America reels after Trump’s shocking election. What does it mean and what will the future bring?, people ask.
Half the people say: “It’s the end of the world! This will be Hell on Earth!”
And the other half say: “This is a glorious beginning. Soon we’ll have Heaven on Earth.”
I don’t believe either one. What to do?
Out here in the tiny bark of my ambivalent political opinions, I have been greatly buffeted by the much stronger and more forceful energies of those on either side. I am blasted from the left, frozen from the right, and rejected as wanting by both. Some think the path lies one way, some another; some think there’s no path at all.
First off, this last is false. There is always a path, even if you’ve been busted down to electrons. And since choosing between extremes, right or left, A or B, is impossible (because it leaves the entirety of the other side out), we need another way to choose.
Here’s an idea: imagine the American electorate as a Venn diagram. Now imagine that the best path lies between the extremes of A and B at the point where the two intersect.
In our competitive, winner-take-all society, politics is regarded as a battle, and the goal of government is to “push through” policy changes, regardless of how many or how few people actually want them. But perhaps this isn’t the role of a democratic government after all. For instance, what would happen if instead of enacting policies that half the country despises, we were to legislate only that on which we can agree? Would that be wrong? We’ll likely never know.
Meanwhile, pity the poor non-partisan, for truly they have nowhere to lay their head where it won’t get bashed by one of their politically-aligned fellows!
