We the People Are on Our Own

My question at this point in the presidential election, when it’s so devastatingly clear that no current candidate has united our country, is not whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden can win. After an attempt on Trump’s life and amid forceful calls for the president to end his campaign, it feels impossible to believe that either man could bring us together, if any president ever really can. So what will it take for us to reconcile our own differences? I believe that too many of us have forgotten our agency, or forsaken it.

I wish I could say I’m surprised that it’s come to this. The state of our politics was already alarming and exasperating. In general, so much is changing, without ceremony or mercy. Old traditions, industries, and technologies are giving way to new ones. Social norms are shifting. Our planet itself is becoming inhospitable as climate change accelerates. Some aspects of our economic, legal, and political systems are unrecognizable. In the course of what passes for governance these days, too few of our leaders have found effective ways to unite us around a common pursuit of our shared ideals. Some of those ideals, which previous generations literally fought to enshrine, have been revoked or come under attack. So it’s no wonder that, in the face of all this, many people are choosing to disengage.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans—some 65 percent—say they “always or often feel exhausted” when contemplating politics, and more than half reported feeling angry, according to a Pew survey last year. Only 10 percent reported feeling hopeful about politics, and even fewer—4 percent—told Pew they felt excited. Too many people have come to believe that they’re powerless to help themselves, much less society. This is the phenomenon that Robert F. Kennedy referred to as “the danger of futility” in a 1966 speech in South Africa. He warned against “the belief there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills—against misery and ignorance, injustice and violence,” and urged people to remember that “many of the world's great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man.”

[Michael Powell: The worst is not inevitable]

I believe that We the People are still the answer, individually and collectively, to so many of the challenges we’re facing now. I realize this may sound overly earnest to some, but as we have seen, cynicism and despair can be powerful and dangerous accelerants to division, with tragic consequences. Reversing the alienation from our political processes starts with rebuilding faith in its efficacy—faith that individuals who come together within communities, working toward a common goal, can overcome lack of education, social isolation, a dearth of role models, and other conditions that serve as barriers to political engagement. To find consensus in a divided society, we have to seek common ground despite, if not because of, our opposing beliefs. We can begin to heal our divisions—emphasis on the word begin—by making an attempt. We can get along better by trying. We can connect with others despite painful breaches caused by closed minds or power gaps.

Recently, I got to know Maine Governor Janet Mills, who told me that one of her constituents, a young mother named Ashirah Knapp, had sent her weekly letters of support through the first year of the coronavirus pandemic. The governor’s show of emotion was so striking and unusual that I asked to see the letters. In one dispatch, Knapp wrote, “If people looked deeply enough into themselves, a lot of them would find that they are frustrated, angry, scared” and “displacing those feelings onto you or others when actually there really was no other sane choice” for how to keep people safe. She promised to write to the governor “until we get through this time, to keep reminding you of the many people who approve of the path you are choosing.”

Mills, like many of her counterparts, and other officials in both parties, faced sustained criticism for her decisions during the early pandemic. She endured backlash ranging from mobs of protesters, some of them armed, to threats of violence, calls for her impeachment, and then-President Trump’s dig that she “doesn’t know what she’s doing … She’s like a dictator.” But she led Maine through the crisis with some of the lowest numbers of infections and deaths of any state, adjusted for population, as well as one of the most robust economic recoveries, and was reelected by a historic margin. Even when Knapp disagreed with some aspect of the Mills administration’s COVID response, she encouraged the governor to trust her intuition and pledged to keep finding her own ways to help, however small. “There are so many brilliant and loving people in the world right now, but it often feels like there are a lot more hurtful and violent ones,” she wrote during the summer of 2020. “It doesn’t feel like all the little actions will ever be enough, yet it’s all we can do.”

Knapp filled her letters with ordinary stories of raising farm animals, an adopted dog, and two adolescent children while running a small business with her husband. Her anecdotes were sometimes poignant, often hilarious, and always relatable. Governor Mills wrote back when she could, noting in her final response that Knapp’s letters—“handwritten, heartfelt and real—have helped keep me grounded.” I was so moved by their correspondence that I wrote a book about it. While promoting the book this past year, I’ve met audiences who reacted with surprise and disbelief. Most seemed desperate for positive examples of leadership, and to feel it at work around them. It’s easy to understand why people believe that these examples are hard to find. Our information systems are inundated with partisan junk, juvenile flamethrowing, extremist manifestos, propaganda from foreign adversaries, and who-knows-how-much artificial intelligence.

When people would ask me how to find hope in such a nasty political and ideological environment, I’d tell them to be wary of social media’s echo chamber and the cacophony of apocalyptic headlines and apoplectic opinions. I’d remind them that there are untold numbers of good people and politicians in our country who are using their agency for the common good—not just for the good of those who agree with them.

Writing a letter may seem like a small act, but that’s the point. Americans need more demonstrations of shared humanity and more outreach to one another in difficult times. As we’ve seen throughout history, our nation can work together to solve problems that seem impossible. Audacious goals can be achieved by people who start in small places and do what they can, regardless of whether the results can be measured. We’ve made stunning progress, both over time and overnight, thanks to individuals who faced change with curiosity and creativity and took action where others balked.

[David A. Graham: How to save democracy]

In order to move forward, Americans also need to face the sad fact that the fundamental nature and tenor of how we get along has changed. You know that menacing sign you see at airport car-rental agencies, warning you that you can’t go back without shredding your tires? Too many of us have already driven over the security spikes—seen things in one another that we can’t unsee, said things to one another that cannot be taken back. Some of us have bought into unthinkable narratives and done appalling things to one another, compelled by fear, shame, or desperation.

Many of us know from painful personal experience that not every issue in a relationship is resolvable. But there is tremendous power in acknowledging that something is not working, and in being open to the ideas of those around you about how to fix it. Democratic renewal in America will also require empathy, respect for one another’s dignity, and deference to one another’s humanity. These feelings are automatic when someone stops to help a stranger at the scene of an accident. People don’t ask before offering assistance whether the elderly woman who’s just dropped her groceries voted for the candidate they support. Unifying the country is going to require actively seeking common ground, even the smallest, barest, hardscrabble patch of it, and starting there, with willingness to compromise.

Now is the time to use our agency—to be more civically involved, not less; to have the uncomfortable conversations we’ve been avoiding; to stop setting intellectual traps for those who are less informed; to listen for the sake of learning, instead of waiting for our turn to speak; to do meaningful things for one another, no matter how small or local the upside. That is what it would look like “to lead the land we love,” as Senator Kennedy said in that 1966 speech, “with a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds.” Imagine what you could do if you took those words to heart. Now imagine if each of us did. Maybe this election is what it will take for us to remember we can.