Just What Is the Soul of America?

Issue 116

If this is your first read, welcome to The Conscious Politics Op-Ed (formerly The Conscious Politics Sunday Newsletter), currently being published whenever possible.

•

When President Biden decided to run for office in 2020, he said he wanted to restore the soul of America. As one who is enthusiastically drawn to all manner of talk about souls and consciousness and probably every third-rail subject that exists anywhere on or near our political landscape, it occurred to me that I’ve never seen or heard a definition of what the soul of America is — according to the president or anyone else for that matter. Have you?

It’s curious. His current reelection campaign is, ostensibly, premised on the same heady concept. I follow politics all the time, I’ve heard him utter “restore the soul of America” many times, but I can’t think of a single time that I’ve heard him, his surrogates, or anyone, really, define it in any particular way. My obliviousness, of course, is irrelevant and perhaps you’re thinking Steven, buddy, it’s 2024…um, online search? A rational question, you, but I thought it’d be more fun to geek all the way out and ponder what “the soul of America” might mean to this singular conscious politics practitioner — without peeking.

The first word that came to me — listening to inspiration and all, clear as a bell — when I thought about the soul of America was truth. Hmmm. Truth. What is true about America? Immediately, unsurprisingly, it was “we are all created equal” — the premise of our entire system of government, unambiguously stated in our Declaration of Independence. And, big duh, it is actually presented as a truth: “we hold these truths to be self-evident.” Imagine that. What makes us equal to one another is that we are all souls in all kinds of bodies, right? From there we see that our bodies are different, our genders are different, our religions and relationships are different, our cultures and creations are different, our personalities and proclivities are different and I’m only skimming the surface. But we are all the same in that when we die, when we release these variations of our human experiences, our eternal souls live on. Similarly, when generations of Americans are born, live their lives and die, one after the other, the truth that we are all created equally lives on in subsequent generations of Americans.

I thought it’d be more fun to geek all the way out and ponder what “the soul of America” might mean to this singular conscious politics practitioner — without peeking.

Everyone knows that America struggles mightily today, for all the reasons, to walk its equality talk. That’s why restoring the soul of America would necessarily start with what we started with in the 1770s: equal rights and representation for all of us, already. It would mean making paramount an intention to cultivate equity throughout our government. It would mean a shift in the American consciousness wherein we identify ourselves as a society that values the existences and contributions of all of us, chock full of all kinds of differences betwixt and between us yet resolute in our knowing that, in truth, we are all pink on the inside. Equality is the truth of what we say America is and we are so not that today because, quite simply, we are not walking our talk, not living our truth.

On a foundation of equality, the game we Americans play is that instead of being governed by a sovereign or an autocrat or worse, we govern ourselves. Our system of government says that everyone is welcome here so long as everyone follows the rules. We call it the rule of law and, even better, we’re the ones who make the laws. By we, of course, I mean the infinitesimal number of people who, on the federal level, represent we the (more than 330 million) people. They are 100 United States Senators, each elected to six-year terms and 438 United States Representatives, each elected to two-year terms. That’s it. When our legislative representatives are people of high integrity, people who take their oaths of office seriously, people who, without fail, put country and the rule of law over party, they engage in legislative debates about priorities and policies and pass and repeal laws. Regular order. We the people vote in systematic, free and fair elections to either retain the representatives we have or try to elect different ones. When our favored candidate loses, we accept the results and try harder the next time. Restoring the soul of America would, for sure, entail overhauling and flushing out the extreme corruption that has clogged our system such that we can no longer even see what I just described.

I believe I hear you screaming out there for what emerged in me next: trust. Cousin of truth, trust is the glue in any relationship and it’s the glue that would make our (any) society function. When I was first tuning into politics and current affairs, more than 60% of us trusted our government and now it’s below 20 percent. We simply cannot have a healthy, dynamic society without trust so restoring the soul of America would also have to mean restoring trust in our system of government, in our institutions, in the people who represent us, and in one another.

There’s more, of course, much more. But a presidential campaign fueled by an intention to restore the soul of America would, I’d say, at least, look closely in the direction of insisting on equity, elevating public service integrity, and cultivating trust within its citizenry. Every single one of us on a path of authenticity knows what it’s like to veer off the path. Veering off the path is not the issue, not ever. The issue is staying off the path. The issue is getting so far afield from authenticity and truth — our souls — that we forget we have one. Then we believe the way things are is the way things have to be. Then we flail. Bigly. But we know there are always opportunities for healing, for getting back on track, for re-aligning with the truth of who we are — for restoring our souls.

If these and ideas like these are what President Biden means by “restoring the soul of America,” I believe I speak for conscious politics practitioners everywhere when I say, hooray and huzzah because it’s our intention, too.

---

Oh look. It’s that time again.

TUESDAY, APRIL 16, 5PM PDT / 8PM EDT.

Just two more days until The Conscious Politics Free Monthly Training for April.

The format of the trainings has taken on a slight change in structure. First up, always, are any and all comments and questions on the minds of any or all of our attendees — that’s you. After that, we discuss projects that are going on and non-monetary ways to support Conscious Politics if that’s your thing.

Hope to see you on Tuesday evening.