The division and basically legal corruption are my concerns.
On a basic level, we are all people and all run the same basic way, and have the same basic needs.
One layer up, we are Americans. Those of us who travel, or who communicate outside the domestic US, see many other nations and often a higher degree of solidarity as citizens.
Looks like a priority problem to me.
We all need to earn enough to make it, or we all end up paying the costs associated with chronic homelessness, for example.
We all need to see the doctor too.
Eating good food, and the other human basics are not hard to understand.
Often, I see "those other people" type arguments of various kinds too.
Lazy people. Different colored people. Weird people. Other people; namely, not people like us, or not in our tribe, group, and...
Ordinary people do not have very effective representation. Money talks. And it should, but that brings me back to priorities again.
No judgement, no blame here. Just observations.
I submit resolving these things to a more harmonious body politic is on us people. I am not convinced anyone, or entity can just swoop in and improve things.
That is just where we are today.
One other observation:
Nations older than us have been where we are. Their peoples have had to do the work to get past it, and have had to do that multiple times.
This tells me we aren't experiencing anything fundementally new, in human terms.
But it is new to America. New in the sense of the USA being young enough, and the pace of change in the world being rapid enough for the state of things to feel new, or like doom, or, or...
Given the burden of improving on our current state lies with us as people, citizens, I submit the following:
We all need to understand one another better. That starts by talking. Really talking and listening. This is best done sans judgement, and with deliberate intent to understand better.
We all are where we are in life, and we all have made choices, and relitigating the past does not appear to hold answers for our future.
This is about what we do now. It is about our priorities as humans and Americans too.
Take voting, for example.
People had the following options:
Vote Major Party
Vote other
No vote.
Everyone made their choice and had reasons, right?
If we apply the intent to seek understanding of one another and avoid judgement, that means having a talk about why people voted or no voted the way they did.
People no voting, often did so because they did not want to consent to, or endorse, approve of what they see as ineffective, corrupt governance. Or they did not connect a vote to a positive future for themselves and theirs.
Why is that? I think many, and include myself until recently, would rush to judge and blame.
A vote for non major party X really is a vote for major party Y. Same for staying home.
After talking some, the idea of candidates interviewing for a job comes up and poor or toxic representation means not approving them for the job, and with that we see lazy, or stupid aren't really valid as reasons why.
I will stop there, and urge you to think about how all of that is framed up as a duty, or burden and how people may reject all of that in light of what they may see as an irrational election.
Same goes for how people have voted or not before too. Those decisions are made, cannot be unmade and people had their reasons for making them.
Notably, after some real discussion, the reality hits: we can't tell people to approve of potential leaders, and we can't dictate what is best, nor their point of view.
We can talk to them and understand what they need to cast a vote. We can attract them to join a cause and all that too.
So why doesn't that happen more?
I submit this is a big part of the priority and mutual understanding and consideration discussion we all need to have.
Without that talk being a fundamental part of our body politic, we appear to be divided into factions, blocs who understand others, "those other people" increasingly poorly as pressure to avoid the worst continues to rise.
With that discussion, it becomes much easier to see what we may consider an obvious, rational choice, say lesser evil as an example, really is not so obvious, or may even be harmful, not a lesser evil, but perhaps just a different kind.
No matter how this all goes, at any given time our future is about the decisions we make together, the actions we take together, and the outcome we live with together.
The election is past us now, but please do consider it was about the votes people were about to cast, not the ones they may have cast in the past.
Talking about all that is much easier and can be far more effective when people are not also fending off negative, and frankly until we understand one another better, uninformed personal judgements too.
We are divided to a harmful degree despite all of us having the same basic humanity.
I urge you to talk, and I mean really talk with others very indifferent from you, who live differently than you do and understand one another better.
I do not know how we get our priorities in order as people otherwise. And without that, we rub the risk of our future continuing to be an increasingly mixed bag for increasing numbers of us.
Finally, consider this idea:
When we make the discussion about what we oppose, it is not going to be about what we need, or want that is good.
Think about trying to lead a team by only telling them what not to do. They will get somewhere, and it won't be anything anyone opposed either.
We all benefit from an explicit, public good. That means the basics are in order leaving people with free agency to get after better, or what they want.
Understanding one another better will make that explicit, public good more clear.
It will improve our basic solidarity as people, reduce division.
I submit one final idea:
There will not be a net public good we all benefit from and depend on, unless we make the discussion, body politic, about it.
And that is how I am playing it now, and have been for a while now.
I want and need to be voting FOR good, not AGAINST bad, or evil.
You probably do too, and I encourage you to make more of the discussion about that explicit, public good and demand our leaders do the same things; namely, understand the people they need votes from better, and to apply that understanding to propose policy people can vote FOR, not just default to people voting AGAINST the very worst.
