The week after the election I took a break from thinking about what action I can take related to the future of our nation. What happened at and after the inauguration brought me out of my stupor.

Four years ago today I was speaking at President Biden’s Inaugural Prayer Service. It was quite an honor. Today, at the same hour four years later, I was reading Trump’s executive order stating that gender dysphoria is not real. I renewed my passport a couple of months ago – because I knew I needed to renew it before new orders went into effect. Same with my TSA Pre-check and Global Entry renewal. I’ve also been stockpiling estrogen, because Medicare coverage for that will go next. In the midst of this madness, what can I do? What can any of us do?

Initially I will put my head down and continue my work as Mayor Pro Tem of Lyons, thankfully a non-partisan body. If all politics is ultimately local, then this must be the place to begin. I consider it an honor to serve my town, and I greatly appreciate how my town receives me – warmly and fully accepting. But that is here, in Lyons, Colorado.

What can I do about national affairs and the state of our democracy? Over the past couple of months, as I have ruminated on the election loss, I attended to a number of facts, not always easy to come by in today’s Internet informed world. Donald Trump won 49.9 percent of the vote, compared to Kamala Harris at 48.4 percent. This was not a landslide. Yes, for the first time Donald Trump would have won an election with the popular vote, something that would not have happened in 2016, but not by much. Also, for the second straight election, he did not win half of the American vote.

Still, he won. I believe one of the reasons he won is because of the lack of serious engagement with public issues. Most people do not bother checking their news sources for accuracy. I am often shocked that people watch the opinion shows of Fox News as if they were fact. The inability to separate fact from fiction has always been with us in America, since the days of competing newspapers in the late 18th century. But the Internet takes it to a whole new level.

Second, I have concluded that most Americans are not much interested in doing the work necessary to get to the truth of things. Belonging has always been more important than the truth. Look at any family system that backs an abuser, even when they know the truth of the abuse.

Third, I believe the American education system, focused as it is on the left brain subjects of higher mathematics, science, engineering and the like, has left right brain subjects like literature, history, and social studies behind, no longer requiring a balanced education in the humanities. Without an understanding of world history, there can be no understanding of how democracy can slip from a nation’s grasp.

Fourth, the left did not help themselves. As Yascha Mounk so ably has written in The Identity Trap, the left’s obsession with standpoint theory, essentialism, cultural appropriation, identity sensitive public policy, progressive separatism, and limits on free speech all created a backlash, not just from the right but from the center. These excesses of the left have also effectively killed the very important work of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI.) Universities have played a huge part in these excesses, but an argument could be made that the Democratic establishment and the mainline Protestant world also contributed to these excesses.

Fifth, I want to be clear that the single most significant factor in the election was white evangelical Christians, 85 percent of whom voted for Trump. Without their vote, Harris would have won 59 percent to 41 percent. As I explained in a sermon I preached recently, the evangelical world wants a left-brain Christianity, where the Bible is seen as a book of literal meaning, scientific explanation, and certainty. It is not. The Bible, like the teaching of Jesus, is metaphor, not literal meaning, awe for the creation, not scientific explanation, and mystery, not certainty. Evangelical Christianity long ago sold its soul to the modern age, which fascinatingly has more power in evangelical Christianity today than it does in the culture at large. The culture at large has moved on to postmodernism.

In my quarter century as a non-profit CEO, I always said to our employees and board, “Do not tell me about a problem if you are not ready to suggest or work on a solution.” How do you combat the spread of misinformation, or counter society’s loss of interest in intellectual pursuit? These are massive problems with no easy solutions.

This much I do know. I still believe that proximity and narrative can solve a host of our problems. If we can get close to one another, in the same room, we will see each other’s humanity and hear one another’s stories. I find that people’s understanding of what it means to be transgender shifts significantly when they have spent time with me. Unfortunately most of those on the right refuse to spend time with me. Social isolation is a disease that cannot be cured by anything other than ending the isolation.

I am in conversation with people who could provide a large platform in which to come face to face with those opposed to transgender people. It would not be easy, but I believe it would be good. I’ll let you know what happens.

In the meantime, please know that I will be fine. It is the transgender kids and those who have only recently transitioned that I worry about. Pray for them and pray for America.