In my last post, “The Value of things…“, I talked about the housing crisis and what drivers are making home ownership more difficult. I called out a group that probably makes a lot of people upset:
The multi-home investor, individual or corporate, is the single greatest challenge to affordable home ownership.
This week my last post became timely as The Daily Show tackled the housing crisis as part of their “If You Don’t Know, Now You Know” series:
I’ve never really been a great capitalist.
When I was younger, people would say things like “you don’t know the value of a dollar” or “you don’t know what it’s like to have to work for money” like it was a faulting of privilege or an impairment for having never been starving. As I got older, as life happened, I was fortunate to never starve, but there have been times I’ve been hungry.
Looking back at this now, my mindset with money comes from more from neurodivergence than any kind of privilege or poverty. I know what a dollar can get me, and I know the numbers in my accounts have real world meaning, it’s just these things are all abstractions until they aren’t. To make them real, I ascribe my own value to them, usually based on return on investment of dopamine. How much for this level of happy?
Over time, as I made more money, this made to larger and larger amounts for larger and larger pools of dopamine. I went through hobbies, places, and people, chasing after higher highs, not putting as much in long term investment. Where’s the dopamine hit in a savings bond?
I think there is something to be said for life experiences. I know I have a ton of them now I wouldn’t have had, and some of those influenced personal growth, inspiration, and creativity. I hope to make some money with that at some point, and maybe that’s the real long term investment.
The thing is, life experiences, dopamine, and long term financial stability are all on this flat plane for me. I know things must be done for all of them, but prioritizing any one of them for too long is hard. So, I have to think about all three… or at least, that’s what I’ve been doing.
Now that I’m aware of it, I know that awareness will drive its own change in priorities for me. I perceive it as a risk, and even a flaw, that I don’t always prioritize long term financial security. Why start a business when I can work for a perfectly decent one for a while? Why monetize something I’m doing when I’m just doing it for the joy (read: Dopamine) ?
It’s another step in unpacking my midlife ADHD diagnosis.
I’m in month three of my break from work. I’m not hurting, but I’m starting to feel the ding of finances at my door. My lease is coming up, I know I need to make a final decision about relocating. I know I’ll need to have some proof of income when I do, or at least I think I will… I worked for so long I don’t know how people get established without a job. The thought has never crossed my mind, but I’m sure any freelancer or contract worker who had to relocate in uncertain times has run into this problem.
So it may stand that I’ll need to look for a job or some sort of income not for need of money, but for need of establishment. Legitimacy. It’s not a thrilling concept for me.
Looking back at my time at Apple, it was a revolving dopamine machine for me. Crazy fires at work fed the dopamine. I’d get rewarded in more crazy things and more pay. The more pay on paper wouldn’t have meaning to me, but the dopamine that would get me did. It was a cycle until ironically, the crazy things at work shifted from problems I could solve to something I couldn’t – a reduction in stimulation. I was half shelved and bored.
Many people look at my career at Apple and see someone with drive and ambition, when I was just chasing the next level of dopamine. The more chaotic it got, the more I loved it and the more I gave into it. While on one hand this makes me wonder if I should do startup work, I also don’t think that’s healthy. There should be some dopamine in day to day work, but not chasing the fires like I did before. I’ve learned that’s not healthy, even for me.
I realize I haven’t written at all about my time at Facebook. From a work perspective, it was a positive, healthy time. I don’t have anything bad to say about my personal experience or my team there, from hiring to leaving. Most of what I have to say about that company is about its products, upper leadership, and social impact, all of which I may or may not write about in the future.
So the value of things for me historically has been driven by the dopamine. I’m an addict. It’s why I never got hooked on cigarettes, drugs, or other stuff. I’m already hooked on my own good-good juice and it’s just a means of optimizing the delivery system.
Thankfully, I have healthy things that ground me with this. I have positive relationships, I have time and ability to meditate and have a spiritual practice, and I have learned developing skills and talents have long term rewards. I have benefited from the experience of building a life or three and doing it well.
Recently I read a phrase in the book Polysecure which talked about people going through major life events associated with sexual or spiritual discovery as having a crisis of deconstruction. That term has rolled around in my mind the last few days. Have I been going through a crisis of deconstruction the last several years? It would seem so, given the work I’ve done and progress I’ve made. I’ve deconstructed close to everything.
