What Do We Americans Want?

Issue 82

newsweek.com

I’m so excited. It’s late 2023 and the United States of America — yes, that United States of America — has hired my consultancy, The Consciousness Company, for a 24-month engagement. Score! From the moment the White House Commission on Political Polarization in America was announced, my team and I got to work on our pitch and, I dare say, we nailed it. Indeed, it’s precisely the type of Big Kahuna project we’ve been relishing for some time and, as far as I’m concerned, it’s evidence that the new consciousness is taking hold at the highest levels of government — in the form of a handful of officials who also happen to be conscious politics practitioners. Not complicated. The project was borne of compelling and urgent cases made by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has called political polarization in America a threat to the mental health of the nation and by the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice, which view our political polarization in America as a serious threat to national security.

Everyday conscious practice is about helping individual humans move from dissatisfaction to satisfaction. This is done by thinking on purpose about who they are and what they want (foot on the gas) and uprooting any and all beliefs they may have about how what they want isn’t or might not be possible (foot on the brake). The one who wants meaningful work learns to clearly define what that means to him (gas) only to come up against a long-held belief he has that work is just a grind by design for a slim paycheck (brake). His project, then, becomes to keep his eye trained on the ideal of meaningful work while simultaneously changing his belief about work being a grind. There’s more, but that’s the crux.

Conscious practice for groups of people large and small is exactly the same. The collective — a commission, a town, a country — gets super clear about what it wants and is assiduous about uprooting beliefs it has that aren’t aligned. What’s good for the individual goose is good for the collective gander.

Our team was astonished to discover that the 36-member commission plus its support staff — approximately 200 altogether — includes a breathtaking reflection of America today: political conservatives, liberals, progressives, and moderates, religious and non-religious Americans, Asian and Pacific Islander Americans, Native Americans, Latinx Americans, Black Americans, White Americans, naturalized Americans, LGBTQ+ Americans, White Nationalist Americans, Americans with disabilities, wealthy and working poor Americans, gun enthusiasts and pacifists, and a strong mix of generations. It’s a fascinating room in which to mingle in Washington, D.C., I’ll tell you that.

Conscious practice for groups of people large and small is exactly the same. The collective — a commission, a town, a country — gets super clear about what it wants and is assiduous about uprooting beliefs it has that aren’t aligned. What’s good for the individual goose is good for the collective gander.

Our kickoff meeting was last month and it started our 24-month clock. The commission and staff got a primer about the law of attraction and how what we focus on grows and guess what? We changed its name to the White House Commission on Political Harmonization in America. Imagine that. The commission also set an intention for itself: to work as one body, one ecosystem, and to reach consensus as they go. Absent consensus, they will reach consensus about why there isn’t consensus. Nice. They appreciate that as a microcosm of the country, what they will be learning about moving from polarized to harmonized within their ecosystem is what they will likely be asking the country to do. They intend to lead by example. Not surprisingly, heavy doses of doubt and skepticism that transcending polarization is even possible exist within this group of humans. But each one has been vetted for committing to exploring the possibility, to finding a way to trade polarized for harmonized. And I promise you every one of them is thinking about intentions and beliefs today. Every one.

We then expounded upon the contours of the next phase of the commission’s work: primary research. Specifically, a months-long, sweeping, very deep dive into the thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and opinions of multitudes of every type of American there is via perhaps the largest focus group and personal interview project ever undertaken. In an ideal world where money is no object and nobody can say no, Americans will be asked, What do you want for America? What is your vision? Democracy? Socialism? Autocracy? Don’t know? Don’t care? For us to be leaders on the world stage? To be known for/as…? To pursue an America First agenda? To be a secular country? A religious one? One that includes everyone? One that excludes some?

Part and parcel of the deep dive into articulating what’s wanted, of course, is diving just as deep into what respondents believe is possible vis-a-vis their visions. Intentions and beliefs. Intentions and beliefs.

Simultaneous to all of that, the commission will undertake an exhaustive study — via hearings and secondary research — of everything that is known about the ill effects of mass, prolonged, political polarization on the mental health and well-being of individual citizens as well as groups of citizens. It will do the same to gain a fact-based understanding of how political polarization threats national security.

You’ll note our engagement takes place in the last year of the current administration and in the first year of the next. Call it legislative magic.

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Alas, we will not be able to report the results of this study as this is one of them there hypotheticals I am typically loathe to engage. Yet I thought it useful to remind us that wherever human beings are gathered in service of moving from dissatisfaction to satisfaction, from what’s not working to what might work better, the process is, from a conscious politics perspective, exactly the same. We are all connected. One of us is wired the same way a group of us is wired. So what do you/we want? What do you/we believe is possible? Without answers to these questions, we flail, be we an individual or be we a collective. With these answers, we chart a new course. It’s all pretty basic for conscious politics practitioners like us.

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NOTE: I invite you to join me for this month’s Conscious Politics Monthly Drop-In. It’s the comments section of this newsletter come alive where we talk about what you want to talk about looking at it all through our oh so conscious lens.

It’s this Tuesday, March 15, from 8:00-9:30pm Eastern/5:00-6:30pm Pacific. Sign up now and be notified when it begins on Tuesday. Use coupon code “CP0315” to attend free of charge.

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