It’s interesting that so much focus was put on Pennsylvania this year. It’s only one of seven swing states, but it’s the one - by far - that was most talked about. Elon Musk spent a lot of money in each of the contested states, but this was the one where he spent all of his time.
Pennsylvania is where Josh Shapiro has shown the sort of cross-party charisma that many thought Kamala Harris should have put on her team.
Philadelphia. Where our founders struggled through the hot contentious summer of 1787 hammering out what would become our constitution. Independence Hall. The Liberty Bell. The town whose very name means Brotherly Love. In a place that still likes to call itself a commonwealth.
The Keystone State.
In the photo above we see the architectural structure that made Rome great. The Roman Arch allowed buildings to become larger and taller. It’s weight-bearing magic stood up to the transportation of water. And just as importantly, for building the bridges that sent Rome’s web of roads everywhere.
The keystone is why an arch works. That wedge-shaped block at the apex. It combines the load-carrying strength of two opposing half-arches by keeping them upright. And with the keystone in place, the weight from above can be almost limitless.
Josh Shapiro consistently polled higher in his state than either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. He’s a Democrat. But his reputation for common-sense problem solving makes his party affiliation almost irrelevant.
You might say that Josh Shapiro is a Keystone Human Being.
When people talk about how our political divide has threatened family relationships, the example given is almost always Thanksgiving Dinner. That makes sense for several reasons.
One is that Thanksgiving dinner traditionally brings in people from distant counties or states. Places with varying political demographics.
Add to that the family dynamics that can put people on edge whenever they congregate. Everybody has that radicalized sister or reactionary brother-in law. Relations who wear their politics on a sleeve, and leave etiquette in the trunk of the car.
And, of course, no other holiday comes closer on the heels of an election, when the hurt and anger of loss, runs headlong into the temptation to spike the ball and dance in the end-zone.
Writing for the news-letter of Tufts Public Opinion Lab, Rachel Kuhn describes the scene perfectly:
As the turkey waits to be cut, everyone sits up straight in their seats for the “I’m thankful for” portion of the evening. Mimi begins: “We’re facing dangerous times, really dangerous. But I’m thankful for my grandchildren, who remind me that there’s still hope in this broken world.” Immediately after, Uncle Miles rolls his eyes and shoots his hand up: “I’m thankful for the victory of our great president — we’re finally putting this country back on track. The real change is just beginning!”
Happy Thanksgiving, I guess?
In Ms. Kuhn’s article, she writes about a study that Tufts did during the ramp-up to the 2024 election. One of the findings shows that 62% of Americans have at least one family member with whom they disagree about politics.
Of that sixty-two percent, 71% of Republicans report having family members who vote Democrat. While only 39% of Democrats say that they have Republicans in the family.
Kuhn cites other research showing that Republicans are 20 percentage points more likely than Democrats to discuss politics with family members who vote differently.
Also that Democrats are slightly more inclined to describe these encounters as particularly stressful of frustrating. This giving credence, she writes, to the theory that Democrats are more prone to seek homogeneity in their social lives.
I think I can explain it a different way. Kids from conservative families are much more prone to head for liberal-land than vice versa. Going off to college or to more exciting and glamorous cities, is sure to expose young people to liberal ideas. This is the old ‘how you gonna keep ‘em down of the farm?’ trope.
When those kids come home for Thanksgiving, spouting left-wing jargon, conservative parents won’t be surprised or caught off-guard. And they will be forgiving, because parents have seen ‘phases’ before, and fully expect further changes in the future. But an infusion of differing views does occur.
On the other hand, liberal parents with kids home from college for the holidays are only going to hear more extreme versions of their own party’s basic tenets. This closed loop, has gradually cut off the influx of conservative thought into the bluest of cities and states. Lack of push-back explains the woke over-reach now being blamed - in part - for the recent red wave.
California used to elect Republican governors. Remember Ronald Reagan? It wasn’t really all that long ago that Los Angeles had a Republican mayor. Richard Riordan, (1993-2001). Two terms. And he was pretty darn popular.
You don’t see that sort of political diversity now. So how are Democrats supposed to get any practice at conversing amiably across the divide and across the Thanksgiving table?
I belong to an organization whose experience challenges the idea of liberals willfully avoiding cross-party discussion. Braver Angels, is laser-focused on promoting good-faith discussions across the divide. They work very hard at keeping their leadership and membership balanced out between the red and the blue. But their numbers always tilt liberal.
They are forever reaching out to conservative members to participate in workshops and events. Insiders that I know personally, tell me that despite their best efforts, Democrats are just more interested in their mission than are Republicans. And this is a longstanding imbalance. So … credit where credit is due.
A couple of weeks ago, I got a Thanksgiving invite. My own family is mostly gone; either to the great beyond, or to the great state of Oregon. So, most years I spend the holiday with a group of very good friends. Here in Southern California’s San Fernando Valley. Most of us are musicians or musician-adjacent.
