*For a list of all the articles in this series and other political articles, please go here: https://cityuntangled.com/category/politics/.
I will write this brief article more like an informal diary entry without being technical or pointing to other sources. This week starting on Monday, 10/20/2025, I experienced many ups and downs. I had many intense political discussions on my neighborhood listserv where some people sent me uncomfortable private messages and some sent me thanks. I had some nice meetings and run-ins with people and some not so nice ones.
I went to an event which struck me as a top-down press conference disguised as a conversational event to promote a political party’s panel of candidates against those outside the party. Attendees were instructed to ask questions to the candidates, and the candidates would answer without any further dialogue or fact-checking. One question, one answer, that’s it. A proper conversational event would have had breakout tables where people would have been able to have more in-depth conversations with a subset of the candidates and come together with a set of ideas and questions. Instead, attendees who were supporters of the candidates would ask softball questions and clap at each other or at the candidates who answered. I sensed that many in the event did not feel heard in their daily lives, and this was the moment that they felt heard despite the faux conversational format. They were shining.
I spoke up critically during that event and one of the candidates kept interrupting me to tell me that I should only ask questions and not make any statements. That left me with a pretty awful sense of being wronged. After the event was over, I ran into somebody I briefly met before and had a wonderful conversation. The person had words of wisdom about giving people ramps of support. The person challenged me to think about what I want to do next since I have spoken up critically and got some sense of satisfaction. The person also helped me reflect on my inner drives and past actions that might have driven wedges rather than laid down bridges. I cautioned myself from my past experiences that with some people, when you offer them bridges, they use it to push you down.
There were several candidates and attendees in that event with whom I had personal conflicts before. After the event was over, I sat in the corner, watching them converse with each other and laugh. They looked very happy while I was brooding about what they have done to me or said to me, which included insults and falsehoods. Their shared excitement reminded me that we are all lonely beings who want to be in a tribe of heroes. By creating a narrative of Us-vs-Them, it can satisfy a powerful inner drive whether the narrative benefits the whole community or is factual. I left with many dilemmas: with facts and laws becoming evermore complex, how do we achieve some base level of common understanding as a community; when life has only so many rooms for superheroes and superstars, how do we all fulfill our urge to become them?
I left that event feeling the wistful contrast between my feelings of being wronged and their happy moment as a tribe of heroes. Unless people as a nation, or perhaps, at the risk of sounding too grandiose, as a civilization figures out how to make all people feel like they belong and matter, constant political conflicts would probably continue to be a norm of life. Is it possible to become a unified nation of heroes, or is that a complete impossibility? And is there such a thing as heroes?
City Untangled 