It’s Wednesday, November 6th, 2:00 AM. By the time you read this, polls for the 2024 American elections will have closed and results will be coming in. Some will be decisive, others not, but the expected outcome is that, eventually, a new president and numerous state-level officials will be determined.

Much as I considered holding off on this until after the dust settles, I decided against it. Nothing here is going to change because of this election. Tomorrow, and the day after, next week, and the week after, this message remains, as does my faith in our ability to make it happen.

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Agitated by a fresh litter of baby demons chewing at my insides, I make the unfortunate decision, a grave lapse in judgment to be sure, to give myself unbridled access to social media. I score a juicy political nugget in no time, comments ranging from solidaric to scurrilous that take the original post to a whole other level. Moments later, to virtual strangers, I’m winging verbal insults that start with f*ck and end with face.

What the hell? I take a breath, put the phone down, check myself. Where did that come from? This isn’t who I am. Or, at least, it isn’t who I want to be.

Socially, and metaphorically, this is Newton’s Third Law. Somebody shoves, I shove back. (Work with me, physicists; I know it’s not that simple.) We first test the theory as two-year-olds, hone it as teenagers, perfect it as adults–principally in politics, particularly in American politics.

This is us against them. This is Sparta!

As a pernicious wave of political polarization threatens, though not for the first time in this country, to unravel what we have spent almost 250 years holding together, we want to know what’s driving it, where it’s coming from, and who or what to blame.

– Social media algorithms herd us into isolating bubbles that shimmer only from the inside.
– Cable news creates enduring political silos.
– Confirmation bias keeps us tethered to what we already believe, regardless of conflicting information.
– The two-party system forces us to separate into two camps.
– Our behavior is modeled after what we hear from our elected officials.
– The 1% want us divided so we are less focused on our massive economic disparities.
– All news, everywhere, is biased.
– Our country was built on the backs of displaced and enslaved people, and we’ve never fully addressed that.
– Wars rage and lives are shattered. Lives. Are shattered.
– Who can distinguish truth from lies anymore? Who bothers to try? 

Now is a good time to emphasize, in case there’s any residual confusion, that this is, in fact, not Sparta, and any attempt at parallels should be cautionary, at best. Spartans lived in perpetual fear of being overtaken by the much larger, oppressed class of Helots. Only about 15% of the population were considered citizens, because to count as a Spartan citizen, you had to have a certain amount of wealth. The society practiced eugenics, kept and hunted slaves, was run by two kings and a handful of rich people.

So, there’s that.

Now back to assigning blame for the political mess we’re in, it seems no matter which direction we point our fingers, or which finger we point, we’ve been unable to diagnose the primary cause of our antipathy. But there is one abiding theme: We all think we are at risk of losing what is important to us. We all believe we are playing a zero-sum game against a perceived enemy.

Think. Believe. Perceive. Notice those words. They are important. And it is with that in mind that I want to make something eminently clear: Americans are not as polarized as we imagine ourselves to be.

Yes, there are extreme factions. Yes, some of our democratic functions have been incapacitated by division. Yes, our election process needs an overhaul to address things like pervasive gerrymandering and controversial campaign financing.  But study, after study, after study, after study, after study shows that the vast majority of We the People want very much the same things for ourselves and our futures.

We believe in the right to vote, the right to equal protection under the law, the right to privacy, and the right to practice the religion of our choosing. The problem is not that our values don’t align, rather it is that we think they don’t. And why would we think otherwise, when so much of what we hear coming across our airwaves, see printed in our publications, and repeat on our social sites, tells us who we are, or aren’t?

Whether or not you ascribe to the notion that we are tribal by nature, there is no denying that we are prone to sort, cluster and categorize to make it easier for our brains to process and recall information. Neurologically, we appreciate these simplifications. When patterns recur and our expectations are substantiated, our reward centers ping, which further encourages the behavior.

Simplification sounds harmless, but it leads to stereotyping and othering. Attributing blanket traits to those who are different from us reinforces our own identity at the expense of someone else’s.

Fueled by news that tells us we are hopelessly divided, from entities that know if it bleeds it leads and for which attracting readers is a matter of survival, we find evidence of our disunion at every turn. In fact, we expect to find it, and it confirms what we already believe.

Conservative. Liberal. Gay. Straight. Old. Young. Female. Male. Black. White. The mere mention of the words brings to mind concepts, images, and assumptions for how a person in one group thinks, what another wants, and how they differ from or align with our own core values.

