Trust

Who are the 100 million Americans - half of the electorate- who are unlikely to vote in 2004? Political analyst Farai Chideya looks beyond day-to-day political struggles to the heart of the nation at war with itself. The United States, Chideya argues, lacks the moral, legal, and psychological framework for debating complex issues in a pluralistic society. Instead we rely on an outdated idea of dichotomy, assuming that each issue has two opposing sides instead of many interested parties. And in so doing, we have lost half the country. Chideya's title essay compliments many others written in the course of covering campaigns and controversies. She implores us to acknowledge the complexity of our own lives, as well as our political interests, so that we many craft a working vision of government and civic life. A passionate, optimistic effort by one of America's leading young political commentators to conceive of how American politics can be recovered by its people and of how "politics" can be transformed from a dirty word into a means to ennoble civic society.