If so, when does reconstruction begin? Has it already started? Was rebirth begun during the death? I have this feeling of being near wholly empty, yet having already come so far. While in this time of quietness, I feel the fires of creation most, worried if I’ll hold my form or be scorched away in the process. Depending on the metal, there can be a thin line between malleable and melting. Which am I right now?
So I’m not a good capitalist because I don’t do things for money. At best, money is an awesome byproduct, but I’m motivated by challenge and action than by even getting something which can get me more dopamine. More and more, I want to do things that leave a positive impact on the planet and people. I was challenged with that at Facebook, and moreso when it became Meta, which is a whole other story.
I also don’t like that others have to do things for money, and that it has to be a predominant thought on most people’s minds. There is abundance for all when our focus isn’t on material or monetary wealth. There’s no reason we should have people going bankrupt for medical bills, or not be able to afford a home somewhere near where they would like to live or work.
The rent is too damn high because our policies encourage hoarding and capital investment. They don’t encourage the working class to buy and own their homes long term, and by that I mean multi-generational. Think about it.
John goes to work at a factory and takes a job earning just enough to qualify for a 30 year mortgage. On his income (laughably), he can support his nuclear family to buy exactly one home, own two cars, and ostensibly put one child through college. He has a pension at work and when he retires, his home is paid for, his child is through college, and he has the pension and some savings along with social security.
This laughably idyllic scenario sounds like a win, but then things fall apart.
The pension fails from corruption and bad investment, or maybe a corporate board takes it away. John didn’t plan for social security to cover it alone, so takes another hit. Along comes a reverse mortgage company, and John sells his house back to the bank in payments that favor the bank.
When John dies, he has no savings, no assets, and his house is back at the bank. His kid never realizes the wealth from the house, and never builds on it.
The only winner here is the bank, who got John coming and going. Banks don’t profit from long term, multi-generational home ownership. They profit from new mortgages and new investment. We talk about numbers of home ownership in the country as a benchmark, but really we’re talking about the number of mortgage agreements. Move to the next place! Buy a new home! Bigger! Better! Modern!
We’re at the point where anyone who isn’t in on this ponzi scheme is a victim of it. The multi-home investor, individual or corporate, is the single greatest challenge to affordable home ownership. This self-assured, if-I-can-do-it-you-can-too upper middle class and above is when capitalism goes from stock abstractions to the real deal – they own something of value which will yield earnings. They’re your landlord, your Airbnb superhost, or maybe even your parents. They’re the ones the system has worked out for, and really, the minimum line requirement for long term financial success now.
So this is why I’m a bad capitalist.
I know that line for minimum financial success. Two mortgages, one you live in, one a rental property. I’ve seen that line for about ten years now. I’ve had access to get in that line for at least five years. Yet, I haven’t. I’ve had no interest in doing it. Part of it is because there’s no dopamine in it for me, the other is I want to prove it’s possible without working that formula. Spite. Yay for self-awareness.
What I want increasingly now is a way to change the game. I hate that game. It’s not that I’m not competitive, it’s that it’s loaded, and it’s loaded against regular people who fall victim to it at no fault of their own. It’s what’s driving our growing homelessness. It’s what is driving rising income inequality.
I’m a bad capitalist because I see the game, but I don’t want to participate in it.
Maybe this is where the crypto bros’s pitch comes in. Maybe that strain is what appeals to people who dive into crypto. The thing about crypto is as currency it’s another media for the same style of economy. There’s some cool tech there, and I’m sure there are more interesting things to do with it than pump and dump schemes, long or short term.
I think we need a new vision. I don’t want to be a landlord. I don’t want to run an airbnb. Yet that is where the economy drives us.
I’m open to ideas and thoughts in comments. Keep ’em respectful, please.
I’m not a geopolitical expert. I’ve never been to Ukraine, and have only met a handful of Ukrainians in my life. I don’t know their lives, their wishes, their dreams. I can only imagine they share many of the same ones I do: to live life in peace, security, and seek happiness with their loved ones and families within their communities.
The last few weeks, watching leaders position and poise, talk and align, and the inevitable political arguments occur here in the US about the escalating tensions, ultimately I see a conflict here that is as entirely unnecessary as the violence occurring now in Ukraine.
