Across the Divide

Seeing The Nonsense

Dear Death,

My daughter moved to New York City for college and then got a job in the city. I’m proud of her but I also feel like my wife and I are losing her to socialists and liberals. She doesn’t go to church anymore. Her friends have tattoos and aren’t the kind of people we wish she would associate with and the last straw was that she told me voted for Zohran Mamdani. I recognize she is her own person but voting for a literal socialist feels like siding with all that is evil, corrupt and wrong with America. I didn’t raise her that way. What can I do?

Sincerely,

Concerned Father

Dear Concerned Father,

Polarization, fear, and believing inflammatory things political commentators say is a poor reason to create distance with your daughter. Instead, find curiosity for how her views of the world are changing and why her new home has led her to see the world differently.

Remember that “us versus them” hoopla can often hide and distort truths hiding in plain sight. Because everyone has to die, thinking about death can break through those tribal distortions and see that everyone is in this thing called life together and much of the demonization of those who are culturally different is nonsense. Such is the case with the demonization of the word “socialism," which is a response to solving common problems that is immensely popular on both sides of the political divide.

The political right in America hates the word “socialism” but are often the most enthusiastic participants in experiments in American socialism. In fact, 30% of Americans, some 75 million, have already joined a form of socialist collective and, demographically speaking, the majority of those people have right wing or right leaning political identities. I’m speaking, of course, of the HOA.

An HOA is America’s most popular socialist model. In these collectives people choose to pool resources to beautify the neighborhood and care for common assets like pools and community buildings. People also give up their freedom to do whatever they want with their own property. In an HOA you can force your neighbor to remove the broken-down car on their lawn or change a garish color they’ve painted their house. People are willing to join this model of socialist collective because they believe it improves everyone’s property value. Many people also prefer this often conservatively coded socialist lifestyle where the houses are all painted in one of an approved palette of grey, beige or ochre.

The HOA works for conservatives because they see the benefits. And of course, they don’t put “socialist collective” in the marketing brochure even though that is exactly what it is.

I don’t know why liberals don’t use this successful socialist model of the HOA to create more communities that reflect their values. They could make HOAs that encourage native pollinator gardens in front yards full of milkweed for the monarch butterflies instead of grass lawns. They could maintain a library in the middle of the neighborhood full of all the books they are banning in schools in conservative states and host a monthly drag story hour for the neighborhood kids. They could even build some low income housing in their neighborhood so the gardeners and landscapers the HOA employs could live in the neighborhood. But culturally liberal HOAs aren’t yet a big thing. Maybe liberals just don’t like socialism as much as conservatives do when it comes to making the biggest choices in life like where to live. Or more likely, liberals tend to live in cities where the common problems cannot be solved with a neighborhood association.

Deep in HOA’s across the country there are Republicans watching FOX News cursing socialists. Because of the distortions of polarization, the irony is lost on them. Instead of demonizing your daughter for trying to find solutions to problems in her new home, turn off the propaganda-style news and talk with her.

Be curious to understand her life. Understand that it is normal and natural for people to come together to solve their common problems. Sometimes these socialist projects go well and sometimes they fail. But it would be crazy to create distance with your daughter because of political polarization. Socialism is an enduringly popular response to solving common problems on both sides of the political divide. It looks different in diverse contexts and places, but that is no reason to imagine you have lost your child to evil.

Sincerely,

Death

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