A Nourished Political Soul

After the first debate between presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, a Facebook friend of mine posted a meme about Trump having never paid taxes which would have supported infrastructure, the military, roads, health care, etc.

I'm no fan of Trump, but I was curious to see if that was true. So I went to Politifact.com to check it out.

It was false.

It turns out, for the years we do have Trump's tax returns (which is its own, unending issue), he did pay taxes. So, hoping to clear up the misinformation, I wrote a comment back to my friend that, while I didn't support Trump, it was important to judge someone on actual facts. I also included the link to the Politifact article.

My friend deleted my comment, then he wrote, "I don't intend to be fair or even-handed when it comes to [Trump], even if I get it partially wrong sometimes."

"But there are so many other true things to get him on!" I pleaded. He didn't respond.

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton debate on September 26, 2016.  Rick Wilking / AFP / Getty Images

I was happy, then, ten months later (right on cue!) to read David Leonhardt's recent column in the New York Times. He starts:

"Righteousness comes easily in these polarized times. We all have reasons for our opinions, and we tend to be surrounded by people who hold similar ones. The more we talk politics, the more confident we can become that we’re right."

Observers have frequently noted this, but I like what Leonhardt does next: he challenges us to study a thorny, complicated topic to, as the headline suggests, "nourish your political soul."

"Pick an issue that you find complicated, and grapple with it. Choose one on which you’re legitimately torn or harbor secret doubts. Read up on it. Don’t rush to explain away inconvenient evidence."

But more importantly,

"Then do something truly radical: Consider changing your mind, at least partially."

Leonhardt writes that he's delved into the issues of immigration, abortion and education, but suggests many others: tax reform, trade, minimum wage, health care. There is no shortage of hairy topics to tackle.

Think about some of the great issues of the past and today: workers' rights, food regulation, sexuality, environmentalism, consumer protection and personal politics. Ordinary people wrestled with these tough questions that interested them and gripped their consciences. They immersed themselves in the haze with open minds and prepared to emerge with no clear answers. Think of how these people in our history examined the evidence before forming a conclusion. Think also how that led them to be incredibly influential people.

Here are a few:

Upton Sinclair

In 1906, Sinclair published his most famous work, The Jungle, in which he researched and documented the worker abuses and unsanitary conditions of Chicago's meatpacking industry. In a famous passage he writes:

"Among these [jobs] was the cleaning out of the waste barrels. Every spring they did it; and in the barrels would be dirt and rust and old nails and stale water—and cartload after cartload of it would be taken up and dumped into the hoppers with fresh meat, and sent out to the public’s breakfast."

As a result of his book and the ensuing uproar, Congress passed the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act.

Upton Sinclair.

Alfred Kinsey

Kinsey was bisexual and troubled by his feelings as a young man, and so became interested in human sexual behavior. He studied thousands of men and women and published the first comprehensive volumes on the topic: Sexual Behavior in the Human Male and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female. Among the many revelations was his assertion that sexual orientation is a spectrum:

"Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories [...] The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects."

Kinsey's work is associated with the change of the public's perception of sexuality.

Alfred Kinsey.

Rachel Carson

In the late 1940s and 1950s, Carson became concerned about the effects of synthetic pesticides, studying in great detail the damage caused by DDT. In 1962 she published Silent Spring, in which she writes:

"The most alarming of all man's assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials."

Carson's book led to the ban of DDT and was an impetus to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Rachel Carson.

Ralph Nader

Before his controversial role in the 2000 election, Nader was a lawyer who studied automobile safety. He researched more than 100 lawsuits and concluded that many American autos were unsafe to operate. In Unsafe at Any Speed, which he published in 1965, he writes:

"A principal reason why the automobile has remained the only transportation vehicle to escape being called to meaningful public account is that the public has never been supplied the information."

The book influenced passage of the National Traffic and Motor Safety Vehicle Act and prompted 49 states to pass mandatory safety belt laws.

Ralph Nader.

Finally, a more recent example of an open mind that seems especially pertinent - and perhaps improbable - to today's political environment:

Arlen Specter

For 30 years Specter served as Pennsylvania's Republican senator in Washington D.C., along the way chairing the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee. As a moderate, however, he began to feel less affinity to the GOP, feeling the party was moving too far right. In 2009, he shocked Washington by defecting to the Democrats. In a statement he writes:

"Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. . . . I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans.

Whatever my party affiliation, I will continue to be guided by President Kennedy’s statement that sometimes Party asks too much. When it does, I will continue my independent voting and follow my conscience on what I think is best for Pennsylvania and America."

Specter would go on to lose Democratic primary for Senator the next year, proving that an open mind doesn't always win.

Arlen Specter.

However, far more good comes out of study and open-mindedness than not. Allow yourself to see before deciding, and even after that, allow your mind to change. After all, Leonhardt concludes,

"Imagine what this country would be like now if people hadn’t been willing to change their minds in the past."

How will you nourish your poilitcal soul?


I am currently working on a book about Ah Toy, the first Chinese brothel madam in gold rush San Francisco.

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