When Hope is Not Audacious
Do you know what you believe in?
That’s the first question almost every one of my debaters get from me when they join my team. “What do you believe in?” It’s a difficult question for high school students to answer, because there’s not a correct answer. It’s difficult for a lot of adults to answer too, because many haven’t thought about it outside of the context of politics or religion. The question isn’t about policy, it’s not about a deity or a politician. It’s not about an issue, or a talking point. There’s no right answer, but there is are a number of wrong answers. That’s the daunting part of the question. When someone, outside of context, asks “what do you believe in,” the initial response is almost always to try and frame it in what makes the most sense to the person being asked. But that’s not the question. I’m not asking “who do you believe in,” or “what policy speaks to your issues,” I’m looking for what drives them. I’m looking for what inspires them. What gives them hope for their future, what do they think about when they need to be happy? What do you believe in?
So I’ll pose the question to you, reader, again. Do you know what you believe in?
Perhaps the better way to ask this of you is: what are you fighting for?
I’m going to give you my answer first and then expand on the question, because I think that this is important: I’m fighting for family, and I’m fighting for the kids I coach every day, as well as all of the kids that come after them. I believe in the power of good people working hard for the good of others. The question leads to my central philosophy. Everything in my life comes down to those two things. I’m fighting for the success of other people, and I believe they’re good people working hard for good things.
To put it into political terms, when we work together, when we put all of our hopes and dreams into the mix and put it on the line for someone else’s hopes and dreams, we can achieve anything. When my fight is your fight, and your success is my success, your happiness is my happiness, this becomes a country where nothing matters other than your willingness to believe in someone else’s dreams and your willingness to fight for them.
In that America, we can live equally. In that America, you don’t have to be born here to be American, you’ve only to put your hopes on the table and start working for them and the hopes of the person next to you. You don’t have to be able to stand up, to hear, see, or speak, you’ve only got to hold your hopes and to understand the hopes of others. In that America, your identity belongs to you because you’re just as important as the person fighting next to you for a better tomorrow. In this fight, the only thing that matters is that we all have skin in the game. We’re all in for the American next to us, fighting to build a better country for everyone. A country where everyone’s hopes and dreams are the foundation of why we do the things we do as a nation.
We can build this together. We can fight for this together, shoulder to shoulder. Imagine, just for a second, a society of people working constantly and diligently to make your life better. Now take it one step further and imagine working for someone else’s dreams. Imagine the satisfaction of watching them succeed, and the joy and hope we can all feel when one of us achieves those goals and gives back to the rest so that the fight can continue. Imagine that America, put it in your mind and think about what it’ll take to get there, to a society of mutual trust and respect for our neighbors and fellow Americans in the fight for all of our future. Imagine an America where we’re not just in it for ourselves.
Never doubt the power of good people working hard for the good of others.
Imagine, for a second, that your fight is my fight. You want to be able to buy a house in America? I want that for you. Do you want your kids to go to school without living in fear that someone will choose that day to do something terrible? I want that for you, too. What about being able to reliably get that surgery you’ve been putting off without going bankrupt? I want to fight for that with you. I want to stand shoulder to shoulder with you in that fight, and there are millions of us who want to stand and work for these things. Millions of good people, with their own hopes for this country, working hard for the good of each other and you. It’s not an easy fight, and it’s not just about issues. Anyone can take on an issue. It’s about vision for where we’re going. It’s about knowing what comes next in that fight, and how to achieve those goals for each other. That requires leadership, but we’ll come back to that.
Now, there’s going to be times we all feel alone in this. There are going to be times when others will be negative, or they’ll lose hope and forget that we’re on the same side. Remember that this fight isn’t easy. It’s going to exhaust everyone who’s in it. There’s a lot of people who don’t share this vision for America, a lot of people who are just fine with the way things are. There’s a lot of people who don’t want you to hope, not like that. These people, be it for their own pile of treasures, or their precious power and status, or their influence over the lives of others, don’t want to see us stand together and fight for each other. They build divides and call them things that sound good to us individually. Many times, they’ll pit us against each other based on the very things that should bind us. They’ll weaponize our hope and point to someone else and say that the others among us in the fight aren’t true, and that our hope is misplaced. They’ll point to our leaders and try to tell us that our leaders are lying. We’ll fight for them, too, and then we’ll find strength in each other again to keep fighting. Remember that in this fight, you’re never alone. There is always going to be someone in this America, that I’m asking you to imagine, who has your back.