If you’re getting the idea that we are our own enemies here, good. Because unlike what happens on Capitol Hill, our own behavior is within our control. This is not a problem that is ours alone to solve, neither is the government the only form of power we can exercise. The more of us who train ourselves away from tribal psychology, the more capable we will be of healing our wounds. To put a finer point on it, we’re working to depose the f*ckface mentality.

The person who seems unable or unwilling to acknowledge the wisdom of our well-reasoned explanations for why their candidate is the wrong choice for the country: Not a f*ckface.

The person we were sure was well-studied enough to not be a single-issue voter: Not a f*ckface.

The person who voted for a third-party candidate because they didn’t want to support the status quo: Not a f*ckface.

We may have different backgrounds, belief-systems, and visions for what we want from our government. But our fears are likely very similar.

These are the people who file in with us to vote, the ones who sit behind the tables and make sure we are given the right ballot. These are the people who let us go before them in line, when we’ve got three items and they’ve got 30, the people who cheer next to us at the ballgame. They’re the ones who leave persimmons on our steps while we’re out, the ones we went to school with, the ones who pass us the green bean casserole at the Thanksgiving table.

It is a difficult time to be an American. We have developed emotional attachments to our political parties which render us unable to separate our identities from our affiliations. Criticism of our beliefs feels like a personal attack. But many of us are also more engaged in politics than we’ve ever been before and driven to reconsider what we’ve been missing, who hasn’t been heard, and how we can make a difference.

Tell me I should be taking a stand for democracy, and I’ll tell you I’m looking for ways to uphold my convictions without typecasting or dehumanizing my fellow citizens. I’ll say that, best I can tell, the way we think about each other, and the words we use to talk about each other, are what ultimately play out around us. Our children learn from them. Our societies learn from them. Tell me that this is all someone else’s fault, and I’ll tell you that the only person I’ve got permission to change is myself.

Elizabeth Beggins is a communications and outreach specialist focused on regional agriculture. She is a former farmer, recovering sailor, and committed over-thinker who appreciates opportunities to kindle conversation and invite connection. On “Chicken Scratch,” a reader-supported digital publication hosted by Substack, she writes non-fiction essays rooted in optimism. To receive her weekly posts and support her work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber here.

It will be a tough week for everyone, and I can no longer think or talk about politics. I would rather discuss dogs and why I like them more than most humans. In these challenging times, we can learn a lot from our canine pals, such as unconditional love, persevering through hard times, living in the moment, the pleasure of a good meal, loyalty, and the benefits of having no sense of time.  

Instead of catastrophizing the outcome of this election, find a friendly dog to play with, whatever side you are on, because life will go on, and dog escapism is healthy. I intend to spend more time with my dog, Ella Fitzgerald, a white Whoodle who is part Wheaton Terrier and Poodle.

Ella is relentless. All she wants to do is play frisbee, and I am happy to turn off the TV, leave my iPhone on the table, and toss a few. If you have a pulse, you can join us. All humans are welcome. She will place her red frisbee at your feet and slowly back up, preparing for a long toss. It is 45 minutes of not thinking about the outcome in Pennsylvania.  

Ella provides this service to all. I regularly look out my window and see her red frisbee floating by, tossed by the UPS or Fedex guy, a landscaper, plumber, electrician, or one of the many others who come to my home. They are seduced by Ella’s impressive vertical leap and joy as she snatches the frisbee out of the air, completing the human-dog aerial partnership.

I once saw my neighbor Mike on his bike, slowly rolling by our property. With Ella’s frisbee secured in her mouth, she tracked him behind our invisible fence like a diligent border patrol agent. My dog-savvy neighbor, understanding the security protocol, dismounted, crossed the invisible fence onto my property, and played with her for half an hour. 

I am all in on our dog. I lower her car window so she can stick her head out, even if it’s freezing outside, and I toss her treats for no reason. Acquiring a Pup Cup is part of our ritual, and at my daughter’s wedding, we even offered signature drinks named after our dogs. The “Ella Fitzgerald” was a Spicy Paloma.

Each morning, Ella jumps onto our bed and belly crawls to me or my wife for a morning scratch. If we do not comply because we are sleeping or pretending to be asleep, she will nudge her cold, wet nose under one of our hands to press the point. We eventually comply.

