Opportunity in the Chaos

Last updated on: August 4, 2016 at 9:09 am by J. R. Daniel Kirk

Opportunity in the Chaos 2016-08-04T09:09:45-08:00 J. R. Daniel Kirk

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A beautiful, wonderful thing has happened for me over the past couple of months. I have been unfettered from the internet for significant stretches of time.

We have been moving and remodeling a kitchen, keeping me away from my screen with its blogs and tweets and posts. We have been out in the woods for three-day stretches on two separate occasions. We have been on airplanes and driving in cars and shopping at Home Depot. And Lowe’s. And Home Depot. And did I mention Lowe’s?

Even with a somewhat steady diet of radio accompaniment as I’ve driven around town (“I need to grab another 8″ vent pipe at Home Depot, honey, you need anything?”) I have found the politics to be less jarring. I have found myself less partisan. I have even discovered a couple of sane voices. Well–sane words anyway, if not entirely sane voices.

Sane Words

There have been a lot of powerful speeches over the past weeks. Powerful speeches can stir the heart and form the imagination. But two speeches in particular drew boos precisely where they were at their best, their sanest—precisely where America needs to grow up.

One of these was Ted Cruz’s final words, where instead of endorsing Donald Trump he encouraged people to vote their conscience. What was so great about this moment was not that he was sticking it to Trump but that he was refusing a blind commitment to party politics. One reason I find Cruz so scary as a politician is his commitment to his ideals, something that I think makes him a perfect foil for what I want to advocate for here. But in that moment he demonstrated that there is a politics that’s bigger than “my team winning.”

The other sane moment was at the Democratic Convention when Michael Bloomberg gave an endorsement that can only be seen as a somber political compromise. “No matter what you might think about her politics or her record,” he said. “Throughout her time in the Senate we did not always agree,” he assured us. And this is why his speech was so brilliant: it embodied the compromise of statesmanship. It showed us that idealistic party loyalty is not the only way forward and may not be the best.

The problem isn’t that we have parties, it’s that we are so deeply partisan. The partisan instinct lies beneath. The parties are merely an expression. Humans are innately tribal. It’s an evolutionary survival trait. But now it has the power to kill us.

What I Never Want to Hear

I hope for two things—one possible and one that would take an act of God.

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