There is no good reason for this invasion. There is no valid reason for this violence or conflict. Russia was not in immediate threat. Putin was not in danger aside from the political aspirations of those working under him if he does not appear strong enough, or forceful enough.
This is a conflict of ego, a war of reclaiming lost glory of a former empire. There’s no glory in that. There’s no safety or added security in it.
I sit and think about what should happen, what would I want my government to do? So many times we’ve sent troops, we’ve fought for so many different and unnecessary things. Our generations are tired of being in wars. Yet, I am devastated for the people of Ukraine who are being attacked and dying. I just want it all to stop.
I hope for peace. I don’t know if there is much I can do other than speak my own mind and hope others agree and spread it. Aid, sanctions, and other methods might work to dissuade Putin a little. I worry that eventually it may come down to further violence and killing to stop a small group of power hungry mad men who are risking burning the world for their greed. Then again, we are faced with that every day here.
So whatever you feel about this, the people of Ukraine deserve to be able to live their lives in freedom and peace. That’s what we should focus on, as right now, they’re the ones being hurt. My heart is with them.
Yesterday’s Virginia election results were disheartening, but also show the path to build a consistent foundation of liberal victories lies in building across racial divisions, minority and majority. We need to evolve racial perspectives further toward understanding and harmony.
We have a large number of people we have vilified, who have also vilified us. We can’t expect to win elections unless we give them a better story than what they’re getting from right wing media, or even our own media!
What I’m saying is, and this is going to be the hot take that seems controversial, while at the same time for our democracy, and even for liberal ideas, is necessary – we have to get better at reaching out to white people with our message. Even Trumpers. Even “deplorables”.
The values of liberal ideas, open ethical government, and a social safety net should be made accessible to all because they are beneficial to all. UBI, Universal Healthcare, Public Education, and other programs don’t just benefit minorities, they benefit everyone.
I think that messaging gets lost. I think demanding everyone to fully check and understand their privilege before stepping to the left makes the chasm too wide. We first have to reach out to people where they are, then we can bring them with us. Process, not revelation.
To build a party open to all is to figure out how to stand with those who have been hostile to us. Who have hurt us in some way. We have to protect ourselves, but we also have to heal ourselves, then others. We have to live and model a better way.
Today is my 44th birthday.
Hearing the sound of my 4 year old singing Happy Birthday first thing in the morning is one of the blessings I’m happy I’ve lived to receive. There are many others the last few years particularly I’ve been blessed with. Travel. People. Given the circumstances, even survival.
This year I lost my father, although really it was last year because of politics and disagreement. The things that tend to divide people right now are important yet dumb things to be divided about. Common ground is found easily enough when you stop a moment. Most of us want a peaceful life, a warm home, a full belly, and to be surrounded by others important to us. We get lost in the details of how we get there, and how much we acknowledge and ascribe these same concepts to others.
Don’t get me wrong, my views and my politics are still there. I got opinions. Lots of them. I think there is space to have them while acknowledging commonality. That’s the only way we find our way to some sort of harmony.
It’s easy to point fingers at another person or group. “We could live good lives if not for those people over there.” “Why can’t those people stop doing whatever shit they’re doing that is pissing us off?” Barring active harm to others, that’s what most of this squaring off is about, manufactured by others still to further division, discord, or maybe just to get views.
Our world, our media, our platforms and services and ways we share haven’t been working for us. Not in ways that bring us together. I know the irony and even hypocrisy in me writing this, as I’ve had my own part, and carry my own culpability in where we are now.
A few months ago I started trying something different. I stopped the direct confrontation about views. I stopped posting out of anger and frustration. I stopped showing anger or contempt online for whatever my feed or my news sources had been showing me that day.
I started engaging people without judgement of them. In discussions, I started just stating where I stood without frustration with others. I started treating others with a little more space and care for where they are, because another thing we all have in common is we’re all tired and frustrated and angry and sad and confused, and just trying to figure out the best way to get through this life with the people we love.
It doesn’t stop the anger. It doesn’t stop the discord. It doesn’t change the daily messages coming in that the world isn’t going the way we want it to.