My relationship with Ella can be humbling. During our morning walk, she occasionally has difficulty completing her number two evacuation and stares at me with a pathetic look, asking for assistance. I check her back door, and inexplicably, I find myself pulling grass out of her butt using one of my doggy bags. I laugh at myself, my inner voice saying, “You used to run a media company, and now you’re pulling grass out of your dog’s ass.”  And I am ok with that. 

Ella is all love, and returning it in kind to her and your other human or dog friends will help you live longer. She has few bad qualities. Ella does not beg for food or chew on stray socks. She does gently sticks her snout in everyone’s crotch for a head scratch, catching a few humans off guard. Her periodic barking is designed to warn us about murderous squirrels, foxes, and the occasional deer that wander onto our property. She is very trusting and enthusiastically bolts into the vet or groomer, looking for affection, blissfully ignorant of prior bad experiences. If only humans could harness this skill. 

She was not bothered when hearing false reports of immigrants eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio. She knew it was BS. She is terrified by the low-battery chirping sound from one of many smoke detectors. We are usually asleep, and upon hearing it, she flies into our bedroom and stands on my chest, shaking, her tiny tail in the “danger” pose. My wife quickly takes her outside while I hunt for the chirping culprit with a replacement 9 Volt battery and a ladder in hand, wondering if I will survive the climb—anything for Ella.  

Instagram and TikTok have also incorporated my love for dogs into their customized algorithms. My content stream is filled with cute dogs playing with babies (the tech companies know about my new grandson, Zev). To keep me hooked, they send me videos of dogs at the airport waiting for their soldier human to return from an extended tour of duty. The dog loses it when their best friend in camo shows up. The most recent gut-wrenching video was about a sickly man who had been battling cancer for a year, losing over 60 lbs. When he reunited with his dog, the animal did not recognize him at first and barked at him for a few minutes until the dog’s smell superpower identified who he was and then overwhelmed him with affection.    

I rely on my extensive dog friend network to help me cope during these ugly times. There is Diasy, an energetic chocolate Lab who lives up the street and visits regularly. Upon seeing me, she accelerates from zero to 20 mph pretty fast, and before you know it, I am covered with licks and hit with lab body bumps. Another dog pal from the hood is Remy, an older, heavyset Lab who does not like other dogs but loves me (or at least I think so). Remy provides relief from any bad news day. My next-door neighbor’s dogs include Cassie and Huck. They showed up the other day, emerging from the bushes, sensing my need for companionship with Election Day approaching. All these dogs remember my history of treat-giving. If I am not outside, the dogs sit outside my front door and wait for treats. 

My newest dog friends, Scruffy and Casey, are small Aussie Doodles. They are brilliant and direct. Scruffy bangs on a small bell to signal when he wants to go out, and when Casey sees me, she drops onto her back and sticks her leg up in the air, beckoning for a belly rub. She is a tad forward, but I comply. All my dog friends are reflections of their human patrons. You can tell a lot of people by meeting their dogs.

A dog is your best friend for part of your life, but you are their best friend for their entire lives.    

I miss my daughter’s dogs, Frankie and Otis (Ella’s half-brother), who moved from DC to the West Coast a few years ago. I helped raise Otis; clearly, this grumpy, judgmental fellow spent too much time with me.

When we go to Seattle to visit my daughter, son-in-law, and grandson, one of the highlights is the crazy happiness displayed when these dogs realize who we are despite living on opposite coasts. I also miss my dog pals who have passed away, like Dexter, Biddie, Dizzy, Anebel, Lizzie, and Maxie, to name a few.    

Unlike politicians, dogs do not switch parties, lie, or suddenly turn on those who love and support them. So, if you’re having a tough time at this moment in history, find a great dog to play with or come to my house, pick up Ella’s red frisbee, and toss it high and long.

Hugh Panero, a tech and media entrepreneur, was the founder and former CEO of XM Satellite Radio. He has worked with leading tech venture capital firms and was an adjunct media professor at George Washington University. He writes about Tech and Media and other stuff for the Spy. 

 

The news that the Washington Post and LA Times billionaire owners told their management not to endorse one of the presidential candidates caused a loud, primal media scream.

Both newspapers have described this 2024 Presidential election as one of the most consequential in history. Despite that, the paper’s owners told their editorial staff to ignore tradition and not express an opinion. Why? Fear and greed.

The lesson learned is that billionaire saviors of struggling newspapers do not have the same commitment to the ethos or moral nature that these newspapers were built on. They are scared. Trump, the would-be Mussolini, has embraced full-crazy and made it clear that if elected, he has an enemies hit list that these tech bros billionaires do not want to be on.

