| Ladies and gents,
The people have spoken!
Election Day has come and gone, the ballots have been counted (mostly!), and American democracy has once again demonstrated that it can still put on a pretty spectacular show.
The Democrats have reclaimed both houses of Congress, checks and balances are back in business, and Washington is about to rediscover a quaint old American custom called accountability.
I’ve been around long enough to know that neither party has a monopoly on virtue. Or foolishness. Or corruption, for that matter. That’s precisely why we have elections.
The most encouraging result came from Ohio, where Dr. Amy Acton trounced Vivek Ramaswamy — arguably the most loathsome creature in a swamp teaming with them. And her electoral triumph wasn’t even the most encourage part of the story! No, it was the fact that the unspeakably cruel campaign ad to which Ramaswamy’s legacy will now forever be linked was roundly condemned by Democrats and Republicans alike (with a few notable exceptions in the nation’s highest offices). How nice to know there are still some standards that transcend party lines.
Could this be the beginning of the end for the politics of cruelty? For the notion that humiliating your opponent is somehow a substitute for improving your country?
One can hope.
Which brings me to a rather extraordinary gentleman named John Monsky, who has something to say about what America looks like when we stop tearing one another apart and start building something together.
Monsky is a historian, a collector of extraordinary American artifacts, and the creator of We Chose to Go to the Moon, a spectacular musical and multimedia journey through America’s race to the lunar surface, filmed at Carnegie Hall and premiering Tuesday, November 10, on PBS.
It’s a dazzling combination of history, Broadway talent, a full orchestra, archival treasures, and the remarkable human stories behind one of civilization’s greatest achievements. Monsky himself serves as narrator.
And the timing couldn’t be better.
Monsky has spent a lifetime collecting American flags, including one from every lunar mission. But when we got to talking about the election, it was something his father once told him that stayed with me.
“No party, left or right, owns the flag,” Monsky recalled his father saying.
Now there’s a sentiment worth embroidering on a pillow in the Oval Office.
Monsky grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, during the 1960s, when America was fighting over Vietnam, civil rights, and seemingly everything else under the sun.
And yet, in July 1969, we landed men on the Moon.
Some 400,000 Americans helped make it happen. Scientists, engineers, technicians, seamstresses, mathematicians, dreamers. People from every background, working toward a goal that seemed positively impossible.
“We are capable of extraordinary things when we put our disagreements aside and commit ourselves to a common purpose,” Monsky told me.
Think about that.
The country didn’t suddenly become harmonious in 1969. Far from it! Americans were marching, protesting, arguing, and demanding change. But somehow, amid all that disagreement, we still managed to reach for the stars.
“We did not have to settle every argument before we could accomplish something together,” Monsky observed.
One of the most moving stories Monsky shared concerns September 11, when he was in New York with his pregnant wife and three children.
In the days after the attacks, he remembers American flags appearing everywhere, on bridges, buildings, gas stations, and street corners.
“Those flags covered us like a blanket,” he recalled. “Nobody asked how you had voted before offering you a corner of it.”
Patriotism isn’t about who can wave the biggest flag, shout the loudest slogan, or level the nastiest insult. It’s about believing that this imperfect, infuriating, magnificent country belongs to all of us.
And loving America doesn’t mean pretending it has always lived up to its ideals. It means insisting that it can.
I attended a screening of Monsky’s wonderful PBS special this past summer in Southampton, and I left feeling a glimmer something that I’m just now feeling again: genuine optimism about America.
We went to the Moon, for heaven’s sake! Surely we can manage to get along with the neighbors.
Tidbits from around town…
Caught CBS News personality Mo Rocca browsing the shelves at Argosy Book Store on East 59th Street.
Saw society photographer Patrick McMullan at The Nines, no camera in hand.
Overheard legendary gossip columnist Michael Musto at Julius’ in the West Village.
Spied fashion impresario Fern Mallis dining with friends at Casa Cipriani.
As always, a toast of something sparkling to you and yours!
Kisses
|
