If we care, we must engage
I’ve been reflecting on American politics and our nation’s future in ways I never thought I would. These reflections, to be candid, have been mostly bleak. And they’ve caused some changes in some of my tastes and in my thinking. Whiskey, for example, a spirit I rarely touched is now the proof I find most convincing. On the thinking side, I’ve developed some serious concerns about the state of American democracy. I know I join many of you in this concern.
Could America be headed toward becoming an illiberal democracy? Could America be headed toward a big break up, another civil war? A part of me has always known this was possible. But having grown up with the faith of American exceptionalism in the air, the thought of America’s democracy falling apart was never something I seriously considered. Why? Because we’re Americans! This might happen to other nations, to third world countries, but never here. Or so I once believed.
And so I carried into middle-age this lingering belief that somehow America was ultimately different. We were somehow immune from being taken over by illiberalism, authoritarianism, or mass stupidly. Clearly this belief was a stubborn remnant of a youthful naiveté. It was a natural way of feeling, I guess, for a lot of us who’d grown up in the relative peace and prosperity of the 1970s and 1980s. Not that America didn’t face serious challenges then. We suffered through our share of the socio-economic-political challenges of the time. Things like the inglorious defeat and humiliating withdrawal from Vietnam, Watergate, stagflation, the Iran-Contra affair and so on and so forth. But there was never any serious threat to the continuation of America’s liberal democracy and its institutions. Not that I can recall or find on Google.
The only thing during those times (1970s) that probably caused me to pause when considering the survival of American democracy, were those Duck and Cover drills we’d periodically do at Kempsville Elementary School. We’d all sit against the walls in the hallways and bury our head in our arms. It was, we were told, “a tornado drill.” And I’m sure it partially was. But most of us kids knew it was really more about soviet missiles. As American school kids, we implicitly understood the biggest threat to American democracy was from those evil communists in Moscow, not from our fellow Americans. Or so I once believed.
There will always be political division, that’s built right into human nature. But America’s current political divide is well above a safe operating norm. It’s not socially or personally healthy for any of us. And if you’re not paying attention to what’s going on, that’s worse. Because all of us, regardless of your views or indifference, are in the water if this boats sinks. We should all, for the sake of our country, family, and our personal well-being, try to bridge the divide, seek common ground, bring the damn temperature down a bit, and try to heal the wounds…where we can. That requires engagement folks. It requires listening. It requires goodwill and the desire to bridge differences.
Of course politics is a difficult topic of conversation for lot of us, I realize. Talking politics can be uncomfortable with friends and family. It can absolutely challenge our sanity at times. Believe me, I know! And yet it’s important, as a nation, that we engage in political discourse.
Sometimes the most helpful thing, I’ve found, is to explain where we’re coming from politically. We all have a story to tell about our political beliefs. I will be telling my story in a forth coming post. Sometimes our story is simple, sometimes it’s not. For a lot of us it’s one of those relationships that’s best labeled “complicated.” So among other things, I will also be writing about politics in this blog. There is just no way to avoid it. We cannot live an honest life and not care about our community or our country and not, in my view, talk about politics or culture…or religion for that matter. If we care, we must engage. We are social beings, and so the state of our society, our democracy, should be something that engages the interests of all citizens.