From afar, American politics appears to be chaotic populism on the right and the left floating on alternating undercurrents of cynicism and illogic.  But the mediums from which those perceptions are drawn – cable news and, even worse, internet algorithms – are poor measures of public opinion.  This piece contends that the views of many Americans were, and remain, centrist and are being ignored by strident voices on both ends of the political spectrum.

The views expressed below do not rest on social science research, political polling, or demographic data. Rather, they reflect the shared experience of getting out of bed for a job that you would not regret leaving as you navigate the ups and downs of family life, faded possibilities, and gravity.  In other words, they rest on lives lived.  On our own individual journeys punctuated by happiness, disappointments, satisfactions, and limitations that we impose on ourselves and are imposed on us by others.

From that shared experience, certain truths emerge that – I believe – may fairly be considered self-evident.  They all seek to describe the views of Americans’ who, if not in the actual majority, are almost certainly numerous enough to determine electoral outcomes in a highly polarized electorate.

We want our families and our property to be safe and secure – Meaning that we support the police and do not want to defund them. Individual officers, units, and even entire departments should of course be held accountable when they transgress.  And yes – they sometimes do. But disrespecting the police as a group is unacceptable and denying officers seating at restaurants (to create a “safe” space by excluding those who keep us safe) is idiotic.  For those demoralized by police interactions – how much worse would it be if they don’t come when you need them?  Police officers are not robots.  They are people.  If you put a target on their backs and make them part of the problem, some of them won’t come, or come more slowly.

We want our borders to be secure –If we don’t control who comes into our country, then we don’t have a country.  A wall probably won’t do it.  America’s borders are several thousand miles long and go through forests and mountains.  But that does not translate into open borders or catch and release. People who come here illegally should be held, processed and deported or – if qualified – admitted.  America is a nation of immigrants and needs more of them to fuel its economy, fund its social programs, and drive innovation. Importantly, immigrants also exemplify what America perceives itself to be. And most of us understand the complexities.  We do not want people brought here years ago as children to be treated the same as those who illegally crossed the border yesterday.  But that is only because children should not be punished for the sins of their parents.  It is not because of someone else’s social justice overlay, with which many Americans disagree.

We want to be able to afford to get sick – We pay more money to get worse healthcare outcomes than any other developed nation.  That has to change.  Many countries have tried to solve this very difficult problem.  Instead of taglines, simplistic half-truths, and a QAnon former president’s empty tweets masquerading as policy, give us a commission of experts.  Have them study where others have succeeded or failed and use those lessons to propose a path forward grounded in actual experience.  Then talk to us about it.  As if we were adults whose lives (and the lives of our families) depended on it. Which we are, and they do.

We want to be able to say what we think – All individual freedoms rest on this one.  You can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater.  But there is no right to not be offended.  Ideas can be jagged, and even hurtful.  But without them we give away our birthright as Americans and, frankly, as human beings. We are appalled when the twitter feed of the few define what is acceptable to the many. We reject people being cancelled for slights – real or imagined – and the absurdity of using the cultural norms of today to judge the lives of people who lived in the past.  We want our political, business, and other leaders to proactively and resolutely defend our freedom to say what is on our minds, even if someone else doesn’t like or agree with it.

We want a society that works better for more of us – Our society rewards the skilled and punishes the unskilled, who are many – often for reasons they could not control.  It is in everyone’s self-interest to have more people with a real stake in the success of this country.  So paying more taxes to advantage the disadvantaged is not altruism.  It is self-interest.   But only to a point.  We already have hundreds of often overlapping social welfare programs.  Too few of them work as intended.  We do not seek to determine the parameters of any particular program. But we do say this – tax dollars aren’t culled from the air.  They come from the days, months and years of individual lives poured into making a living. The goal should be to help others to fish.  Not to take away the fish others have caught.  Meaning that programs – from early childhood on – should be devised to help people help themselves.  Rather than to equalize outcomes that will impoverish us all and corrode the link between what a person does and what they achieve.

We want a wider, authentic national conversation about race – There is something in the human spirit that needs to kick down and kiss up. Life in the United States has been hard on most groups – particularly people of color.  But today, which country in the world has done more to mold the many into one?  Rwanda (the slaughter of 800,000 Tutsi), Myanmar (the Rohingya genocide), China (the Uighur genocide), Mauritania (which still practices actual slavery), as well as the fascist/Nazi parties of Germany, Italy, Belgium, France, and Denmark (to name a few) whose elected members are openly in government?  Yes, America needs to do better. And where we are right now matters. But so does how far we have come relative to almost everyone else.

We want to leave our children a habitable planet – We are watching our environment change, and begin to fail, in real time.  It will cost money and cause economic dislocation to deal with this.  Over time there will be some progress, many fall starts, and a lot of waste. But what is the alternative?

We want our pre-COVID lives back – Everyone is exhausted by this experience, and by now most of us know people who been seriously ill, and/or died.   We want this to end, or to at least come as close to ending as possible.  And we know how to get there.  We don’t care if you accept medical science, are unvaccinated, or if you get sick.  But we do care if you make us or the people who we care about sick with COVID or long COVID.  So get vaccinated.  Get boosted. Get tested.  Where appropriate, wear a mask. And shut up.

We want to be able to hire and fire our political leaders – In other words, we want our vote to count.  Former President Trump insists otherwise.  He continues to assert that the vote in Georgia was altered by computer algorithms (despite three hand counts of paper ballots). That Arizona was fixed (even after the absurd Republican driven Arizona audit (aka, the “Fraudit”), which searched – unsuccessfully – for bamboo fibers in paper ballots to prove Chinese interference, while contaminating and ruining millions of dollars worth of voting machines).  And that the entire election was stolen, despite the contrary conclusion of (i) more than sixty federal judges, (ii) Trump’s own Attorney General (William Barr), and (iii) his own Director of Cyber Security (Chris Krebs).  Before goading the worst segment of his base into open insurrection.

Why? The team Trump handpicked, who each know him well, have an answer. Trump’s former Secretary of Defense (Gen. Mattis), former Director of National Security (Dan Coats), and former Secretary of State (Rex Tillerson), as well as his own sister (the Hon. Maryanne Trump Barry) have all – in different ways – said the same thing. That Trump – a person unconstrained by truth, character, or personal integrity – is uniquely unsuited to lead.

Though actually a profound mediocrity, Trump in his own mind is a perennial winner. By his illogic, he therefore cannot have lost.  And to “prove” that empty point, Trump is actively trying to corrupt our electoral process to the point where our votes will no longer matter.

With a lot of help from my party.  That is, the Republican party. From the far too many republicans who either endorse the Big Lie or lack the courage to denounce it.

Most of the problems America faces are, or meaningfully can be, addressed by policy.  A broken faith in our electoral system can’t. Our vote is the mechanism that connects governance and the governed. Once that mechanism is delegitimized, policy won’t matter anymore.

Americans can fix this – it has been is said that after our Constitution was first ratified Benjamin Franklin, asked whether what had just been created was a monarchy or a republic, replied, “a republic, if you can keep it.” There are millions of Americans who understand that it remains our responsibility, and is our legacy, to keep it. For ourselves and our families.

I am a person, not a pundit.  I don’t contend that these are the only important issues.  But they do sketch out much of what we need for ourselves and our families.

If you want a person’s vote you have to speak to them – not at them.  Which is why I believe the party that moves closest to the rational center on these core issues that actually touch our lives deserves to win. And that if neither party can, we have already lost.