Let's Begin
Everything is on fire; so what are we going to do now?
I have felt a profound grief in how politics and world events have separated me from loved ones and, on a broader level, all of us from each other. 10 years ago, I decided to change course. After a lifetime of being uninterested in politics, I decided I had to step up and enter the arena. I felt called to do so. I went back to school. I studied Political science and got a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree. I have sought to understand everything I have seen around me, and I’m left with the uncomfortable realization that information is not the problem.
I had all kinds of ideas about how I could or would use my newfound education to help create a better world in some way. I now understand government, politics, and international affairs with excruciating clarity. I feel frozen in place and horrifyingly awake as I’m watching the world burn around me. I feel a sense of foreboding- like I’m watching a tsunami wave build into a giant wall of water; never knowing when it will finally collapse over everything.
If we get through this, there will not be a status quo to return to. It’s hard to reform a system that no longer exists. There are so many wonderful scholars, political scientists, historians, journalists, and commentators who are explaining, diagnosing, comparing, and reporting. I’m feeling a deep need to see people start to talk about what will come next. Americans have been feverishly voting for change for years, ping-ponging back and forth on the ideological spectrum, every time getting more frustrated when our problems aren’t addressed. Trump’s time is ending one way or another. The political class will be lost in the wilderness, more fully estranged from Americans and their wants and needs than I can remember.
The concept of “soft power” (coined by Joseph Nye) has its roots in political science. The general idea is that you lead and have power because others want what you want because you’ve made it desirable. Soft power comes from the people and the societies we create. It cannot be easily created by government alone. It’s hard to control, and it’s hard to quantify. Americans have benefited from soft power for a very long time by exporting our culture, ideas, and values. Despite having all the information, one could imagine at our fingertips, we have never seen trust as low as it is and dropping.
I’m struck by the failures of soft power, by its absence. I’ve felt it when I’ve been unable to persuade people I thought I knew of things I thought they believed. I’ve seen it fail the collective in vaccine hesitancy, climate change, in civic virtue, in maintaining our democratic values. It has been shocking to witness and I feel a real sense of helplessness in the gap between facts and trust. Facts alone are not enough—our human nature isn’t completely rational. Without working to build the case, to persuade, to create a culture that sells the facts? We have nothing and only more to lose.
All of our soft power is being spent away, and I think it is time that we reclaim it. We need to talk about what we want for our futures. We should take this moment to decide if the values and ideas of the past are still the ones we want to be the foundation for the future we will have to build. So much of what Americans are dissatisfied with has to do with precedent being calcified. Some suggest changing it would be against the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson argued that every generation should get to write their own constitution because the living shouldn’t be held captive by the dead. Jefferson’s argument, though, reveals that transformation and rebirth might not be alien DNA. This could be the greatest opportunity for the transformation Americans have been longing for.
I intend to write about ideas for how we can transform the country and ourselves. I truly believe that MOST of us want the same things. This chaos is scary, but maybe from the ashes we can create a new version of what we want to be. I would love to hear from you about ideas you have had or want to see discussed or even just how you are feeling and coping. I want to write about what is most important to all of us. I know better is possible, and together we can reinvigorate a sense of civic responsibility and participation. We all owe that to each other, future generations, and the rest of the world.
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