3 Questions Every American Should Ask Themselves

an inquiry after the election

A wise Hermeticist taught me that there are three questions we need to ask when we think about our membership in any kind of community, company, organization, or culture. This includes your family or any church, religious, or spiritual community you are a member of.

This includes your state and your country.

The questions: Are you getting what you were promised as a member of this group? Does this group and the activities you do with it help you when you’re dead? What questions are not allowed to be asked in this group, and what happens when you ask them?

Each of these questions confronts us with the possibility that the communities, promises, and ideals we've invested in may not hold up—and with the sense of betrayal that lingers when those expectations fall short.

Are we getting what we were promised?

What were we promised as Americans? We were all sold the American Dream, tailored to different paths but with the same basic tenets: work hard, hold a good job, earn enough to buy a house, raise a family, live securely, and eventually retire. We were told we were free to pursue life, liberty, and justice for all.

But people across the spectrum feel personally betrayed by society and those promises.

A while back, I had a difficult conversation with someone who was leaning toward voting in a way that I perceived as threatening women’s rights. It stirred emotions I hadn’t expected—a slow-burning hostility. That hostility was mine to manage and work with, so I sat with it for a long time before I got to the feeling at the root: a sense of betrayal.

I sat with this for days, wondering if political hostility often comes from that same sense of betrayal. The more I look closely, the more my hypothesis strengthens.

A friend of mine, who is trans, lives with a constant sense of threat and betrayal by a system that doesn’t protect them, leaving them vulnerable. For them, betrayal isn’t just a feeling—it’s the erosion of their unspoken expectation that the people around them will care for their well-being.

Where does this sense of betrayal come from? In my case, it was the assumption that those close to me would share my values, and would protect my health and my daughter’s future. The betrayal stems from realizing that shared values don’t always translate into shared actions or priorities.

When I deeply examine this, this is a naive assumption, not only because we live in a hyper-individualistic society that does not emphasize communal needs over personal needs, but because when you get down to it, everyone has the right to hold their own values. But… that was my baseline: an unexamined assumption that ran the show in the background and led to a sense of betrayal.

In other words, I *unconsciously thought* that I was promised a sense of alignment with those around me.

I see the same betrayal fueling movements like MAGA, where people feel abandoned by a system that promises opportunity and security in a world that has only provided chaos, instability, and a constant erosion of life as they know it. So they feel betrayed, even if that was an unreasonable promise in the first place.

You see it in the folks on the left who are deeply upset about the election results who feel as though the country does not support their values. So they feel betrayed, even if that was an unreasonable expectation in the first place.

The “I thought it was going to be different than this” wound. The “I expected life to be better” wound.

This sense of betrayal might be the wound that unites us all, the shared feeling that no one—not even our communities or country—will step up to protect *what matters most.*

The trouble is that *what matters most* is inevitably going to differ wildly when you have 300 million+ citizens.

And so, I wonder: are any of us truly getting what we were promised—or what we believe we were promised—regardless of where we stand politically? Was it a false promise from the start? Or were our assumptions broken from the beginning?

Does your membership in this group help you when you’re dead?

Does this help us when we're dead (meaning: does this help the evolution of your soul or your self)?

I believe we all came here to live in the human experience for a purpose. Part of that purpose involves the experience of friction and everything that comes with it. The friction of emotional and mental strife and disagreement, the friction of pleasure, the friction of striving for something you don’t have, the friction of overcoming the hand you’ve been dealt. That’s a fundamental piece of what it is to be human.

Maybe this friction is part of a deeper truth: that in facing disappointment and betrayal, we’re forced to confront what truly matters to us, both individually and collectively.

The “American experiment” as it has been called is worth fighting for. The friction of fighting for what you want, for the vision you see for the country that you love and live in, is worth it—and that’s true no matter where you stand on the issues.

However, I don’t know that constant friction that questions who you are and what you have a right to be is good for the soul. I think my friends who are in vulnerable populations—those who have been ruthlessly targeted and outcast by the more rabid members of politics—have good reasons to be emotional right now.

But let’s be honest. That previous paragraph is not only about the people who feel their right to exist is threatened under a Trump presidency. This extends to those who are members of MAGA, too. Nothing like calling people “red-necks,” “hicks,” and “racist scum” to lift people up, amIright? For too long, the left has been taking the moral high ground by brow-beating their opponents and essentially calling them backward-thinking knuckle-draggers, and it has gotten nowhere.

There’s a counter-argument to this, especially for those who are in the more vulnerable populations: LGBTQ+IA and all the rest, Jews, etc. Those folks assert that there is no civility when your right to exist, to even call yourself what you are (i.e. “Don’t say gay”) is threatened.

It’s akin to the argument that the Israelis can’t negotiate with Palestinian leaders who ultimately will stop at nothing to see them dead. How do you negotiate with a group that ultimately believes in a zero-sum game where the winner takes all and the opponent must die?

Well, you don’t. There’s no negotiating with that. Cause real talk: that’s some seriously broken thinking there.

But I think this is where things get really fuzzy. Because while there are people who want LGBTQ+IA folks dead and wiped off the face of the earth, this is not the majority. Fortunately, we have not reached this level of warfare. This is not how the average person feels.

Today I watched a video of Nick Fuentes, noted misogynist and psychopath, spew vile garbage like “Your body my choice, forever,” and more. He was talking directly to women in his hateful screed, and I found my hostility ratcheting up again. For a moment I felt disgusted with all men everywhere all over the earth, every single one of them. But the truth is I know a lot of wonderful men, and I can honestly say that by and large, I don’t believe any of them feel that way.

