Forget the old normal — we’ll build a new, better one

Emerging from our trauma with fiercely optimistic new hopes and dreams

We experienced a corrupt president attacking democracy, his adversaries, the truth and science. We survived a thinly veiled attempt at a presidential coup. We sheltered in place and watched helplessly as the world coped with the worst pandemic since 1918. We lost loved ones and were unable to hold funerals. Weddings were canceled or postponed. We watched half our population fall prey to misinformation and were unable to help them see what was happening to them. We despaired as media channels calcified their tribal warfare and profited from the emotional tug that social media and digital news media manufactures while it divided us along political lines. We became part of the problem, believing deep in our hearts that the ‘other’ party is evil and corrupt and that all of its followers therefore must be bad people. We slowly notices that the wealth gap has become so large that our social landscape is not unlike that of a third world country: palaces and slums, with a shrinking middle class between the two. We agonized over this giant mess, knowing we had very little power to remedy any of it.

Then we elected a president who actually cares, and appears trustworthy. We’re feeling hopeful, even though a complex…