Confession of a Crazy Democrat

“It must be nice to get away from those crazy Democrats.”

Waiting for the fireworks to begin over Shelter Cove Marina on Hilton Head Island, while our family was on vacation, that was the comment Christie and I heard back from the trio of people with which we were exchanging pleasantries when we told them we were from New York. One woman in their group was from South Carolina and two others were from Oklahoma.

It made me think about how little that speaker knew about New York and how incurious he seemed to be about ever changing his mind.

But it also made me think about something more upsetting: how little I know about Oklahoma and South Carolina and, for that matter, much of the rest of my country. The country I served for four years in the Navy…whose history I studied in college…whose constitution and systems of law and business I dedicated thirteen years of my professional life.

I am guilty of ignorance of my country.

Looking Outward

I have visited 35 different countries in my life. A week in Vietnam. A tenth anniversary trip to Morocco. Three weeks in Russia. Five days in Argentina. I’ve been to London two times. Paris three times. I’ve been to 15 of Italy’s 20 regions. I celebrated my college graduation by backpacking through ten European countries for 40 days on a lean $40 daily budget. I chose a forward deployment in Japan for my naval service, enabling me to visit eight different Asian countries.

For much of this exploration, I purchased a book to learn the area’s history…to respect customs…to appreciate architecture…to savor local foods…to understand language…to respect religious traditions and worldviews. I have been insatiably curious and, from that, have built a storehouse of knowledge and understanding about the world outside the U.S. borders. Granted, this knowledge is nevertheless extremely limited and further circumscribed by context (on most occasions I was on vacation). But, regardless, I know far more about the outside world than I would otherwise.

Overlooking My Own Backyard

For my own country?…my own backyard? I have lived in three different states: New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. I regularly visit family in North Carolina and California. I’ve been to 26 different states, in total, plus Washington, DC. That’s certainly not insignificant, but given proximity and our shared nationality, it falls short. There’s been no cross-country drives. No long weekends in nearby states like Ohio or West Virginia. “Fly-over country” is the condescending term used by many which says all too much. And rest assured, I have not picked up a book about any states that I have visited. Rest assured, when I drove through states like Mississippi and Louisiana I did not extend the curiosity and openness and respect for local ways that I did when I drove through the Philippines or Indonesia.

This is not a lamentation. During my childhood on Long Island, our family could not travel much. We visited Virginia when I was eight years old. We visited New Jersey and upstate New York when I was 15 years old. That’s it. Emerging into adulthood, I wanted to explode from those confines. I am thrilled that I could do so. I make no apologies.

Indeed, I would say those foreign travels reaffirm my belief that the United States of America is the greatest nation in the world and offers people the greatest opportunity to maximize their happiness. Our flaws are equaled or surpassed by most other countries. Those countries that might be less flawed do not exist with our natal complexities of area, population size, history and culture. Our collective accomplishments dwarf those of all others.

But while I am proud of our nation…indeed, I have never been prouder in light of the travails we have been working through of late…I do not understand our nation. I see data and events and images from within the great expanse of our nation…of my nation…and they often leave me baffled, disoriented and confused.

And that lack of intuitive understanding is my fault. All too often, I sought to expand the bubble of my awareness outward, not inward. The enticement of things foreign far surpassing that of things domestic.

Our Shared Problems

There are serious problems tearing at our country. I feel tears well up as I write these words. People are scared. People are frustrated. People are emotionally and physically spent.

Nevertheless, most Americans…regardless of demographics, politics, region, income, profession, ethnicity, orientation or whatever…are all striving for the same thing. A feeling of security. Good times with family and friends. Satisfying contributions to our world. A graceful old age.

We cannot solve our troubles screaming across the divide. We cannot solve them by engaging each other based on presumptuous, ignorantly simplistic stereotypes. We can cannot collaborate if we don’t understand who we are collaborating with.

Rising Together

We can solve our problems together. While the tunnel of despair may seem endless, we will emerge shoulder-to-shoulder. Just as our forbearers created a nation, overcoming the will of a global empire. Just as millions persevered through the inhumanity of slavery and subsequent generations stood (and stand) against legal and systemic discrimination. Just as our grandparents and great-grandparents rose against fascism. Just as our parents navigated a world of mutually assured nuclear destruction.

We can rise to the challenges of our nascent century, but we can only rise together through knowledge of each other. That knowledge will bring about and fortify our unity.

This won’t happen overnight. It may not happen with first contact. But new knowledge here and new connections there makes a difference. They spread. They go viral. And we know firsthand that viruses can transform the world.

But we need each other. I need that guy from Oklahoma…a fellow American…a fellow voter…more than I need a Parisian or Londoner or Argentinian or Mexican or Chinese mainlander. We share the same land. We share the same infrastructure. We share the same economy. We share the same judicial system. We share the same military protection. We share the same Constitution.

Learn and connect

I can’t make that Oklahoman ever get to know me better. But I can…I must…get to know him better. And in striving to know him better, he will know that I respect him. He will learn about me through my actions. He may never think New York is better than Oklahoma but he will think better of New York. He will see New York as connected to him in a way he dismissed in our conversation. In a way that I’ve dismissed Oklahoma during my life.

The solution, to be clear, is that we all must consciously strive to better connect with fellow Americans, especially those who think different than us and who have different values than us. We must see them for the totality of their existence and not just for their conflicting — even perhaps upsetting — opinions on a few divisive, hot button issues. We must acknowledge that we are more dependent on our fellow Americans than we are on people outside our borders. We must embrace our mutual Americanness, whatever our other differences. We must rise together. Or we shall sink together.

Some might say this notion is too simplistic for such a complicated problem. But I would say the problem is within me and everyone else like me across every spectrum. For the battle to be won on the individual level, we need a simple binary option that can be easy to implement and replicate.

Meet someone. Connect (or do not). Learn (or do not). Teach (or do not).

We must stop looking to the false prophets of technology for one-click answers. They have no solution for the ground combat of direct human relations. Alternatively, politicians and activists can blame new technology and demand policies and restrictions…but this is a cop out. The poison pulsing through social media spews from each of us. We must stop.

If the pandemic that has torn through American society has taught us nothing else, it is that we are tightly and unavoidably interdependent. New York City neighborhoods can be ravaged by a virus introduced by someone from Montana. A small town in Ohio can be decimated by a Covid-infected Angeleno. An intolerance-spewing demagogue from any congressional district infects every district.

There are groups that feast on stoking the tensions of division between folks like me and that Oklahoman…news media, social media, print media, foreign adversaries, politicians and lobbying organizations…even nonprofits. They rely and prey on our continuing mutual ignorance.

I can surrender to that manipulation.

I can put my head in the sand.

I can continue to cast my gaze beyond our borders.

Or I can turn around and say to a fellow American, “Hi. Pleased to meet you.”

Respectfully. Curiously. Pleasantly. Persistently.

Epilogue

My response to that Oklahoma gentleman? With a smile and a slight tilt of my head: “We’re those crazy Democrats. We don’t seem so crazy, do we?”

After the fireworks ended, we wished his wife a happy birthday and their group a good night. Perhaps not new friends, but that’s not foreclosed. We each may have learned something. And we can learn something in the future.

We each can do this. One small but significant interaction at a time.

[image from www.dreamstime.com]