Newspapers have been under assault for decades, losing ad revenue and readership to digital alternatives. Many newspaper groups fear rocking the boat with a Presidential endorsement. LA Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, who made his fortune in healthcare, has a not-so-healthy newspaper business, and he likely does not want to alienate his conservative readership and advertisers with a Kamala Harris endorsement.

The real drama was at the Washington Post. Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Post, appears to have made a last-minute decision to protect his more valuable non-newspaper business interests. It has been reported that a Harris endorsement was drafted.

The decision was particularly stinging coming from a newspaper of record for many of us. Since the announcement that the Post would not endorse a Presidential candidate, several staffers have resigned or stepped down from the company’s Editorial Board. According to NPR, “more than 200,000 people had canceled their digital subscriptions by midday Monday, according to two people at the paper with knowledge of internal matters, representing about 8 percent of the paper’s paid circulation of 2.5 million subscribers.” The number is rising.

Jeff Bezos today differs from the person who bought the Post for $250 million from Donald Graham in 2013. During the last decade, Bezos stepped away from day-to-day management at Amazon and divorced Mackenzie Scott (formerly Bezos), making her the third wealthiest woman in the US.

The Bezos I admired has vanished, and the person we see in the media today on his superyacht has gone full muscled cartoon tech-bro, self-absorbed with body image, bodybuilding, and his curvy, arm candy girlfriend. He is living his version of La Dolce Vita, armed with the most F you money in history.

In my head, I keep hearing the Simon and Garfinkle melody and lyrics to Mrs Robinson: “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?” followed by “Where have you gone, Jeff Bezos? Where have you gone, Katharine Graham and Ben Bradlee?

I remember when The Washington Post’s courageous Publisher and Executive Editor risked going to jail for defying Nixon’s threats during Watergate. What happened to Bezos, the business guru with the odd laugh, who, 30 years ago, started Amazon and the digital retail business industry and changed the world?

Bezos’ business empire includes monsters Amazon (2023 revenue $575B), AWS ($91B), and the privately held space company Blue Origin. The Washington Post is a nat—a stray media dog with a rich history he saved from extinction, which has become an annoyance. The calculation was simple. If the Post endorsed Kamala, and Trump wins, then Blue Origin, which lags way behind Space X (revenue $2B), would be shut out from government space contracts — end of story. Bezos denied that the Post’s recent endorsement policy decision was related to his other business interests. Yeh Right! Eights days before the election. If you believe that I have a rocket ship to sell you.

Bezos’ biggest tech bro competitor is Elon Musk, owner of X (formerly Twitter), Tesla, and wait for it… SpaceX. Elon will perform any manner of business fellatio to pleasure Trump, including barnstorming with the crazy (“They’re eating cats and dogs”) X-President and donating $120 million to the Pro-Trump America Super PAC. The PAC is sponsoring a voter turnout gimmick that awards a daily $1 million lottery prize to registered voters in battleground states who sign his petition supporting the 1st and 2nd Amendments. The program is currently under review by the DOJ. A Trump return to the White House would help Musk and SpaceX get the SEC, DOJ, and other government institutions off his back.

I do not know how much a Presidential editorial endorsement impacts an election. My guess is not much; it primarily contributes to helping build perceived momentum for the endorsed candidate. In the last Presidential election cycle, in 2020, Biden received 47 major newspaper endorsements (circulation 9.6 million), Trump received seven endorsements (circulation 863,000), and 44 newspapers did not endorse anyone (circulation 5.2 million).

I also do not know the best recourse if you want to punish these newspapers for their cowardice. Do you cancel your newspaper subscription in a town with few local news alternatives? Do you cancel your $140 Amazon Prime account?

The list of newspapers that do not endorse a presidential candidate is growing. It now includes the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, LA Times, USA Today, Minnesota Star Tribune, and Tampa Bay Times, among others. The New York Times stands alone among national newspapers that still have a policy of picking a Presidential candidate.

Part of me wants to take a tranquilizer and wake up on Wednesday, November 6, to a new, hopefully better world without daily polls, non-stop fundraising texts, cable news network talking heads, and narcissistic billionaires who inspire fear and loathing.

Hugh Panero, a tech and media entrepreneur, was the founder and former CEO of XM Satellite Radio. He has worked with leading tech venture capital firms and was an adjunct media professor at George Washington University. He writes about Tech and Media and other stuff for the Spy.