Watching hateful extremists like Nick Fuentes—or anyone who spews hatred toward someone who isn’t like them—can trigger hostility and disgust.

Just because some liberals are absolutely self-righteous and overly certain of where they stand, doesn’t mean all liberals are assholes.

Letting extreme voices define entire groups only deepens our divisions and fuels the cycle of blame.

Just because the extreme exists doesn’t mean that all fall into that extreme.

We have to stop thinking that way. We have to stop lumping all people of different beliefs into the extreme versions of the spectrum.

That’s the kind of friction that doesn’t help our collective or individual souls. That kind of constraint on self-expression, on personal truth, on just being you is not good for the soul.

What questions can we not ask? What happens when we ask them?

When are we going to get honest with ourselves and admit that our primary values are not “family” and “hard work”?
The American culture has a deep admiration for wealth, money, and power. In fact, these values supersede all of the other values that we pretend matter more. This is just a part of the reason Trump won: he’s rich and he certainly has power. As my observant friend Shannon Myers said, money is a symbol of security for many people, and that’s why they’ll place it above everything else.

You will see the truth of this when you look at our collective decisions. It all comes down to what our actions show. What’s one of the major reasons cited for voting for Trump this time around? The illusion that somehow Trump will fix the economy.

I’m not belittling money as a value. In fact money as a value might be valid—it’s not one that I hold as a primary value but I understand that there are excellent arguments for it. The problem is when we pretend it’s not the dominant value, because it leads to a major blindspot about our actions as a collective group of people and as individuals. Money runs the show while we’re out here pretending we care about the American family. Our choices reveal a deeper loyalty to wealth and power, and our actions serve ideals we rarely admit to holding out loud.

What if we admitted out loud that the American dream, when it was first introduced, was never intended to come true for everyone?
It’s nearly impossible to discuss systemic racism, economic inequality, or healthcare disparities without stirring deep discomfort. Hackles rise in just a few words. To ask, “Why does this persist?” or “Who benefits from our inequality?” is dangerous because it forces an examination of power structures, which some might prefer to leave unchallenged.

And truthfully, the original conception of the American dream was designed for white, male landowners who could vote—and no one else.

What if we admitted that the American dream has changed?
Who’s to say we still hold true that the American dream has anything to do with the ideals it was built on? What would happen if we admitted that the American dream might have shifted to a different goal: to the unfettered pursuit of wealth?

What if our democracy isn't working as intended?
It's risky to ask whether our system, upheld as an example worldwide, could be structurally broken. Or to suggest that on many levels… it simply doesn’t work. To question democracy as the highest ideal or to challenge its current version risks appearing socialist, or communist, or whatever non-democratic title someone wants to throw your way. It’s certainly unpatriotic!

But our current political landscape—and everything that went down in the last three elections—reveals the flaws in our system. Our two-party system is not working. For sure, the democratic party has completely lost the plot, and time will tell whether the Republican party can actually deliver on the many, many (sometimes outlandish) promises it made.

Can we trust any of our institutions?
Trust in institutions—government, media, justice, education, healthcare—is at a historic low.

Some of us have proudly declared distrust in all of them, even as they depend on them.

Some of us stick to trusting these institutions despite the evidence that this is unwise.

This is a scary question because of the fundamental need for foundational change—change that is extremely difficult to accomplish without letting monumental structures break. To ask, “What if the system can't protect us?” strikes a nerve because it destabilizes the societal contract we've come to rely on (see above re: our assumptions).

We have to ask ourselves: Then what?

Do we have the wrong concept of freedom?
Freedom is a core American value, yet our interpretations of it often clash. Why do some folks believe that their beliefs—which they are free to hold—give them the right to act out their beliefs on other people’s lives and bodies? Why do some folks believe their freedom of choice gives them the right to act out their freedom in ways that end life?

These are conflicting sentences that point to a narrow worldview on both sides, where each side takes for granted that they have the moral high ground. The idea that some conceptions of “freedom” could actually be harmful or self-serving (freedom at the expense of others) goes largely unexamined. Given our emphasis on rugged individualism, asking if individual freedom sometimes needs to be balanced by communal responsibility feels radical, almost subversive.

Why is joy so scarce?
Maybe joy at a time like this sounds ridiculous, but questioning why genuine joy, purpose, and community seem so rare leads us to dark truths about cultural priorities, consumerism, and the values we’re asked to uphold (see question #1). This question highlights that the structures around us don’t serve our well-being—and that discontent, not fulfillment, is the product we’re being sold.

In a country that prizes profit over well-being, joy is a scarce commodity, revealing a fundamental betrayal of our collective need for purpose and connection.

As we stand in this moment, it’s clear that we face a crossroads, not just politically but personally and spiritually. The questions we’ve explored here aren’t just abstract concepts; they’re the building blocks of the society we’re creating every day. If we want to reshape the world around us, it starts with confronting these truths within ourselves.

What if we each dared to hold our ideals up to the light, to ask if our actions align with our values and if our communities foster the world we truly want to see? Perhaps by asking these questions together, we can shift the patterns of division and betrayal toward something more grounded, more real, and more compassionate.

I’m curious. Indulge me. When you think about these questions, what answers do you get?

And finally, if you feel inclined to share this as a conversation-starter, please feel free to do so.