Imagine Yourself in Your Politicians’ Shoes
Democracy and Representation Depend on Imagination and Empathy, Even, Perhaps, for the Trumps of the World
This past summer, I spent the week of the Republican National Convention in a workshop in Portland, Oregon, focused on racial justice and healing. It’s the sort of place where someone like me, whose job and disposition involves fretting over how to build a fairer, better functioning democracy, might find herself during a sunny July week.
By day, I witnessed a mixed race, mixed aged group of Americans share their most vulnerable and unguarded selves. By night, I guiltily wallowed in televised coverage of the most craven of American political …