Giving people more space does change our conversations. It changes the way we connect with people. It changes the burden we carry of people we alienate or feeling of otherness from saying “things would be fine if not for those people over there”. We don’t have to share opinions to talk about them. We don’t have to be on the same side of the political, economic, social, religious, or ethnic view to get along with each other. We only need to recognize our common humanity, dignity, and needs. That’s universal. We can all still be heard. We can all still be listened to. We can’t expect it to start with our leaders, or the media, or our apps or platforms or employers or anyone else but ourselves, and how we conduct our own lives.
I started. I’ve given it a shot. I’ve still talked about my opinions. I’ve still listened to others who have disagreed. I still get angry and frustrated and upset, but I’m walking away from more conversations feeling better about how they go, and feeling we actually listened to each other a little better than before.
If I had learned this lesson a few months earlier, my father may not have died alone in a hospital room in Philadelphia with us never reconciling. So if I can use this pain, this weight, this thing I’m carrying from that for any good, it’s to encourage any of you or all of you who have read this far to start thinking about how you defy the messages of division from wherever you are, stop saying “but for them” and figure out how you can start changing the conversations around you. Wars have been fought for the worst of reasons. The worst reason is to fight one when ultimately you want the same thing.
It’s hard to change what you’re doing, to look at the same thing one day differently than you did the day before, the week before, or the 43 years before. I’m not asking you to change what you believe, or think, or watch, or identify with… I’m asking you to consider how you move through the world. This wild west of a hyperconnected, brain bending, propaganda laden, fake news, talking heads world that we’re all having trouble navigating.
If you’re struggling with this, if you’re reading this and you’re feeling hesitant, blocked, challenged, or some other kind of way about it, let’s talk. Even if we haven’t in a while. Even if the last time we did it didn’t go so well. Even if I called so-and-so a something or you just can’t see why this is even a thing to begin with. It’s ok. Things change two people at a time.
With peace, balance, and harmony;
Alex
This post is public for reshare. Do as you will.
I logged into WordPress today to make a comment signing an open letter for the UN’s COP26 conference next month when I realized this blog was still dutifully up and running. The letter is important to me, and from its topic, content, and fellow signees, there’s been notable changes in a few things for me in the years since my last post.
I don’t write here anymore, although I do write quite often, and have started a path of creativity and art I didn’t know or understand the first part of my life. With my family, partners, and others, I’ve navigated the coronavirus pandemic, leaving Apple, and a myriad of other changes which have set the course and tone for the next few decades. Rather than an exhaustive post outlining them all, which is less interesting to read, I’m leaving this post as an end cap, at least until such time is suitable to pick this blog back up, or continue an open journal elsewhere.
Until then…
Balance and Harmony,
Alex
A few years ago, I wrote a post about then President-Elect Trump, calling out concerns I had about his election. My writing style then was… diplomatic. I’m not so diplomatic anymore, at least I’m emerging from behind the filters I had in previous iterations of myself.
Today, I’d like to get back around to the scorecard of what I wanted to ask of then President-Elect Trump.
I don’t want to build a wall.
Trump failed my expectations while still managing to fail building a wall. I think the designs they’ve put up, hours they’ve spent talking about it, and the massive amount of resources they’ve channeled to try to fund it have all gone to waste. Wall development has been a parade of flag-waving opportunists trying to grab for potentially lucrative contracts while not coming to terms with the fact walls aren’t the solution.
I don’t want to start mass deportations.
Trump failed badly. If you had told me we’d have concentration camps at the border where we split families up, I’d have never believed Trump would have set it up. It’s almost like his sycophants and cronies had plans already drawn up to execute. I use that word about literally, because people are dying down there.
I don’t want to regulate immigration on the basis of religion.
Trump failed. His administration tried to execute it literally through an executive order, then got smacked down because the basis was religion.
I don’t want national stop and frisk.
Trump failed, if not in letter of the law, but definitely spirit, even going so far as to pardon Bernard Kerik, the poster child of stop and frisk policy. The Trump administration hasn’t been able to get far with the Supreme Court on this yet, and there is a massive backlash by Civil Rights and police watchdog groups fighting it, but it’s clear where Trump stands on this.
I don’t want to cut the protection of a free press.
