Dear Future Candidates for President,
Let’s try something new.
You are about to step into an extraordinary and historic role in revitalizing the grand experiment that has always defined this country. And like every pivotal moment before it, this one requires something different from its leaders.
Both sides, and everyone in the middle, are exhausted by the reality that every disagreement comes down to demonizing the other side and declaring moral and intellectual superiority on every single issue. Conflict is no substitute for vision, and noise cannot replace thought. Instead of certainty and hardline enforcement, let’s try a little curiosity, a lot of fact-finding and personal evaluation.
Let your ideas lead the way, not your opposition to the other candidates. Hatred is not a position, and being against something is hollow in the absence of the imagination required to carve out a better way.
Try something radical that will inevitably be dismissed by the uninitiated as naive: kindness. But don’t confuse kindness with weakness or passivity. You have the capacity to earn the deliberate, disciplined respect that allows ideas to breathe and conversations to unfold.
Be firm. Be direct. Be assertive. But do so without insult, without demeaning those who see the world differently.
The marketplace of ideas is still alive, but only if someone is willing to elevate the conversation.
You can be that someone.
Let your ideas be your platform. Let compromise, an earnest commitment to truth, and clear, effective communication be your tools.
Unite rather than divide and lift up rather than diminish.
Leadership is not the art of imposing your will. It is the discipline of earning consensus, communicating a new path forward, and seeking compromise as needed.
We are no longer impressed by insults dressed as strength or promises that dissolve into “concepts” without substance. We are looking for something quieter and infinitely more difficult: a leader who can imagine a better day and articulate how to build it.
And that will not happen through force, bombastic sound bites, late-night tweets or demanding fealty to demonstrate your power.
There is an unmistakable cultural shift underway. It’s subtle, but very real. The appetite for the loudest voice in the room is fading. In its place is something less visible, but more durable: a desire for thoughtfulness, steadfastness, and leaders willing to do the slow, unglamorous work of bringing people together.
It won’t dominate headlines or be a viral sensation (whew!), and you may not get to declare triumph over your opponents in ways that feel satisfying in the moment.
But the outcomes will matter more, your leadership will be unmistakable, and our most poetic historians will have much to say on the matter.
Empower and educate the people. Expand the tent rather than guarding its edges. Good ideas will spread because they will make sense, and the outcomes will be self-evident. And collectively, we are absolutely starved for real solutions and the peace that will inevitably follow.
Win the day with your vision, not your threats.
Principled, moral, and humane leadership is not a fantasy. It is the next step in a pattern we have seen before. When the weight of division becomes too heavy, people inevitably begin to set it down quietly and are drawn toward thoughtfulness and introspection rather than rage and indignation.
We can begin again, to imagine what it would look like to move forward together.
You have the opportunity to accelerate that shift.
You can be an injection of truth, clarity and genuine belief in the country you seek to lead. In that vast and often neglected realm of possibility, we might start to find something other than lip service and recrimination.
Leadership begins by example, and we are at an historic national inflection point.
Set the tone for our most humane conversations. Make it acceptable to disagree without contempt. Show us that strength and decency are not in conflict.
If you do, we will follow, not because you demanded it, but because we recognize something we have been missing.
Let that be your legacy. And let it begin now.
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School counselor, wrestling referee, and an avid community theater actor.