Build bridges. And, moats.

The architecture of the left.

The fractured social landscape in America feels overwhelming. It is overwhelming. Yet we’d be hard-pressed to name a time when this wasn’t the case.

Sure, believers in declinism—the idea that society and institutions are in decline, coupled with a psychological bias that invents a rosy past that never actually existed—think America was previously more united. A grain of truth, at best. This belief misses the overwhelming number of people who didn’t have a voice.

The consensus goes that three major news networks brought people together around common themes. Yet such a media ecosystem ignores plenty, and that usually involves the voiceless. As British philosopher Alan Ryan writes, “justice promotes the interests of the weaker, not the stronger.” If history shows us anything, it’s that the stronger rarely consider the interests of others.

True, we’re now inundated with information. Going from three to three million voices might not have been the best segue. But here we are: a million hot takes for every story. Meanwhile, nuanced and complex reporting on challenging topics is thrust to the bottom of the algorithm, ignored by those with too much scrolling to do.

The question we face: what do we do?

I’ve recently noticed more progressives talk about building bridges. Sarah Silverman tried it on Hulu in 2017. Coastal and beltway reporters have headed into the heartland to sort through white grievances since Obama took office. JD Vance’s trite memoir was a hit because it supposedly offered insight into an America left behind. (After struggling through half the book, I left it behind.)

The piece of this puzzle I’m sorting through involves liberals craving unity when so little reciprocation is offered. There’s some, of course. Magazine features about a conservative reaching across the aisle temporarily buzz and are quickly forgotten. The overwhelming majority of these stories travel in one direction, which is not going to “heal” anything.

Not that I don’t like bridges. They’re necessary. Probably safer to make them drawbridges, however. Controlling what ideas cross over and which get trapped by the moat seems best, both for our mental health and for society.

Despite what you’ll hear screamed on social media, America has moved right of center in legislation, especially around corporate governance and tax breaks, since Republicans began chipping away at New Deal policies nearly a century ago. We’ve lost much along the way—and gained some ground, too. With the overturning of Roe v Wade, progressives have to draw the bridge. 

We can’t be shocked when more civil rights crumble if we stay on the present course. I’ve heard too many ask “how did that happen” when the plight to deny women bodily autonomy has been happening since 1979. Those behind it have even more plans, and they don’t involve giving women more rights.

So we need plans. And we need to choose how we engage with people hellbent on stripping away civil rights, those who play at being the oppressed weaker in order to hide their true hand.

Let me illustrate the architecture by way of an anecdote.

A Jersey story

I began hanging out in Hoboken, NJ in 1995. My college crew would drive up from New Brunswick for poetry nights at the (now defunct) Lizard Lounge and (also sadly gone) Maxwell’s. There, we would share stages with quite a cast of characters. 

There was Mike Latch, a former cab driver and former drug addict who wrote poetry about the Empire State Building piercing the night sky like a hypodermic needle; Nestor, a wild-haired, wild-bearded bard who chanted poems about the “people of the book” going wrong, going wrong; Mike Ill, an OG punk rocker never without a guitar. James Rado, who co-wrote Hair on Broadway, would be in the audience finger-snapping along. It was a small scene, a tight community, a moment in time.

Of course there were many I don’t remember. And a few who I do, but time has stripped my memory of their names. One I’ll call Jeff.

Jeff was a soft-spoken poet, a quiet force among a boisterous crew. One week he recited a new poem, the one I’ll never forget, because he had recently killed a man.

Self-defense. North Jersey wasn’t the safest area, still isn’t in many spots, and Jeff had just returned to his apartment building. As he stepped inside the elevator another man rushed in with a knife. Jeff noticed the drug-crazed look in his eyes. He was being mugged, violently. All Jeff could do was fight. Which is what he did, turning the knife back on his assailant, stabbing him. The man bled out right there.

That Jeff knew how to defend himself saved his life. Yet he was a gentle man, forced into such aggression out of sheer necessity. His poem wasn’t bravado. No bragging. It was filled with sadness. Confusion. Empathy. What drives a man to try to kill another for, what, a wallet with $15 and a nearly maxed-out credit card? Jeff would likely never know, though he was also aware that tragedy can strike anyone. It struck him, and the man whose life he took.

Thankful to be alive but stunned that he had to live the rest of his life knowing he murdered. The weight of the world on his shoulders.

Time heals. The burden eased week by week. Yet nearly 30 years later, I vividly remember the weight he carried. His story has been a cautionary tale ever since. 

To be clear, what I’ve taken from Jeff has nothing to do with causing physical harm to others. But it very much deals with defending our rights. Civil rights, freedom from religion, the right to openly love and marry whoever you want, the right to be whoever you want even when it makes others uncomfortable.

Their discomfort is on them, not you.

I wish I could add the right to health care to that list, but that’s a fight we still have to wage. By that I mean affordable, accessible health care for everyone. We’ve gotten closer, but we’re not there yet.

And the right we really did lose. So many women have lost their right to determine what’s best for their own health care, their bodies, their lives. Another cautionary tale, not my anecdote, but one that affects half our nation, and those who love and support them.

Build bridges when possible. Notice when they’re not. In these cases, the other side has no desire to hear anyone but themselves speak.

First, offer them silence. Then, we take what’s ours.