Axar.az presents an article, “Optimism and Vision” by John Samuel Tieman.

When they consider the political landscape of America today, many folks are apocalyptic I'm not. I think this is a time for hope. I think this is a time for vision.

About that bleakness. There's a rise in homophobia. There's a rise in racism. There's a rise in anti-Semitism. 48% of all Gen Z and Millennials cannot name a single Nazi death camp. As if that isn't bad enough, of Americans between 18 and 39 years old, 12% say they never have heard the word “Holocaust”. A third of American households live with food insecurity. The spread of authoritarianism seems inexorable. In education, complete standardization is a planned terminus. “Project 2025” is well on its way to fruition. This is a litany than could go on ad infinitum. In this column and elsewhere, I have raised the optimistic possibility of a new humanism, a new renaissance. Many of my readers, and my buddies, greet my optimism with polite indulgence of the old man. I get it.

I understand the despair. I'm an historian. Most medievalists dislike the term “Dark Ages”. Yet I'm not sure what else to call the 20th Century. Rwanda. Vietnam. Apartheid. Auschwitz. Hiroshima and Nagasaki. World War I was followed by another world war far worse. The Crusades pale by comparison.

Donald Trump also offers a strangely comforting explanation for these times. I was listening to the president. His usual list of grievances. Immigrants are destroying America. Democrats are destroying America. A bit of white nationalism of course. On and on. It's oddly comforting for his followers. He gives his audience a sense of control and, most importantly, a sense of belonging. Sadly, what they belong to is a hate group. There is no sense of forming these grievances into something constructive and forward-looking. It's static and retrograde. “Make America Great Again!” There's no progress, no vision in which tomorrow is better than today. To the extent that it's a vision, it's a retrograde and repetitious vision. And, as my wife once said, “When we come to the end of imagination, all we are left with is repetition.

Why should anyone have hope? Here's why. Our last vice president is a female of color. Here in Missouri, I watch the news in Spanish. The death penalty is itself on the verge of extinction. Some of the finest poems in history are being written right now. I was on a flight in which our pilots were female, and our flight attendants were male. My mayor is gay. My only point being that nothing dictates that an oncoming apocalypse is a fixed point from which there is no deviation.

Then there's me, the optimist. So I say – Listen! Instead of the next dark age, perhaps we are approaching a new humanism, the next renaissance. I hope so. The alternative, that the 21st Century will be worse than the 20th, is too horrible to contemplate. Perhaps I am an optimistic dreamer. But I cannot contemplate a coming age in which the survivors of Dachau will be envied.

What, then, must Democrats do? People are cynical about politics, and that distorts their understanding. Trump makes people feel like he cares for them. It's not sufficient to prove that's a delusion. Knowledge is irrelevant to the MAGA base. They won't listen to a factual explanation. But people can't avoid listening to their hearts. The Democratic Party must become more embracing. The Democrats must be for like the British Labour Party. The party must stop the infighting and embrace both its leftist wing and its moderate base. Why? Democrats can't just say to the nation, “Hey, we know what to do.” Knowledge is important. But when you are running for office, it's not nearly as important as the integrity and caring that come from love. A wise old pol once told me, “People won't care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

The Democratic Party today is a like a solo trombone. By itself, it's interesting, entertaining, and, in the right hands, even beautiful. But join it with other instruments – violins, cellos, flutes, trumpets, clarinets, French horns, many other instruments and perhaps even a harpsichord – and it's a symphony.