The America That I Dream Of

THE QUESTION

We’ve always had problems in America. We’ve always had disagreements, and we are never going to see eye to eye on everything.

I’m okay with that.

I don’t need an America where everybody agrees. I want an America where difference can exist, freedom still means something, competence matters, and serious people take serious responsibilities seriously.

I’m okay with people believing differently than I do. Different religions. Different politics. Different cultures. Different lifestyles. Different ideas about what this country should look like.

That was supposed to be part of the beauty of America.

I think about it like a pot of gumbo. Every ingredient doesn’t have to become the same thing. The sausage can still be sausage. The shrimp can still be shrimp. The okra can still be okra. Each brings something different to the pot, and somehow those differences come together to create something greater.

That’s the America I dream of.

Not an America where everybody has to think alike, vote alike, worship alike or live alike.

An America where we can be different and still build something together.

We were city folks and town folks. Rural and urban. We came from different regions, backgrounds and traditions. We argued. We disagreed. Sometimes we fought like hell.

But somewhere underneath all of that was supposed to be an understanding that when the argument was over, the country still had to work.

That’s the part I worry we’re losing.

I Want an America With Competence

I want a government that is dependable. I want a justice system that is honest. I want investigations based on evidence instead of political theater, and I want the people responsible for protecting this country focused on doing the job—not creating the next viral moment.

I want the people running complicated institutions to understand those institutions. And I want the people we trust with enormous public responsibilities to act like they understand the weight of the job.

That shouldn’t be too much to ask.

But somewhere along the way, American politics started confusing visibility with ability, charisma with competence, leadership with performance, and governing with content creation.

That bothers me.

I don’t need the director of the FBI trying to look like Rambo for a social-media reel. I don’t need the Pentagon looking like somebody is producing an action movie. I don’t need federal agencies behaving as though they are competing for likes, shares and viral moments.

And when someone whose career is closely associated with professional wrestling and entertainment is placed in charge of the Department of Education, I think Americans have every right to ask what experience, judgment and qualifications we value when we hand somebody responsibility for an institution that affects millions of children.

That doesn’t mean somebody who worked in entertainment can never serve in government. That isn’t my argument.

My argument is much simpler:

The job should still matter more than the show.

I don’t care how good somebody looks in a social-media clip if the institution underneath them isn’t working. I don’t care how tough somebody looks walking through a hallway or how many cameras are following them.

Did you do the job?

Did you understand the problem?

Did you tell the truth?

Did you hire competent people?

Did you protect the institution you were entrusted to lead?

Did the American people get something better at the end of the day?

Those are the questions I care about.

Because government isn’t supposed to be a Marvel movie.

It is supposed to work.

Difference Isn’t the Problem

Maybe that’s where my dream of America gets misunderstood.

I’m not dreaming about a country where everybody becomes liberal. I’m not dreaming about a country where everybody becomes conservative. I’m not asking Republicans to become Democrats or Democrats to become Republicans.

I’m not asking Christians to stop being Christians. I’m not asking people without faith to suddenly find religion. I’m not asking rural America to become New York City, or New York City to become rural America.

I don’t want that country.

Difference isn’t the problem. The inability to live with difference is the problem.

There should still be room in America for somebody who believes something completely different from me to sit across a table, tell me why they believe it, listen to why I believe what I believe, and then get up knowing that we are both still Americans.

Maybe neither one of us changes our mind.

That’s okay.

The purpose of a conversation isn’t always agreement. Sometimes the purpose is understanding. Sometimes the purpose is learning something you didn’t know. And sometimes the purpose is simply remembering that the person sitting across from you is still a human being.

We have become so accustomed to choosing sides that we’ve started treating disagreement as disloyalty and political opponents as enemies.

That isn’t healthy for a country.

A democracy doesn’t require everybody to agree.

It requires enough people to believe that disagreement can exist without destroying the system that allows us to disagree in the first place.

I Just Want Freedom

When everything else gets stripped away, what I want isn’t complicated.

I want freedom—the freedom to vote, to choose, to worship or not worship, to speak, to disagree, to live, and to pursue happiness.

And I want those freedoms to mean something even when the person exercising them looks nothing like me, believes nothing like me and votes nothing like me.

Because freedom isn’t really freedom if it only belongs to people we agree with.

I want an America where competence matters and truth still has value. Where facts aren’t treated like inconveniences. Where disagreement doesn’t automatically make somebody your enemy. Where government can occasionally be boring because serious work doesn’t always need background music and a camera crew.

I want an America where people can disagree about policy and still agree that institutions should function. Where qualifications matter. Where leadership means responsibility. Where public service still means service.

And where the country matters more than somebody’s personal brand.

I don’t think that dream belongs to the left. I don’t think it belongs to the right. I don’t think it belongs to one race, religion, generation, region or political party.

I think there are millions of Americans who are simply tired of the noise.

People who don’t need politics to entertain them. People who don’t need somebody screaming every morning to tell them who they are supposed to hate that day.

People who just want a country that works.

A country where we can raise our children, build our businesses, go to work, worship, learn, argue, laugh, vote and live—and somehow keep building the same country together.

Maybe that’s an old-fashioned dream.

If it is, I’m okay with that.

Because the America I dream of isn’t perfect.

It never was.

It probably never will be.

I simply want an America mature enough to understand that difference does not have to destroy us, freedom belongs to all of us, and serious responsibilities deserve serious leadership.

We don’t have to agree on everything.

But after all the arguing is finished, we still have a country to build.

That’s the America I dream of.

What’s yours?