Another failure in spirit that isn’t for lack of trying. He has notoriously attacked the free press, and has screamed about changing slander and libel laws to make it easier to get convictions. Ultimately, you can’t slander someone when what you’re saying is the truth (and you can prove it), so even if he gets these changes, he’ll lose.
I don’t want more involvement in overseas conflict.
So, so, many fails.
I don’t want women, minorities, and LGBTQ people to lose hard fought civil rights protections.
Trump may not be solely responsible for the downfall of the Voting Rights Act Section 4, it happened before his election, but the spirit of trying to block out anyone but Christian white male landowners is evident in his policies. We now have a formal team in our government that is set up to de-naturalize and remove the citizenship of US citizens. It’s heinous. It’s unethical. Yet, here we are. FAIL.
I don’t want people to lose health care insurance.
Failed. Hard. The number of people without health insurance has gone up since under Trump.
I don’t want sexual harassment to be acceptable.
I should have never put this one Trump. Whether that asshole believes it or not, it’s never acceptable. There is part of our culture that resists this level of decency, and it tends to be associated with Trump, or at least his brand of patriarchy, but even all of those assholes can’t make it acceptable.
I don’t want you to try to be a moral compass for me or my family.
This one is admittedly interesting to watch. Trump plays to his different audiences, and while I don’t think he tries to put himself up as a role model, he has a streak of self-aggrandizing behavior with anyone he’s around. If he’s around scientists, he talks about how awesome a scientist he would have been. If he’s around military, he talks about how tough and strong and how much of a leader he is. When he’s around clergy, he acts like the Messiah himself, and even manages to say things directly opposing to Christian theology to a largely Christian audience without getting called out. I have no doubt if someone asked him his thoughts about whether he should be considered a role model, he would exuberantly answer yes. I just could never take him seriously as one even if he tried.
In retrospect, this list was far more optimistic than I would ever make now. Trump is a narcissistic, arrogant, corrupt, and increasingly challenged asshole of the first degree, and we should never have even considered electing him President, but that also says a lot about us and our culture. That’s a topic for another time.
Today it’s enough to look back and see the misery of the last three and a half years. Our swamp is drained and now we have a toxic waste dump.
However, dear reader, there is hope. We have another election coming up. Even if we can’t vote for a candidate who will put in place the policies we want, we can at least vote to get rid of this undeserving wretch. This year, no matter who Democrats put on up on that national stage, of the ones remaining, I’ll give my vote to them over Trump on their worst day and his best. Let’s vote Trump out!
I woke up this morning to feed our five month old son and saw the news of North Korea’s hydrogen bomb test. While we have known for some time of North Korea’s nuclear plans, and watched their increase in rhetoric and testing, today’s news will solicit a stronger reaction than before. Today North Korea’s nuclear threat got much more deadly.
My initial response is to think about my family. I am angry I live in a world where I have to consider my family’s safety from the power plays of a far away dictator. My gut reaction is to raise my voice to encourage a harsh, swift, and violent end to the Kim regime in North Korea, and return the country’s technology to an earlier state of human existence. A big part of me wants to see the North Korean nuclear threat eliminated at any cost, turning a blind eye to any consequences but my own family’s safety.
It’s easy to have such a response. We are engineered for survival, and eliminating things which threaten our survival is what we do by nature. The gutteral response to strike first when under imminent danger is a survival mechanism unto itself.
However, this is more than just about me or my family. Across South Korea and Japan are fathers and mothers with similar fears as me today. Maybe they are all having the same response, I don’t know. However, the threat to those in closer proximity has to have a dual edge. It’s easy to think about lobbing nuclear bombs back across an ocean, it’s another to consider the possibility of nuclear war on your own continent. There is no scenario for them where a nuclear first strike against North Korea is a safe bet.
I then think about the other set of mothers, fathers, and children we don’t see — the people of North Korea who have been ground under the heel of the Kim family for decades. They’ve been told we want them dead, that pursuing nuclear enablement was for their own survival against an unfriendly world. Maybe they are being told that if they don’t launch a first strike against their enemies, their children will not be safe. If we (the US) strike first, maybe that just reinforces what they’ve been told all their lives.
So my gut response this morning isn’t the right solution. Yes, it could keep my family safe, but at an ultimate cost to other innocent families. We need something that works for the people of South Korea, Japan, and yes, even North Korea. One despot has endangered millions. We need to be the voices of reason.
