Month: August 2023

How ‘A Beautiful Mind’ Can Save Our Democracy

If you’ve never seen the Oscar-winning 2001 movie A Beautiful Mind about the real life mathematician John Nash, I encourage you to.  He won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1994 and his Nash Equilibrium has had a major impact on how solutions are determined for everything from labor disputes and traffic flows to analyzing hostile situations like wars and arms races.  

I do not pretend to be an expert on the topic, but I understand it enough to see that if it were applied to our political situation in America that our democracy would be far better off.  

To sum up how I believe it should be applied to politics, instead of every voter thinking purely about what they want, and every politician thinking solely about what they want, if both voters and candidates also thought about what all the other voters want and about what all the other candidates want, and really took time to view the overall forest, we would all get better outcomes in terms of the quality of our candidates, and the quality of our elected leaders.  

Here is a video clip from the movie explaining it. 

Now, that’s all great, but how do we implement it?  We, you and I, need to keep educating and informing our fellow citizens about the nonpartisan voters first movement and all of the many good nonpartisan election reforms that will change the incentive structure for candidates and parties so that they have more interest in working together in good faith and trying to solve problems once and for all.  

Until that happens, and until those kinds of reforms are in place, like ranked choice voting, open primaries, final five voting, campaign finance reform, ending gerrymandering, etc, as much as I and many others would love to see third parties and independents run and win elections, they have to be VERY careful and pick their spots where they run, otherwise they will do more harm than good to the cause of creating real competition for the duopoly.  

While in principle I do not believe you can spoil a rotten system, in reality every time an independent or third party candidate runs for office, especially for President, the perception is that they are spoilers who take votes away from one of the two parties.  And politics perceived is politics achieved.  

The best path forward for independents and third party candidates for the time being is to only run in races that are two way races.  Are you listening Joe Manchin and No Labels?

How Can I Not Be?

When I started this blog several months ago it was fairly easy to come up with topics for the first two months because I already had things I wanted to say and share, but for my third post for July I was kind of at a loss.  

As a result, I spent the month sitting back and reflecting, taking everything in during a busy month of getting together with friends old and new, road trips across different parts of the country, doctors appointments, and in the course of all of it, along Interstate 29 in North Dakota passing endless fields of gorgeous corn, I came away with what I wanted to share.

I know we are all bombarded daily with news and social media telling us how divided we are, how in peril our democracy is, how the planet is doomed, and it’s all very true of course, but what was so refreshing this past month was being reminded of the wonderful and good qualities of my fellow Americans.  

I am the first to say for years that we all have far more in common than we do that divides us, and this last month I got so much re-affirmation of that belief that I want to share a couple of the examples.  

See The Country For Yourself

First, if you ever get the chance to travel our great country, I urge you to please do so.  Every single time I do it, and I’ve now been to 48 states in 47 years of life, it reinforces that long held belief, instilled in me by my father, that if you take down the road signs and town names, you wouldn’t be able to tell which state you were in most of the time.  

It’s another way of saying we are all so similar, with similar needs, desires, fears, troubles, joys, strengths, and weaknesses.  In short, traveling helps you see things from different perspectives, develop and keep an open mind, and teaches you grace and humility.  At least for me it does.  

When we were driving over a week through Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Iowa, through hundreds of miles of corn fields ready for harvest, you can’t help but feel a deep pride in your fellow Americans who do all the work to make those beautiful sights happen year in and year out over the centuries, to feed the country and the world.  

That moment that struck me on Interstate 29 south of Fargo was the thought of “faith”.  Not so much a religious faith, but just a simple, human faith that those farmers must have that there will be a tomorrow, a chance to grow and sell their crops in a free country, to raise their kids in a strong democracy, where people of different backgrounds and beliefs come together to solve problems and work together.  

All too often, politicians try to tell us that if we don’t listen to them or do things the way they want and when they want, that we are somehow doomed, but on that Midwest drive in mid-July, my faith was restored that while yes there may be dark clouds over our country, and they may be there for a while, that our country is going to endure and succeed over the coming years and centuries, because I believe in the American people.  

We might not fix all our problems as fast or as proactively as we could, and we may have some ugly fights ahead of us, but in the end it’s impossible to see us being anything other than successful.  

Good People Are Everywhere

The second big example of the reaffirmation I got that we all have far more in common than we do that divides us was several things that happened during a two day drive from Idaho to Arizona helping a dear friend and her daughter move.  

We were driving two of the biggest Uhauls you can get, both with car carriers attached, and both of us had issues at times with getting into jams with the trailers at gas stations and hotels.  Each time it fell to me to try and fix it, and each time, while I would have eventually gotten things straightened out, Good Samaritans came out of nowhere to help direct me in which way to turn the wheel and speed up the process.  

One person that helped was from South Asia, another was a middle aged white couple who said they’ve been towing trailers for years and are always happy to help folks.  The husband I believe he said his name was Mark and had on a USMC hat.  The third Good Samaritan was a much older man who was so patient and kind with me while trying to turn around in a tight hotel parking lot and loved it when I thanked him and asked him to give me “five” for being so helpful.  

I don’t have any idea what any of their politics were, and they didn’t have any idea what my politics were.  For all I know, and for all they know, they or I could have all been far right, far left, or somewhere inbetween.  But if we did know, would it have mattered?  I truly hope not.  If our political outlooks didn’t agree, would they have still offered to help?  I truly hope so.  Would I have still accepted the help?  Heck yeah!  

Be The Reason People Believe That Good People Exist

During the same moving trip I was in a truck stop convenience store just to get some caffeine to help keep me going and my purchase was only like $2.78.  Of all the times I’ve been asked if I wanted to round up for charity or donate $1 I’ve said no like 99% of the time, but for whatever reason, when the little grizzled old lady behind the counter asked me halfheartedly if I wanted to round up to help local nonprofits in that area, I guess I was caught in a weak moment and said “sure”.  About the same time as I’m walking away another employee came over and I heard the cashier say to her with such awe and reverence and gratitude “he’s a rounder”.  Not only did hearing that make me smile and feel good about myself, but I could tell that it made her day too that someone actually said yes when she asked, because she probably asks a thousand times a day.  

Final Thoughts

There is no doubt that America as a country and Americans as people in their own day to day lives face many difficult challenges and problems today and in the future.  It’s always been that way and always will be.  It’s just how life is.  We might not be able to control the challenges and problems we have to face, but we CAN choose how to face them.

The easiest and probably most understandable thing to do is to turn toward the darker side of human emotions and view and outlooks, but the better choice, and yes harder choice at times, is to intentionally turn towards the light and focus on the positives and the silver linings.

For even in our worst times, whether personally or as a nation, there are good things happening too, and we need to all (including me) do a much better job of remembering that and taking stock of those good things.  

People used to always be amazed at how FDR could possibly be so optimistic and rosy about America’s future during the Great Depression and given his own physical disability, and his answer was always “how could I not be?”

You may be reading this and wondering how, given the state of our country and the world can Perry be so positive and optimistic about the future of our country and the planet, but I say to you, travel the country and your answer will be the same as mine….how can I not be?