PHOTO: ADOBE STOCK

I spent some time in Chicago earlier this month. A few hours in, I noticed something unfamiliar: A sense of calm.

What could’ve brought on this change, amid the travails of navigating air travel, O’Hare and an hour-plus subway ride? I stopped and looked around. There were billboards for standard products and services. A nearby television was advertising cars and soda. Most lawns and windows that I passed were free of rectangular signs.

So this is what it’s like to live in a state that doesn’t swing.

As you are no doubt aware, next week’s presidential election will likely come down to seven or eight states; the other 40-plus are pretty well in hand for one candidate or the other. And, among we unhappy few, no state is statistically more likely to prove decisive than our own Commonwealth.

That’s why you can’t turn your head in any direction without being told who you should vote for.

On local television and radio stations, the majority of ads are political; a spot decrying a candidate will often be directly followed by a spot praising the same candidate, often in the same terms. Our mailboxes are clogged; our phones struggle to filter out the campaign texts.

And, in perhaps the most absurd of all political advertising categories, local billboards are plastered with candidates’ names and broad policy points.

Seriously — in the history of democracy, has there been even one person swayed to one candidate or another merely by seeing a name on a billboard?

While this din of substantively empty discourse can be annoying, I take some solace in one fact: We are all too smart to be swayed by such reductive messaging.

Whoever you are, you are far too intelligent to let scaremongering advertisements convince you of anything. You are educated enough to know the difference between a meaningful argument and a dog whistle. And, more importantly, you know that the actual issues relevant to the lives of the electorate — those matters that are not headline fodder but rather day-to-day reality — are far more important than talking points and slogans.

You understand that reality is far more complex than a series of reductive promises, and you know that no one politician — President or otherwise — can wave a magic wand and fix things. You are smart enough to distrust broad conclusions and generalizations; you have lived through enough elections to know that change and progress come in inches, and anyone tossing off big promises is not to be trusted.

You are going to vote the way you are going to vote because you have deeply held beliefs, you care about your neighbors and you want the best for your community — not because a television ad, a billboard or a text message tried to bully you.

There is precious little that we can do to hold back the flood of political messaging, and as long as Pennsylvania remains ideologically split, we’re in for a lot of it. But we can all agree to do the truly patriotic thing in an election season: Ignore the nonsense. And the nonsense is blessedly easy to identify.

And if you need a break, enjoy a weekend in a state where the candidates and their surrogates haven’t been in a while. Chicago was lovely, but there are plenty of choices. Quick trip to New York City? Week in Los Angeles? Jaunt down to Bourbon Street? You’ve got 40 or 42 relatively unbothered states to choose from.