Our true battle is one against values of inequality, the irrational fears we hold against others not like ourselves.
It feels like we just went through Election Day. The day after, I wrote a post congratulating our new President Elect, and moved on with life as usual the last couple of months. I have watched news and social media erupt as our President Elect has stormed through the transition process. I have watched with disappointment the confirmation hearings of his appointees. I have listened to friends express fear, anger, and sorrow at the upcoming change in the leadership of our country and our world.
Mostly, I’ve seen many people react to Trump’s election the same way I saw Republicans react to Obama’s in 2008 and 2012. Here we are, eight years later, and the fears Republicans held have proven to be false. Obama was their boogeyman, the personification of a world no longer theirs, yet after eight years of holding the Presidency, Obama has not taken their guns, their homes, their right to vote, their freedom, or their pride of being Americans.
Many would point out to me how this election is different. Trump and the Congressional GOP, rather than inspiring to give us better healthcare, social equality, and a bigger voice in our own futures, seem to be more interested in undoing anything Obama has done the last eight years and reversing social policy established over the last seventy years, back to the New Deal. Making America Great Again, to many of us, is a battle cry to reverse US policy to times when many of us were disenfranchised, when we didn’t have a voice in our destiny, when some of us had to hide the deepest aspects of our humanity.
While I hesitate to compare the fears today we express to the fears expressed by Republicans over the last eight years, I believe, whether founded or unfounded, these fears come from a common place in our minds. What many of us now have in common with Obama detracters is a fear that the world is shifting under our feet, that the fundamental rights and privileges we currently enjoy are about to change. Do you remember how irrational the fears of others seemed if you were an Obama supporter eight years ago? Do you recall how we responded to the obstructionist posture they have taken on every policy direction Obama has taken the last eight years, whether they would have agreed with someone else having the same position?
We need to be careful in our response to fear. We should not fall to the lesser parts of our nature to lash in anger, but respond in ways consistent to our values.
I think we have reason to fear. I think we have reason to be watchful, to be protective of the hard fought social progress we have achieved over the course of the last century. While the President is one of those who endanger that progress, he is not a lone person at the heart of the battle. To focus on one man is to give more credit than any one person is due, no matter their exhuberance.
Our true battle is one against values of inequality, the irrational fears we hold against others not like ourselves. To have equality is to have empathy, to look at someone different than ourselves and see commonality, to see the ways we are alike, and not allow the ways we are different to drive a wedge between us. To respond in the same manner to Trump as those who responded to Obama is to continue to focus on the differences. The last eight years hasn’t brought us any closer together. The people who blame Obama for that are as wrong as we would be for blaming Trump if we’re no closer together in another eight years.
Over the last 15 years, I changed both religion and political party affiliation. A big reason for both was fear. I looked at my world view, I looked at the people around me, and I saw people filled with fear. I saw how fear ruled their lives, how it altered their ability to see the world in a rational way, and how it separated themselves from others who really weren’t that different. I saw people looking at hope as if it were something not acheivable in this world, something to look forward to in the next. This was why I left my former religion, or perhaps why others in my former religion left me.
We rallied behind Barack Obama because he had the “Audacity of Hope”. Trump’s supporters have rallied behind him in their hope that he will “Make America Great Again”. Two different dreams, two different visions of our future, yet still appealing to the same place in the hearts and minds of supporters of either man.
Our hope should not end with the inauguration today. Our hope for a better world doesn’t live or die with the Presidency, or the Congress, or law. Hope needs to shine brighter in times when our potential is the least. When things aren’t going our way. It should be in hope, and not fear, that we act.
The speech which propelled Obama’s political career to national prominence was his keynote at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. In it, he said:
In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope? John Kerry calls on us to hope. John Edwards calls on us to hope. I’m not talking about blind optimism here — the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don’t talk about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. No, I’m talking about something more substantial. It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker’s son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope!
Our responsibility is to choose our actions out of hope for the future, out of progress, out of making America a great place to live for our families, our communities, and for all Americans, all people within our borders. So before we take up the tactics and policies of our opponents the last eight years, let’s consider how we stay true to ourselves and act out of our hope rather than our fear.
You Should Write a Book... 
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