On a basic level, we are all people and all run the same basic way, and have the same basic needs.
One layer up, we are Americans. Those of us who travel, or who communicate outside the domestic US, see many other nations and often a higher degree of solidarity as citizens.
Looks like a priority problem to me.
We all need to earn enough to make it, or we all end up paying the costs associated with chronic homelessness, for example.
We all need to see the doctor too.
Eating good food, and the other human basics are not hard to understand.
Often, I see "those other people" type arguments of various kinds too.
Lazy people. Different colored people. Weird people. Other people; namely, not people like us, or not in our tribe, group, and...
Ordinary people do not have very effective representation. Money talks. And it should, but that brings me back to priorities again.
No judgement, no blame here. Just observations.
I submit resolving these things to a more harmonious body politic is on us people. I am not convinced anyone, or entity can just swoop in and improve things.
That is just where we are today.
One other observation:
Nations older than us have been where we are. Their peoples have had to do the work to get past it, and have had to do that multiple times.
This tells me we aren't experiencing anything fundementally new, in human terms.
But it is new to America. New in the sense of the USA being young enough, and the pace of change in the world being rapid enough for the state of things to feel new, or like doom, or, or...
Given the burden of improving on our current state lies with us as people, citizens, I submit the following:
We all need to understand one another better. That starts by talking. Really talking and listening. This is best done sans judgement, and with deliberate intent to understand better.
We all are where we are in life, and we all have made choices, and relitigating the past does not appear to hold answers for our future.
This is about what we do now. It is about our priorities as humans and Americans too.
Take voting, for example.
People had the following options:
Vote Major Party
Vote other
No vote.
Everyone made their choice and had reasons, right?
If we apply the intent to seek understanding of one another and avoid judgement, that means having a talk about why people voted or no voted the way they did.
People no voting, often did so because they did not want to consent to, or endorse, approve of what they see as ineffective, corrupt governance. Or they did not connect a vote to a positive future for themselves and theirs.
Why is that? I think many, and include myself until recently, would rush to judge and blame.
A vote for non major party X really is a vote for major party Y. Same for staying home.
After talking some, the idea of candidates interviewing for a job comes up and poor or toxic representation means not approving them for the job, and with that we see lazy, or stupid aren't really valid as reasons why.
I will stop there, and urge you to think about how all of that is framed up as a duty, or burden and how people may reject all of that in light of what they may see as an irrational election.
Same goes for how people have voted or not before too. Those decisions are made, cannot be unmade and people had their reasons for making them.
Notably, after some real discussion, the reality hits: we can't tell people to approve of potential leaders, and we can't dictate what is best, nor their point of view.
We can talk to them and understand what they need to cast a vote. We can attract them to join a cause and all that too.
So why doesn't that happen more?
I submit this is a big part of the priority and mutual understanding and consideration discussion we all need to have.
Without that talk being a fundamental part of our body politic, we appear to be divided into factions, blocs who understand others, "those other people" increasingly poorly as pressure to avoid the worst continues to rise.
With that discussion, it becomes much easier to see what we may consider an obvious, rational choice, say lesser evil as an example, really is not so obvious, or may even be harmful, not a lesser evil, but perhaps just a different kind.
No matter how this all goes, at any given time our future is about the decisions we make together, the actions we take together, and the outcome we live with together.
The election is past us now, but please do consider it was about the votes people were about to cast, not the ones they may have cast in the past.
Talking about all that is much easier and can be far more effective when people are not also fending off negative, and frankly until we understand one another better, uninformed personal judgements too.
We are divided to a harmful degree despite all of us having the same basic humanity.
I urge you to talk, and I mean really talk with others very indifferent from you, who live differently than you do and understand one another better.
I do not know how we get our priorities in order as people otherwise. And without that, we rub the risk of our future continuing to be an increasingly mixed bag for increasing numbers of us.
Finally, consider this idea:
When we make the discussion about what we oppose, it is not going to be about what we need, or want that is good.
Think about trying to lead a team by only telling them what not to do. They will get somewhere, and it won't be anything anyone opposed either.
We all benefit from an explicit, public good. That means the basics are in order leaving people with free agency to get after better, or what they want.
Understanding one another better will make that explicit, public good more clear.
It will improve our basic solidarity as people, reduce division.
I submit one final idea:
There will not be a net public good we all benefit from and depend on, unless we make the discussion, body politic, about it.
And that is how I am playing it now, and have been for a while now.
I want and need to be voting FOR good, not AGAINST bad, or evil.
You probably do too, and I encourage you to make more of the discussion about that explicit, public good and demand our leaders do the same things; namely, understand the people they need votes from better, and to apply that understanding to propose policy people can vote FOR, not just default to people voting AGAINST the very worst.