It won’t surprise you to know that I might be the only person in the room who’s ever voted for a Republican. (or at least admits to having done that)
And certainly, I’ll be the only person there who ever strayed far enough from the pack to have become a modestly famous conservative commentator.
Yet, there was the invitation. Right there in my inbox.
I believe that my liberal friends now understand what I’ve come to know. That there is - organically - such a thing as a conservative mind. And also a naturally occurring liberal mind. And that, in proper balance, both perspectives have something to offer.
They know which type I have, and they know that my closest confidant and partner in events of all sorts, is of the ‘other’ type. Both of us will be there. Having arrived in the same car. With no sign of us having duked it out on the 210 freeway.
Without intending it, Alexia and I have been engaged in something of a ‘Braver Angels’ project for fifteen years and counting. But with music and food and unstructured socializing as our method of divide-bridging.
The couple who hosts the Thanksgiving feast we’ll both attend, have also run a backyard summer concert series for over a decade now. And rumor has it, that more than a few of their regulars lean a bit to the right of center.
They are not politically active in overt ways. But their welcoming of all music lovers into their home, regardless of voting habits … is itself a subtle form of activism.
I’d say that, without really trying to, the four of us are becoming Keystone Human Beings.
But this is an anxious time in Southern California. I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t a little bit nervous as to what the vibes might be like Thursday afternoon.
I often defended Trump back when he was defensible; prior to his ‘Stop The Steal’ madness. For this reason some of my fellow diners might, in some tertiary way, blame me for his re-election. Emotions are understandably tender here in Los Angeles.
Vigilance is advisable. Too much caffeine is not. ;0)
Pennsylvania was called the Keystone State, because it was where the slave-holding agrarian South, met the urban mercantile North. To craft a constitution that would combine the two into a load-bearing arch for the ages … was no mean feat.
It’s a mark of just how wrong our politics have gone, that hard-partisans on both sides now see ‘compromise’ as no better than surrender. They’ve forgotten that this country only exists because its founders made give-and-take the primary goal of governance.
My partisan friends look at a map like this one and think that the purple states need to be turned either red or blue. Looking at the same map, I only wonder how best they can all become purple.
For some that suggests an oppressive uniformity of thought. “What? You mean everybody would think the same about every issue?” But that’s not what compromise means at all. It means that neither side’s way of looking at the world would be allowed to fully dominate. Kind of like the functioning of every healthy marriage.
Arguments made. Trade-offs agreed to. Accommodations arrived at.
Our social organism becoming Hybrid, rather than Inbred.
Right now people in blue states are terrified of things that will never happen in their own neighborhoods. Just as the recent red wave was largely a reaction, by conservatives, to progressive notions that would never have come to dominate their own towns.
Biased media works to ensure that both sides remain frightened and defensive.
The extremes that we see taking hold in these one-party places are happening BECAUSE there is no habit of compromise. There’s no way to arrive at hybrid solutions, because there is too little diversity of opinion.
Those of us whose politics are close enough to the dividing line to touch the fence, have a clear-cut responsibility in these troubled times. It falls to us to be the voice of reason. Gently but firmly coaxing others away from the hardline positions cultivated by the profiteers of division.
Accepting, and communicating that good people might hold widely differing views, for reasons other than the worst-case-scenario motivations assumed by Fox News and MSNBC.
That’s my underlying goal here on this Substack, as I finish out my one-year commitment, and consider ways to expand my scope in 2025.
But all of that can wait. Our job right now, if we are fortunate enough to have friends and family and food on the table, is simply to be grateful. For all of its current craziness, this is still the country which stands as beacon to every soul around the world who dreams of a better life.
That we were born here is nothing but dumb luck. We are all heirs to a society that can be as glorious as we determine to make it. It’s wise for us to gather - even when gathering is fraught - and remind one another that GRATITUDE is the most lovely emotion of them all.
Nobody ever broke a window or invaded a country out of gratitude. The cops are never called because the neighbors are loudly thanking each other at two in the morning.
To appreciate what we’ve been given, and what we’ve been allowed to earn. That’s why the bird is defrosting, and fifteen pounds of potatoes need to be peeled, and the airports are a nightmare.
We go to all of this trouble and expense because deep down inside we know that our lives are a gift.
So let’s focus on that! And then, let’s absorb and generate as much Holiday Cheer as we can, before we toast the passing of 2024. And wish it good riddance.
Then we can begin the hard and necessary work of making the next year better, and ourselves a little bit more deserving of our blessings.
Happy Thanksgiving, -Dave
Dave, thanks for a well written essay. Great start for the Thanksgiving Holiday.
The braver Angels chapter in my neighborhood does mostly online stuff. Not much for a guy who likes in person stuff. Always thought I would be a good fit there, but a storm messed up a lot here in Western North Carolina.
I would be a great fit there, and enjoy all of your content, because I long ago learned that the truth is in the middle.
Thanks again for an insightful and well expressed writing.
Happy Thanksgiving!