A Breath of Fresh Air

I was struck by a moment during the Harris/Walz campaign rally in Eau Claire, Wisconsin last week.  Governor Walz was speaking and apparently someone in the audience felt ill.    In mid-sentence, he noticed what was happening and called for help.  His eyes fixed on the person. His face showed genuine concern, and he waited until it was clear that she was okay before he started to speak again.

GOVERNOR WALZ:  Freedom is — oh.  Can we — can we get somebody to help?  Somebody’s hot. 
AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Somebody help her!
GOVERNOR WALZ:  Somebody’s hot.  Can we get somebody to help?
You okay?  Drink some water, folks.  It is hot out.  Get somebody o- —
 GOVERNOR WALZ:  Thank you.  (Applause.) Can we get water? 
AUDIENCE:  They’re so weird!  They’re so weird!  They’re so weird! 
GOVERNOR WALZ:  (Laughs.) She’s okay? 
AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Thank you for helping!
GOVERNOR WALZ:  Yeah. Thank you all for helping.  I’m grateful.  Thank you.  (Applause.)  Thank you all. Take care of one another on this.  This is — this is why we gather.  Look, it’s hot.  It is hot.  I’ll come again.  They’ve got folks here.  We’ll — we’ll make sure it — we’re okay. But I — I have to tell you all again, I — in all seriousness, to come and gather like this to talk about our freedoms, the ability to talk about what could be good — and I have to say, this idea of caring for our neighbor in kindness and a hand up when somebody needs it or just the sense of that people go through things and to be able to be there when they need it, that’s who we are.  It’s not about mocking.  It’s not name-callings and — you see it amongst them. 

This invocation of neighborliness, of kindness towards others, and a general regard for the well-being of those with whom we are in community felt like a breath of fresh air. In a time when calloused hearts and mean-spirited glares characterize so much of our politics, the gesture made me smile.  And then I started thinking.

Walz referred to an idea of the common good – that we all share a responsibility to be in relation with one another and this requires efforts to create and maintain certain aspects of our lives together that facilitate common interests.  We all need drivable highways, for example, police protection, clean water, and the like.  These are institutions and facilities that serve commonly shared interests.  But the common good cuts even deeper. 

The sense of caring for our neighbor involves, implicitly, a certain understanding of our responsibility and obligation to each other. That somehow, if we are to flourish together, certain basic goods ought to define our shared living. And this is not only evidenced in our individual relationships (kindness towards people we know and love), but in the very way we think of the country generally.  This is how I interpret Ralph Ellison’s formulation that democracy, at its best, is a disinterested form of love.  We don’t have to know people intimately to care about them, right?  

We the people should have a sense of what the common good entails.  What are the basic goods we commend that reflect our shared responsibility to one another?  That no child in America should go to bed hungry?  That everyone should have an opportunity to receive an extraordinary education no matter their zip code or the color of their skin?  That, if you work hard, you should be able to earn a living wage?  Have decent housing?  Healthcare?  As Americans, we should be clear about our basic obligations to one another (beyond individual acts of kindness and charity) that make up what we mean by the common good. 

The irony, of course, is that for much of the last four decades the idea of the common good (outside of claims about the national defense and ensuring constant economic growth) has been put to the side.  For some Americans, such talk can’t be disentangled from ideas of big, wasteful government, social safety nets, and policies that impinge on our individual freedoms and private lives.  For them, this kind of talk is evidence of a radical left-wing agenda.  Of socialism or communism or whatever frightening label that historically has done the work of keeping us divided and from working together to secure the basic goods that the common good requires. 

Liberty or freedom becomes a synonym for selfishness, where our only concern rests with ourselves and with the people we know.  Just leave me alone becomes the mantra.  Any robust idea of the common good is abandoned, and we end up becoming self-interested people in competition and rivalry with each other in pursuit of our own selfish ends.  Here obligations to one another – even when it comes to wearing a mask to protect the most vulnerable among us during a deadly pandemic – are anathema to the very idea of freedom itself. 

There was a moment during the rally in Eau Claire where Governor Walz gave a nod to this view.  He noted the hypocrisy of Republicans’ invocation of freedom. “[I] turns out,” he said, “that freedom to them means government should be free to invade your exam room with your doctor.”

GOVERNOR WALZ:  Now, look, we’re pretty neighborly with Wisconsin.  We get our friendly battles.  But in Minnesota, just like in Wisconsin, we respect our neighbors and the personal choices they make — (applause) — even if — even if we wouldn’t make the same choices for ourselves, because we know there’s a golden rule: Mind your own damn business.  Mind your own damn business.  (Applause.)

“Mind your own damn business” can be a libertarian bumper sticker.  But it doesn’t square so easily with talk of the common good. Besides, even libertarians would benefit from affordable housing. Much more needs to be said about our maintaining the proper boundaries between our “public life” in community with others and protecting the choices and desires that make up our “private lives.”   

Over these last forty years, we have lost sight of the public good.  Selfishness and greed, along with hatreds and grievances, have made our politics (and many policies) a toxic brew.  And we all have been poisoned.   A recalibration is needed.  A more robust view of the public good must take hold.  Not as charity or as a philanthropic gesture.  But as a view rooted in a clear idea of what it means to live together as Americans, based on values evidenced in a tightly woven social safety net that announces care and concern for our fellows.  This is not a radical idea.  It is not an assault on our freedom.  Instead, Governor Walz’s concern for the woman who fell ill suggests something more fundamental:  that basic decency, care, and concern should ground our politics and inform our policies.  

Now that is a breath of fresh air!