The discerning public?
A snapshot
As you know, we live in Annapolis along the banks of beautiful Spa Creek which feeds the Chesapeake Bay. It is a community of roughly 30,000 people, mixed in every sense: politically, racially, financially, by gender, and anything else. The town is part of a broader mixed state with all views affiliations, and disdains.
I keenly follow politics which means getting out to see what appears elsewhere in trying to understand the pulse of this amazing country. I do not expect I will ever meet all 340 million fellow Americans but like to see how politics features elsewhere.
We are visiting a statistical community of roughly 2.3 million right now, situated in the old confederacy. The area has multiple suburban communities, concentrated urban areas, and a plethora of rural homesteads from which one sees pastoral calm.
It is also, based on a fair amount of driving over several days, blissfully free of so much of the political messaging one would think endemic in 2024 America.
Again, I am not naive enough to say that what I have seen is everything as I fully understand I am seeing minuscule slices of the area. I have seen a total of two political signs, both modest blue Trump signs. No gargantuan street banners as we used to see (I confess we haven’t been recently) in southern Anne Arundel County. No trucks driving with Biden or Trump flags. No massive displays at all.
I realise that the election is now still five months from now. In Politix, that is eternity but the vote is closer than putting gifts under the tree or lighting the Menorahs this year. To listen to the press reports, Congressional blathering, or campaign rhetoric, everyone is standing on their porches with pitchforks aiming to combat the opposition before those dangerous threats come up the steps into each and every home. We are polarized (as I acknowledge I voice this fear regularly) and at the ready to launch!!
Based on my tiny survey in this rather different part of the world, not so much at the ready as I expected. Funny how evidence is different from narratives.
In particular, we attended a minor league baseball game last night. It was a beautiful evening and the crowd of several thousand was out and about repeatedly for their beers, ice cream, and pretzels. Lots of dads watching kids learn to walk and sorority sisters out for an evening. I saw not a single political indicator of any type. Zippo.Nada. Zilch. If politics is the burning issue, it was not even smoldering last night among the folks spending time watching a game. They appeared quite a variety of folk, according to dress, age, skin tones, and gender.
Is this evidence all is copacetic? Of course not. It is indicative, however, of what one of our most loyal readers, who uses vastly different real data sets from his perch in Puget Sound, calls ‘the center holding’. This reader repeatedly reminds me of evidence that we remain a centered nation less than ecstatic about the radicalizing pushes from anywhere on the spectrum. I have always believed in the centrist notion in this country but allowed myself to fear its demise over the post 6 January period.
I still worry after a few days’ evidence of greater equanimity but I worry far less than four days back. I recognize I am the one who always notes we are seeing things often as a snapshot but it is a prettier one for durability than I had fallen into believing.
Actions create consequences, of course. We are still four months and three weeks from the general election. It is hard to predict precisely what will unfold; we have had two extremely public convictions on both sides of the political aisle in the past three weeks alone. But I am buoyed by seeing another portion of the nation going about its daily business as a functioning society as Americans have always done. We have certainly had calls to preclude that. I desperately hope they are drowned out by the voices of Americana doing their American life things.
Perhaps Annapolis is too close to the Beltway for reality. Time will tell.
Thoughts? Rebuttals? Concerns are all welcome. I acknowledge I see only a statistically insignificant amount of the country so you may add much colour to this set of thoughts.
Thank you for reading Actions today and any day. If you see value, please feel free to circulate and encourage others to consider the questions. My intent remains to broaden our civil, measured conversation about the future. Thank those who subscribe as your commitment motivates me further each day.
Be well and be safe. FIN
Again, not saying there are not MAGA supporters as there ARE and many here but that struggle is not all consuming like breathing.
Every so often a social movement passes through a digital platform to bring awareness; the ALS ice bath challenge, the 22 pushup suicide awareness challenge.
Try this. The free news challenge. For one week, don't pay for your news. No subscription services, WaPo, WSJ, Foreign Affairs, Atlantic, New Yorker, Foreign Policy.
Read free news. Bing, Apple, Google aggregators. List serves or RSS feeds. Story links from Facebook or X or Tik Tok.
If you really want to walk the walk don't watch your subscription cable. Figuratively cut the cord like millions of Americans have done literally. If you need TV news find over the air broadcasts or free app based services on laptop or smart phone.
After a week of free news write a post on the most covered or most significant free story of the week.
It might be an interesting experiment. But I think more importantly it might close some of the gap in understanding how the country is moving and reacting. To the economy, to social issues, to political issues.
The beltway is a seductive place. But just like folks in the outer regions perhaps not 'getting' DC, it should be pretty easy to understand that DC doesn't 'get' a lot about what happens in other places.