Axar.az presents the article “My City Teaches Me” by John Samuel Tieman.

What then must we do? Our greatest weapon against MAGA is normality. That's what my city teaches me.

I went to the State Of The City Address. In essence, it was an annual reflection given by the Mayor and the City Manager. I have been on the City Council here, in University City, Missouri, for not quite a year. The Address was a nice reflection for me. I get so lost in the day-to-day routine that I lose sight of all the city has done. Such as. An almost $30 million renovation to our civic plaza, a renovation paid for by fiscal soundness that allows us to draw from cash reserves, a budget surplus, and our general revenue fund. A building boom that includes a new Dierbergs, a Target store, a hotel, a mixed-use small business and apartment complex with 259 apartments. A 49% decrease in violent crime. Groundbreakings. Various ceremonial functions. For our kids, we approved a summer program for enrichment as well as recreation, a program that includes STEM and arts activities. And on and on. I am so busy with so much – forget about the forest while I work on a tree, as the old saying goes – I forget how much the city did in one year. And this is a short list.

But, above all else, I'm reminded that I live in this little island of sanity, University City. I respect and, in many ways, admire the people with whom I serve on the City Council. That and I just like them. I can't imagine the pain of working in an environment with right-wing crazies who don't even read newspapers.

I love this town. I feel so fortunate to live here. But one problem is that we are not a noble failure. Perhaps our biggest problem now is that we are indeed successful. All these different people and we live in harmony. We're fiscally sound. Crime is down. We've got problems, sure. We've also got a building boom. We're a highly successful heterogeneous community. So of course the far right hates us. It's the core values of this town, the values that make us who we are, that make us open to folks who are LGBTQ+, open to folks of all religions, open to immigrants and refugees and asylum seekers. We have a large Jewish community, as well as Muslims and Christians and even Scientologists and folks of no faith. We have problems, as I say. But what we must fear now, however, are not problems that are internal to U. City, but problems that will come from our national capitol and Jefferson City.

What must we do? What does political normality look like in an age of chaos? Here's what I have learned from University City. The practice of pluralism, the practice of governance, the norms of representative democracy, all these require patience, persistence, and politeness. When done well, these result is progress.

Representative democracy requires patience. I don't ever recall the words “government” and “alacrity” being used in the same sentence. With the obvious exception of emergencies, the government is supposed to be given more to the deliberative than the hurried.

Persistence is a political virtue. Think endurance. To risk a sports metaphor, politics is a marathon, not a sprint. Speaking of metaphors, think Aesop. Be the tortoise.

Be polite. This does not mean never being angry or never being assertive. There is a way of speaking that honors the personhood of a person whose policy one might oppose. Take, for example, a time-honored way of address. “Honorable mayor, I wish to speak in opposition to the resolution proposed by my friend and learned colleague ...”. It's stilted, true, but it beats making your opposition clear by wielding a tire iron. There are many things to be angry about. Anger is good. In politics, anger is expected. Anger is useful. But belittling, demeaning, shaming – no. When you demean someone, good ideas won't be heard because the listener will only hear feelings of degradation. Respect is given not because the other holds an office but because the other is a human being.

Patience, persistence, politeness. That's what University City has taught me. The result, in this time of immorality and ugliness, is a kind of progress. Progress toward sustaining the democratic republic. Progress toward maintaining normality and the norms of governance.

Two final points. One. The norms of governance are inseparable from the moral good. From such decorum comes a platform for dialogue. Two. Representative democracy is one of the best ideas humanity ever came up with. Trust me. I've been a human for over 75 years. We just don't get that many good ideas. I say we go with this one that we have.