Historians like to look back in time to identify moments when everything changes in such a dramatic fashion that the structure and direction of societies and our civilization is forever altered. The week that followed the assassination attempt on Donald Trump could have been one of those moments when a week changes decades to come. But it wasn’t. The collapse of Biden’s campaign and the assassination attempt of Trump offered Trump an opportunity to close out the election of 2024 in July. His golf ball was teed up as big as a beach ball, but he whiffed. (Even though I am certain he claimed a hole-in-one on his scorecard.)

All Trump had to do was take a humble unifying tone to gather millions of newly available voters under his tent. To speak positively and optimistically about America’s future to assure Americans and allies that America had regained its footing—that he would unite us to, once again, respect the values of our founders and to set the example for the world. To claim, as Reagan once did, that it was “Morning in America, again.”

Like a toddler driven by impulse, however, Trump is imprisoned by self-indulgence. His many deficiencies of character overwhelmed the opportunity. His angry, mean, true self prevailed. His messianic delusions of being both victim and savior in an attempt to claim the gilded throne of the second coming drove him into the ditch.

All of which once again proved the centuries-old Stoic dictum that what matters is not what happens; rather, what matters is how one responds to what happens. Pivotal moments in history don’t find their pivot if those who face the opportunity do not respond appropriately. They become buried in the footnotes of history rather than driving the narrative.

By failing to address the opportunity, Trump unwittingly put that beach ball back on the tee for the Democratic Party. To their credit, the Democrats got past their stubborn old guy first. Most Americans want neither Trump nor Biden. We may be finally past the two-old-white-guys malaise many Americans feel about our national politics. The Democrats now have an opportunity to address that desire. It’s too soon to know whether they will hit the ball, or whiff like Trump. The Democrats don’t have a great track record in strategic thinking, let alone effective execution thereof. But this much is certain, as I wrote a month ago (“A Loud Silence,” June 30, 2024), “It looks like it will be an intriguing (maybe even exciting) election year after all.”

That said, what Americans want in 2024 is not much different than we did in 2020: stability, calm, and optimism about tomorrow. We thought Biden would bring that and for awhile he did. Covid was in retreat and Trump was sent to Mar-a- Lago to scream about a stolen election, show off stolen documents to his sycophants, and fight subpoenas. Then, inflation accelerated, Putin invaded Ukraine, the Supreme Court went rogue, our border was trampled, Israel and Iranian proxies decided to fight for real, and Trump proved fear and anger remained a powerful political lever of coercive attraction while Biden’s capacities entered precipitous decline. On Biden, it was painful to take grandpa’s car keys away, but thankfully it got done before anyone got hurt.

So, what do we do now to achieve stability, calm, and optimism at home and restore America on the world stage?

Below are some initiatives—some fundamental dispositions—we can pursue as individuals and that those seeking our support in this year’s election would be wise to embrace. Things I believe could put America back on track to win again. These are the things we can do to restore America in spite of political chaos. After all, a government “of the people” begins and ends with the values and behaviors of the people. The people can control their destiny, or abdicate it to vainglorious demagogues. For the moment, it remains our choice.

Consider committing yourself to the following six initiatives:

1. Reverse the lens. Instead of pursuing American prowess from the top, down, do it from the bottom, up. We must set aside our fixation on the loud dysfunctional national political scene and focus instead on our own local, county, and state governance. To spend our energies and resources on making our communities strongholds of human well-being. As I wrote in Saving America in the Age of Deceit (2020), “stronghold communities mean a shared place that is largely self-sustaining and foundationally resilient; which looks no further than its common interests to guide its application of power and resources; and, which seeks to achieve a sense of virtuous humanity where every member holds both the responsibility and opportunity of participation in achieving the objectives of the community.”

For the moment and to the greatest extent possible, we need to decouple ourselves from our federal government. To take back what authority and financial resources we can and assume greater responsibility for our future in as many strategic result areas as we can.

2. Embrace an optimistic ethos of dynamism and abundance grounded in accountability. Notwithstanding all of our hand-wringing, we live in the greatest era of abundance in the history of humankind and America remains the greatest nation in the world to realize one’s dreams. After centuries of living in a state of scarcity, we now have the capacity to achieve well-being for every human on earth. Now is not the time to pull our heads back into our shells as turtles do when feeling threatened. Further, we must embrace dynamism over stasis, and reject the Trumpian impulse to restore the mid-20^th century when white men ruled while everyone else served them. We must not be seduced by Trump’s fantasy of a retro-topia. We must lean into the future. The great irony of today in America is that we behaved better—embracing dynamism in pursuit of abundance—in the late 20^th century during a period of prolonged scarcity. We can and must behave better.

