not to run for reelection in the 2026 midterms, while long and detailed, cut right to the heart of it.

“I have spent almost eight years in Congress opposing the forces of polarization. This is critical to fair leadership in a district like Maine’s 2nd, where robust ideological diversity requires elected officials who are willing to represent the district as it truly exists — not as their party’s most vocal extremes might wish it did,” Golden wrote last week. “It’s also a moral imperative, because polarization tends to move in only one direction.”

To represent a district as it truly exists. A simple goal, and a noble one. Why, then, has it become so unusual?

In his opinion piece, Golden dismissed the idea that his constituents were either “diehard right-wingers or resistance progressives.” He’s right on that reality, which we’re not reminded of enough, which every one of us would do well to dwell on more.

It takes courage to swim against the party tide. It takes more courage than it ought, in public office, to change your mind. And it takes courage to step away and to say, precisely, why.