READING TIME: 3 MINUTES
Politics is a choice between the disastrous and the unpalatable.¹ It's a racket, a manipulated sport of two teams. The folks who run the teams start with good intentions but they get caught up in it. They have egos. And lifestyles that trap them.
And we join the teams or risk representation.
For a democracy to work you need other big ideas to go with it like: capitalism (fair and conscious); liberalism (small 'l'); republic vs monarchy; natural resources; demographics; social programs like education, and the fire department; and so forth. You need balance. That's what history tells us.
Now, everyone was once a little baby who was born and grew up somewhere. They experienced things along the way. They have an internal dialogue like you. How does that differ from where you were born and what you experienced? What stories could they tell, and what could you soak up if you were just shooting the shit? Then, ask why did they vote for who they did, based on the two tired teams? Unlikely that it's because they're stupid. More likely that it's because of only one or two things like "the economy", "healthcare", "gun ownership", "immigration", and so forth, all infinitely complex issues.
Most people are just trying to make it in the world. There are bad actors – there are always those who give in to the inner demons of our nature. But most people, most of the time are motivated by the better angels of empathy, reason, self-control, and the pursuit of a moral sense.²
Given all that, would you rather divide
or unite these states of America?
Cooperation is one of our greatest strengths as a species. Think about it. Did you ever see a city of eight million chimpanzees? No, chimpanzees live in communities of 30 to 150 because they can't get along in groups larger than that. A colony of termites can exceed one million, but did termites ever put their heads together and sail a boat made of trees to another continent, did they invent money, learn to write, or fly a spaceship to the moon? We’ve done pretty well through cooperation.
NOTES
1. A quote from John Kenneth Galbraith in a letter to JFK March 2, 1962: "Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable."
2. Pinker, Steven. New York: Penguin Books, 2011. The Better Angels of our Nature