The Long Drive, The Long View

 

The Long Drive, The Long View

Date: February 13, 2026

This time of year it’s nice to go to the Getty down Malibu way. You drive along the ocean, go up to the Getty Museum, hang out in the courtyard, have lunch, and chit-chat with my wife and maybe one of her Filipino friends. Then you take the long drive back at night to avoid traffic. That was a long time ago, when I was younger. Oh well. I guess I could always take the bus.

I have always cherished the integrated world of Southern California. Even when I lived in San Francisco, the extreme integration of society helped me feel normal. That is what “normal” has always been for me. So when I see voting rights being twisted into one-sided systems by extreme rules and regulations, rules that favor the wealthy middle class and shut out everyone else, it hits a nerve. Too many people scratch out a living just to fall into whatever passes for mainstream moral fashion.

That struggle goes all the way back to junior high school for me. I played by the rules. I got smashed around a lot in junior high and in physical education, but we still played by the rules, even when it was rough. Looking back, it really was rough. At the same time, I was kind of a pain freak and wanted to be a nerd, but I was so far behind in my studies I couldn’t even manage that.

After high school and into college, I started to see the bigger picture. Integration works better for me when we’re all mixed together with multiple variables on the same team. I feel more secure being part of something than just standing up and raising my opinion in a classroom. Being part of the whole matters.

That’s why it bothers me when I see plans to “modernize” voting in ways that actually make it harder for minorities. Yes, voting should be modernized. No, it should not be made less accessible. Minorities help drive the economy and help shape the mainstream. A balanced, liberal way of thinking about morality has made real contributions to this country.

Then there’s the problem of morality getting twisted inside the two-party system. Democrats and Republicans turn moral conviction into a tool to dominate goals and define who gets represented, who gets help, and who gets left out. In modern terms, we already live in something like a social democracy, whether people want to admit it or not. Big social platforms showed how close we can get to a kind of free speech where anyone can contribute ideas. Representation is supposed to be what democracy is about.

I know the word “socialism” scares some people, but I mean it in a broad, practical sense. Things like healthcare for all, housing for the homeless, and fairer economic growth are not wild fantasies. They could be paid for by taking a small slice from oligarch-level profits. Tax a tiny piece of billions, and suddenly a lot becomes possible. Why not try.

Before President Trump, politics at least felt competitive. After President Trump, especially in his second term, it stopped feeling competitive and started feeling dominant. He does not want to compete. He wants to impose. A lot of people call that fascist, and I understand why. Meanwhile, the upper middle class keeps playing musical chairs between Democrat and Republican, flipping sides when it helps them squeeze a little more money out of real estate or inheritance.

I keep thinking about the multiracial communities I grew up in, where I was often the minority. I survived. I think other white people can survive too. Honestly, I never really thought of myself as white in the first place. I just wanted to be part of the team. Sometimes that was hard. Sometimes it was as simple as trying to play a little baseball.

Before school, I wanted to be an artist. I thought you couldn’t get any lower than that. I was wrong. The economics of the future tore through time and space and flattened a lot of hopes into silence. I felt that silence in Oakland, walking to the bookstore on a Sunday or around Lake Merritt, barely meeting anyone, just a cold nothingness.

It felt like moral certainty had fused with party politics into something hard and unforgiving. Women were not the problem. Men were blamed, and especially minority men, as if they were responsible for everything that went wrong. So I wonder, when the smoke finally clears and Trump eventually leaves the stage, what happens then. Do we go back to blaming ordinary people for getting by with their families. Or do we finally grow into some kind of democratic socialism that actually benefits everyone.