1984 Presidential Election

I have a memory of the night before the American president was elected in 1984. Amid all the flash and bang of election-night hustle I asked my mother what was at stake.

I was 7 years old, so I didn't actually ask her what was at stake. But I did get her to reveal her emotional investments behind the political process on display. The beauty of a moment like this and how an American democracy work is that the motivations behind the electorate are close to child-like simplicity and base emotional yearnings.

As was the case on this night in 1984.

I asked in my own 7-year-old way who she voted for and why, and she replied that she chose Walter Mondale. Why? Because he was for the abolition of nuclear weapons; Reagan was not. Shortly thereafter I was sent to my bed. That night, as was customary when I was distressed, I prayed to God. I prayed to God for Walter Mondale to be elected.

God's mystery "works" in many ways, and he pads this impotence against the God-chosen American electorate by couching it as such. Needless to say, my prayer went unanswered.

Then in the Spring of 1988 I was at recess at Jefferson elementary when a fellow student approached me with jubilant news: Reagan had met with Gorbachev and they decided to reduce their nuclear stockpile. I was happy to hear this as was he, this vector of world political news.

The forks in our personal decision trees pivot upon worldviews so simple in their comprehensibility that a 7-year-old can understand them. And we may go about our lives living like a child, manipulated in our beliefs and actions like a child, praying, crying, and rejoicing like a child.