Imagine the comfort in that, the idea that when you fall down, there can be a society that will pick you up and tell you to try again instead of trampling you. A society of people that tells you to sprint toward your American dream and to throw yourself at it full boar, and you encourage everyone else to do it, too. Imagine, for just a minute, that you can try to invent that world-changing device. Imagine dedicating yourself to discovery, to breaking barriers, to building something that will stand the test of time, without the fear that failure will prevent you from picking up the pieces and trying again. Imagine a society where we don’t have to just discuss policy and issues, we can discuss what those issues mean to us and why we need to deal with them to achieve those dreams.
But here’s the thing: it’s not just about issues or policy. Issues are important, they’re key to making this tick, but they’re a means to an end. Medicare-for-all is important, but it’s a means to an end. Ending forever wars is important, but it’s a means to an end. Fixing the climate is important, but it’s a means to an end. Building equality, reforming criminal justice, forgiving student debt, making college free, these are critically important, but they are all means to an end.
What is that end? It’s an America where your concern isn’t survival, it’s making the most of the life we have. It’s being free to pursue those hopes and dreams without the fear of systemic barriers, or the fear of your fellow Americans working against you in those hopes, or the fear of failure.
But the first step is talking about what your hopes are. What do you believe in? What are you fighting for? Next, you’ve got to share those answers with other people, you’ve got to ask them the same questions, what do they believe, and what do they fight for? If they don’t know, give them time, and they’ll come up with something. Now you’ve got someone to fight with. You’ve got a fellow American whom you can see and talk to, who has hopes and dreams and we have to fight for those dreams, and they have you. Each of you can go find someone else and do it again, and they’ll find someone to fight for, and now we’re off to the races. Just remember, good things happen when good people fight hard for the good of others, and that we can do this together.
But to make this stick, to really make this work, we need a leader who can guide us. We need a leader who believes in the power of dreams and imagination to make real change. We need a leader who asks us to fight, not for them or ourselves, but to look around and tell people that their fight is our fight. To look at those affected by racial injustice in America, hear their stories, and tell them that their fight is important, and that we can fight together to fix the problem and prevent it from happening again to someone else. To look at those with disabilities and to hear their stories, and to help them build an America that is accessible and fair to them in every way that they need it to be. To look at immigrants and refugees who come here for a better life, with generations of hopes and dreams, and tell them that Americans are defined by those dreams and not the location on their birth certificate. A leader who will look at the world and see collaborators, and friends, not enemies behind every border. A leader who will tell corporations that the hopes and dreams of every small business owner matters just as much as theirs do, and that from now on, the game will be played fairly for the sake of those hopes.
We need a leader who will look each of us in the eye and tell us that we matter, not simply the issues we believe need to be fixed, but that the deepest hopes we have for ourselves and our country can be met if we dream big and fight hard.
I suppose it would be hypocritical if I didn’t, before I finish, tell you what my hopes and dreams are.
I want to be a dad. I want to have kids with my wife, my high school sweetheart, without worrying how we’re going to put food on the table. I want to buy a house, and I want a dog. I want to build a basement dedicated to the Minnesota Vikings, and I want to teach high school social studies before becoming a principal. I hope one day that I can raise good men if I have sons, and strong women if I have daughters. I want to teach them that they can create magic of their own, they can build whole universes, if they learn how to write. I dream of a day when I can come home from work to a house full of family unburdened by the strains of medical costs, or student loans. I dream of a day when my first thought when I wake up isn’t that I have an overdraft fee coming that day, and the last thought I have before bed is whether or not I can afford to get gas this week.
For my country, I dream of an America where those who come here come freely. I dream of an America where my students don’t live in fear when they come to school. I dream of an America where anyone can be elected, regardless of race, gender identity, religion, sexuality, education level, or level of physical ability. I dream of an America that I can be proud of again, not based on a white-washed and glorified version of history, but because we built something great for each other.
Elizabeth Warren has dreams of her own. She has hopes of her own. She talks about them all the time on the campaign trail. Not just about issues, but why we’re going to fix them, and what comes after them. Elizabeth Warren wants us to join hands, to tell each other those hopes and dreams, and to hear the dreams of others. She wants to build an America, not for us but with us, that tells us to dream bigger. She wants us to imagine that future, as she has.
Her fight is my fight. She can’t do it alone. Your fight is my fight. We’re in this together, and we’re going to build our dreams from the ground up together. This is your call to action. We can’t do it without your imagination, without your hopes and dreams. We can’t do it without you.
Are you in?