We also need to honor consequences again—both the good ones and bad ones. Debt forgiveness should remain the purview of bankruptcy    court, not for a president trying to buy votes from every student who over-indulged in a college they couldn’t afford. Bailouts should be eliminated for banks that pursue higher stock prices and executive bonuses while risking solvency. Consequences teach us how to manage risk, they are essential to our development of judgment. In an age of abundance, it is easy to shield ourselves from the effects of bad decision making. Doing so disrupts our ability to learn and capacity to fail our way to success, which is a fundamental human condition. We need to stand up with strength and humility, take responsibility for our actions, and behave in a manner consistent with our historical ideals that “all men are created equal” and each of us should have the opportunity to enjoy “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

3. We must seek power not through coercion; rather, through our service to others. This applies to both domestic and foreign initiatives. It is based on a concept I developed years ago in graduate school while pursuing my PhD in diplomatic history. I called it enlightened altruism. It’s based in part on the 1977 book by Robert Greenleaf, Servant Leadership: a Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness. Many may recognize it as a Christian concept from the time before American Christianities were hijacked by televangelists and right-wing politicians who corrupted the Word of God into a fear-based form of extortion and coercion. Enlightened altruism embraces the idea of referent power where people bestow authority upon you in reference to your service to their well-being that empowers their lives. It is much easier to affect service to others today in an age of abundance than it was when Christ walked the earth, or even when Greenleaf wrote his book. We would be wise, and all of us better off, if we were to apply this ethic at home and abroad. Empowering others is the ultimate expression of the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Power through inspiration rather than coercion and destruction.

4. We must reconsider our focus on growth—on increasing wealth—in favor of improving the distribution of the wealth we have. No, this is not a scary socialist or communist scheme. Soften your reflexive resistance, take a breath, and read on. It acknowledges that capitalism is the greatest system in the world for the creation of wealth while also recognizing its downside: that it also results in the concentration of wealth that threatens democracy and the objective of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” for all. We have already seen how the concentration of wealth results in the concentration of power that compromises our government “of the people.” (See, for example, the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010).) We have also seen how income inequality and related inequities foment conflict between Americans. Now we need to understand that if we want stability, calm, and optimism, and if we want our children and their children to enjoy the same, we need to re-embrace policies that lift all boats as opposed to a few basking on the decks of super yachts while others drown in overloaded dinghies.  It won’t be easy to affect the appropriate policies, but we ignore this reality at our growing peril.

5. The right of self-determination is at the heart of America’s greatness and must be protected now and forever. For the first time ever, we now have a Supreme Court and a political party—MAGA/Trump—who believe our many and varied rights of self-determination, which have been at the core of our greatness since the American Revolution and have always been our competitive advantage when doing everything from creating business enterprise to fighting tyranny throughout the world, are suddenly theirs to modify and/or cancel to fit their ideological whims and racist misogynist predilections. Their continued attack must be stopped if America is to win again. Ask any immigrant why they are here—why they sacrificed everything to be here. They will look you straight in the eye and recount the fact that they believe America offers them an opportunity to realize their highest ambitions. That our freedoms—our rights of self-determination—must never be compromised in any manner whatsoever. If we allow this idiocy to continue, America’s decline as an empire will be assured.

6. We must restore our reverence for Mother Nature before she selects against us. In the 20^th century, we became inebriated by the promise of science and industry. We believed that through our many inventions and innovations that we could bend everyone and everything to our will, including nature and its many diverse ecosystems. We were wrong then and we are wrong now. Climate change is Mother Nature’s way of disabusing us of our arrogance. We must not only learn to live with each other through our service (#3, above), we must learn to similarly learn to respect and to serve our natural world so that we all (including all organisms both animate and inanimate) may thrive. “Drill, baby, drill,” which Trump promised in his nomination acceptance speech to achieve again on “day one” is just plain stupid. The evidence of our arrogance is overwhelming. The good news is that we are absolutely smart enough to correct our course, but time is quickly slipping away to save ourselves from ourselves. Come on, folks. Wake the f*ck up.

When we look in the mirror in the morning, we must summon courage to conquer fear, we must select love over anger and understand that power comes to those who serve others. We must reject the zero-sum, us vs. them mentality of scarcity, and realize we can all be better off if we compete to cooperate with each other, rather than compete to defeat each other. We must seek to lift each other up rather than being mean to demean.

In America, we still have the capacity (and more means than ever) to remake our communities, country, and world. We must simply demand better of ourselves, our leaders, and each other.