In Our Time of Violence
Publishing out of our normal time. I need to talk about why Leo and I put in this effort.
July 2024
It is days after the attempt on the life of Donald Trump. Or, if you are of a conspiratorial bent, the conspiracy of the attempt on the life of Donald Trump.
I worry that if I go into a local watering hole, I will hear someone say that Biden was of course behind it. They will have no knowledge but what they have garnered from websites hell bent on keeping people excited.
I have already heard from liberals who conceive that this could be conspiratorial theater by the Trump campaign. They don't have any insider information either, they are also trying to complete the narrative with what they know and what they believe.
I am not interested, nor informed enough, to speak to the details of either cluster of theories. It is not as important what happened as why we find ourselves here. I can feel the tug of temptation to dig into the details, perhaps find some core reason that could unfurl all our woes. Yet, we will get no conclusion from that obsession.
Whether it was a liberal conspiracy, a conservative conspiracy, or a lone gunman, let's take some time to think about the fact that we live in a time when all three feel possible.
Is that acceptable to you? Do you want your family, young people you love and old people you treasure, to live in a time of rising violence?
It is not acceptable to me. I do not want to live in a bad-ass video game or an adventure movie. And that is why I am writing Old Truck Good Coffee (OTGC) with Leo.
Those of us living in these American gulfs, along the shared borders of our separated lives, are struggling to be heard, but still trying.
The algorithms and your reading habits do not favor OTGC getting to you. I can't say what I need to say and stimulate as much dopamine as Jordan Klepper and Tucker Carlson. Our message engages larger parts of the brain. It asks more of you. We don't provide facile proofs to support the narrative of a social media feed.
The media environment is ill-suited to talking about the mix of beauty and heartache in the urban rural interchange. The troubles of this country’s communities fit better as a divide, an enduring conflict, as embodied not by the average or the mean, or poetic resonance. You get extreme examples and build your model of your country on those.
Viewing it as a divide sells ads, makes millionaires, and makes political violence possible.
We have been, both sides, engaged in politics of the Overton Window.1
Activists serving their particular communities have assumed the politics of attempting to wipe each other out on the theory that with ever more extreme rhetoric we will get the best results.
Elections are currently about demonizing the other. Policy is about extreme proposals and brinkmanship. And when the process creates pain, more demonization of people who do not deserve that treatment.
The founders and maintainers of our government system built for civil discourse because they knew that this process makes political violence possible.
It makes political violence probable.
I am writing, and Old Truck Good Coffee is publishing every week, to ask you to slow down. To use more of your brain than dopamine to interact with the rest of America. To hear unexpected things and rebuild what you imagine our country to be.
God forbid media you consume ask anything of you. We are all overwhelmed and just want some time on your doom scroll while our souls rebuild.
I get there, too. Not every day is an Old Truck Good Coffee Day.
But we need to exert the will. Look where we find ourselves! Shooting each other is possible. That is not where I want to live.
Old Truck Good Coffee is asking for you to imagine and make possible the America we need. We do it not by lecturing (current essay being an exception) but by telling stories about dogs, fireworks, cheatgrass, and quirky folks down the bar from you. The healing, the repair really does start with a story told drinking good coffee on the tailgate of an old truck.
Join us here, in America. In all of America, where we are curious about each other and where we don't shoot at each other.↩︎
For the basic idea of the Overton Window, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window for additional current politics context, https://newrepublic.com/article/138003/flaws-overton-window-theory is helpful. It is a sticky concept that I am tiring of.