“It’s kind of fun to do the impossible”, Walt Disney once famously said.  Whether it is in our daily lives or in the life of our country, there are often circumstances and challenges that seem impossible, sometimes for long stretches of time, until seemingly overnight they are conquered.  

In late 1901 after a disappointing attempt at flying, Wilbur Wright dejectedly exclaimed to his brother on the long train ride back from Kitty Hawk North Carolina to Dayton Ohio, “not in a thousand years will man ever fly”.  They would achieve it in less than 12 months.  

During the period of 1901-1905 when the Wright Brothers were working hard on their flying machine the prevailing narrative in the worldwide press was one of derision and fatigue from all of those who had failed before them, so much so that when they were finally successful and multiple attempts were made to get the attention of the press and the government, it took over a year of continued flights before the world started to sit up and take notice.  

Oh, and when they finally did take notice, immediately and simultaneously in several countries around the world people started making attempts to do the same thing following their lead.  

So it will be with independent and third party candidates.  It will be impossible to do until someone proves it can be done, and then the floodgates will open.  

Ella Wheeler Wilcox once wrote “One ship drives east and another west, with the self-same winds that blow, tis the set of the sails and not the gales, which tells us the way to go”.  Our nation has always faced and will continue to face strong winds and dark clouds, but as Desmond Tutu said many years ago “every moment in the history of a nation can either be seen as the darkest moment or the brightest moment.  Usually both are present.  And it is our opportunity, by how we respond, to determine what we make of it.”  

What will we make of our times we live in now?  Will it be more of the same apathy from the masses while the two party culture wars rage on out of control?  Or will good people like yourselves who are tuned into the solutions help spread the word to the apathetic amongst us? 

We must never forget that our apathy today was made possible by the hard work, blood, sweat, tears, and treasure of those that came before us.  We stand in relative comfort and ease on the shoulders of giants.  They made our dreams possible because they made their dreams come true.  

Not only can we make our impossible dream happen, we owe it to them and future generations to follow through with the same determination and tenacity that made a contraption of fabric and wood and wire leave the sand for 59 seconds 120+ years ago.  

As Wilbur Wright said in 1900, “no bird soars in a calm”.  Our American Experiment has been flying into strong headwinds since its inception, and that will continue to be the case.  We who envision a future where our politics is not defined by the party we represent but by ideas and solutions to problems must continue to help set the nation’s sails.