United We Stand
The feeds say we have never been further apart. Look at what Americans actually want for their families, and the divide shrinks fast.
By Keith Gross, Legal & Policy Correspondent
Published · 5 min read
The Overview
The facts, straight
Adapted from Chapter 18 of Keith Gross's best-selling book Dirt Roads to Runways: Defending the American Dream for the Next Generation.
To view the media landscape today, you'd think we are each more distant from our fellow Americans than ever before. I believe that simply isn't so.
At the heart of most of us, we all want the same things. We want to see our families prosper and grow old together, celebrating the traditions we hold dear, whatever those may be. We want our children to grow up in safe neighborhoods, surrounded by options that are equally available to all. We want to enjoy the fruits of our own labor and share them with whom we choose. We want to love who we want and enjoy the freedoms this nation was built upon.
That is not a slogan. It is what I hear when I talk with people, whether they vote the way I do or not. Ask your neighbor what they want for their kids, and you will rarely hear a party platform. You will hear about safety, a good job, a fair shot and a little time together at the end of the day.
So this column does something the cable shouting matches rarely do. It lays out what the left gets right, what the right gets right, and where the two already overlap. The overlap is bigger than you have been told.
What the Left Says
The progressive and Democratic case
Progressives start from a moral claim that most Americans share: none of us wants to see our fellow man left behind. There are many among us who cannot do for themselves, and we all want to ensure they are cared for with the same compassion we show our own families. That instinct is not foreign to conservatives. It is in our churches, our volunteer fire departments and our food drives.
The left also presses hard on equal options. When they talk about opportunity, the best version of that argument is the one I wrote in the book: children surrounded by options that are equally available to all. A kid's zip code should not decide how far a kid can go. That is a goal you can hold whether you are a union member in Missoula or a small-business owner in Panama City.
And the left talks about rights, including the right to love who you want and to live without someone else's preferences forced on you. Fairly read, that is a freedom argument. We want to retain all rights possible while enjoying a beneficial government that works to accomplish for us all what we could not accomplish individually.
Where many on the left see government as the main tool for those goals, they are pointing at something real. There are things government is truly the best means to do. Americans are generous. We are willing to pay taxes and contribute the funds our government genuinely needs to accomplish basic objectives like national security and many other useful causes. When performed on a limited and strictly necessary scale, that isn't socialism. It is simply our moral reality.
The Author's View
Keith Gross, in his own words
Put those two lists side by side and look at how much they share. Care for those who truly cannot care for themselves. Self-reliance for those who can. A government that does the necessary things well and stays out of the rest. Rights that belong to everyone, including the people we disagree with. Most Americans would sign that list.
Where has the trust for our fellow man gone? Where has the honor and integrity that is the basis for trusting our fellow citizen gone? Some would have you believe it has all but disappeared. I see it every day in the people I deal with. At their core, most people are good. There are countless among us who are willing to do anything, even lay down their lives, in service of their fellow man. That level of love is special, and it is the bedrock on which this nation is built.
Our predecessors huddled around fires in poorly insulated structures and dreamed that we would have the best society the world has ever known. We have lost sight of that vision while it remains right in front of us. Our constitutional system of governance, our great American experiment, is still very young. We hold in our hands the last and brightest hope of humanity for self-determination and government by and for the people. Almost universally, we still believe in the freedoms built into that document as they were written. We have gotten off track. We can get back on track, but it takes urgency.
So here is my ask, and it costs nothing. Offer your fellow American the benefit of the doubt. When you are given the chance to cast doubt, parse words or read in a meaning that wasn't said, open your heart and mind instead. Embrace the possibility that we are all really equal and that we all really do want this nation to be a large, diverse, very different but very happy family.
Creating divisions serves no one. We are better than we have been. We can accomplish more than we have accomplished. We can work together and lead this great nation and the world to a better tomorrow.
What the Right Says
The conservative and Republican case
Conservatives start from a different word: self-reliance. We expect those who can work and benefit society to care for themselves and their family members rather than rely on others. We believe self-reliance is the root of independence and freedom, and we should guard that principle carefully.
The reason is practical, not mean-spirited. With the loss of self-reliance comes the loss of faith in our basic societal structure. Without self-reliance and independence, freedom is not real and we can never realize the benefits of our labor. And without the ability to realize those benefits, who among us would labor for nothing?
The right also insists that government stay limited to what is truly necessary. We know that with great power comes great responsibility, and that this responsibility is first and foremost to our own families and communities. A government that grows without limit eventually crowds out the very people it was meant to serve.
Above all, conservatives remind us that freedom is never given. It is always hard won through painful fights. Once lost, it is not easily regained. We have the chance to preserve our freedoms and carefully restrain the ever-growing limits on them, and we must take that chance before it is gone. We're willing to save for a rainy day and delay gratification for a better tomorrow. We're willing to work toward what we know is right.
Sources & Citations
- Keith Gross, “Dirt Roads to Runways: Defending the American Dream for the Next Generation, Chapter 18, "United We Stand"”, February 6, 2024.
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