Clark County Election Department poll workers check in voters at a table as people vote at the Meadows Mall in Las Vegas on Oct. 21, 2024. Original photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images.

Tuesday will likely be a rampaging angry clown show. The whole election has been, as were the two before them. So why would it be any different?

Let’s take it easy out there.

This is no last-second plea to agree with me on Election Day. If you aren’t convinced by now whether you want the most polarizing, hateful, self-obsessed power-hungry sociopath who only cares about what you can do for him, I have no magical logic or horrifying or inspiring tales to change your mind.

I mean, if it’s not enough he was buddies with child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, at least understand this: He doesn’t like dogs.

Sorry. I said I wouldn’t do that.

But I’d like to plant a seed, if I can. Let’s be peaceful and try to understand we’re all human next week (and possibly into January, if this thing goes sideways again).

People who know me would snicker at that. I have a history of treating political differences as relationship-breaking, life-or-death ordeals. But I also have a history of being contrarian and am just old enough to finally be sick of all the conflict.

And, as much as I’m tired of seeing and hearing the 45th President — and oh my God, please let it be over — I’m also tired of side-eying people and preparing to judge them as my sworn enemy based on what box they check Tuesday.

I guess seeking common ground and not wishing horrible things to those with whom I disagree can actually be called contrarian in 2024.

As I get older, the more I realize extreme beliefs rarely win. And those that do tend to breed truckloads of hate, of which I’m also exhausted.

Some humans are more solo-minded than others. Some are seriously affected by fear, others by a lack of education or unwillingness to wade into the political noise. Some will vote as their families voted for generations, others will be inspired to do the exact opposite, because humans have an incessant need to think we know better.

People base votes on crazy reasons and I’m not the guy to unravel the human psyche.

I honestly have no idea whether I can follow my own supposed high-mindedness Tuesday. But I got to thinking about some of my favorite people last week and realized a lot of them vote much differently than me.

One of my best friends’ father is literally the nicest man I’ve ever met. Though up in age and living a few states away, he occasionally checks in on me, as he knows my demons and how they’ve got the best of me at times over the decades.

This gentleman, one of the few gentlemen I know, once drove down to Los Angeles to help me fetch my car after it was badly damaged in a storm over the Grapevine when I was in my 20s. He hitched the car on a trailer and got it to a repair shop for me. Not because I could do anything for him or because we were connected by blood and shadowed by family obligation. He did it because I needed it.

Earlier this year, the man drove out from Utah to help his son with an issue. He’s in his mid-80s, but he just did it. His son and I have gotten into oceans of trouble the past 35 years, yet there we all were, supporting each other.

This man is also a member of the other political party. He’s generationally conservative and religious, a concept from which I sprint like it’s chasing me with a flamethrower. I once looked at his Facebook page and had to vow never to do so again.

But he’s a good man. A very good man.

The two men who were most involved with me as a child, because my own father chose not to, were conservative. I, as you can likely fathom, am a tree-hugging, Prius-driving California man who treats the homeless like real humans and desperately cares about whether my children recycle.

These men helped raise me, took me to doctor’s appointments, took me to arcades, Disneyland and Yosemite. They were there when I struggled. One has continued his relationship with me as I trudge through middle age. He took me in when I needed a place to stay and helped me fight some of my demons.

And he supports the candidate I don’t. And though we’ve occasionally clashed, I think I understand why. I’m not going to change his vote. But I’m going to remember he’s a good man.

The other one is an uncle who moved away a couple decades ago who I just discovered is still alive. He taught me history and science and bought me astronomy magazine subscriptions, showed me classical music and, more importantly, was simply around. He’s an old-style conservative with views that I don’t share. But he’s also family and is a good man. His reasons for being conservative are his.

The last woman with whom I was involved also voted differently than I did in 2016. She told me her reasons and priorities, which weren’t mine, but didn’t have to be. We didn’t talk about politics.

The grandparents I loved so dearly and who mostly raised me were Eisenhower Republicans (though my grandmother would’ve switched parties or maybe even planets before voting for Mr. Grab Them by the P****).

The human experience isn’t as singular as we want to believe and if we’re being honest, we should rarely believe we know why people believe what they believe, or what really motivates them. Finding common ground is seriously underrated these days, as extremism continues its ugly advance into normalcy.

I’m pretty sure compromise, empathy and fairness used to be key traits of civilization, at least in its best examples. I admit to having some extreme views. I also admit to knowing people with extreme views almost never get their way; not in a healthy representative society. There are people on the other side I admire, as long as they care about the big picture and not just their own greed and problems.

Of course I’m not voting for greed and selfishness. Are you? I won’t say for whom you should vote. Just vote, be willing to listen, and think of the big picture. The other side doesn’t have to automatically be your enemy, or nothing will ever get done.

Follow music critic Tony Hicks at Twitter.com/TonyBaloney1967.