The Light We Build Next

When the old light fades, the work is not to restore it, but to build anew.

Photo by Joshuer on Unsplash. “I was visiting Chicago, when I saw a lady right in front of the flag.”

I love to create, and I also love to imagine. One of the beautiful aspects of the human experience is the ability to have a deep inner life, filled with experiences that have been embedded in us, inspired by influential people, and shaped by the media we consume, from books to visuals. If democracy is a collection of people and the power to self-govern, then we must be able to envision a future and a system that works for everyone, not just the privileged.

As a political hobbyist, doom scroller, and “communicator,” I have studied different kinds of political action and storytelling. Over the last several years, I have followed voices who once formed the intellectual backbone of late-20th-century politics, both on the right and the left. Many of them still radiate with the dream of the 90s, or a bipartisan age whose ethos drew from the glow of Reagan-era triumphs, interpreted as saving America from the unrest of the midcentury.

Though that nostalgia has power, it is also deceptive. The policy scaffolding of midcentury America remains unfinished, its promises of enfranchisement incomplete. Deregulation hollowed out industry even as deindustrialization hollowed out communities. The Cold War ended, but it was not the end of history. To live in that post-Berlin Wall victory glow was to be a moth circling a neon beam: dazzling, seductive, but destined to flicker. The light promised permanence; what it delivered was a fragile illusion of inevitability.

For those who did not inherit the glow, but rather its dimming, came of age in the aftermath of 9/11, foreclosure crises, endless wars, and rising inequality. The past decade and a half has not been a surprise but an evolution. The neon was already buzzing and sputtering. The beasts were already moving toward Bethlehem. What defines us is not the shock of collapse but the capacity to imagine differently.

Some still cling to the tools of that quieter age. They recite incantations polished in the stable decades, certain that if only the right phrase were uttered, the crowds would calm. They hand out maps to a country that no longer exists, convinced the old highways must still be there, just overgrown. Others take on the role of therapists, assuring us that people are better than what we see with our eyes. Still others, belatedly, confess that the light they once praised was never as bright as it seemed, and that it always cast shadows on those left outside the gates. Their voices spiral, but in that spiral is at least honesty.

Trying to recreate the glow is futile. To attempt it is to deactivate the most arduous, dedicated, and electrifying part of the population that still claims to want democracy. We cannot hallow nostalgia, nor can we sanctify hagiographic visions of the past.

Instead, let’s build a new light.

One that is programmed by people unburdened by the compulsion to relitigate yesterday, or to defend myths that have long since crumbled. Let it shine not from a hilltop skyscraper but from the neighborhoods below, illuminating everyone.