Election Reflections from the Remote Outpost

November 4th, 2024.

What if you and I shared a rooftop together on a remote outpost overlooking a distant battlefield? The enemy is assaulting our fortified positions. We're outnumbered 100 to 1 and we're running low on ammo. We've been fighting for days and we're exhausted. 

"They’re flanking our position," someone to our right yells with urgency. 

In the waning light, we make out thousands of our shadowy enemies moving rapidly to our periphery, where our defensive line is the thinnest. Our pulses elevate. We check our weapons for what could be our most epic test in this battle.

Then we turn and look at each other for a moment just before the battle begins.

Suddenly, I throw a hard left jab into your nose with my left hand. Shocked, you bring a powerful right across my jaw. We exchange blows toe to toe as the enemy closes on us with wild, flashing eyes and war cries.

Unbelievable? Maybe not. 

That's exactly how it feels as we approach November 5th, 2024.

The 2024 Election is here. Final speeches are being made, early votes have been cast, and the emotional temperature across the country is on the rise. 

Can you feel it? 

It's palpable, isn't it? Corporate news reports blasting candidates along partisan agenda lines. Social media is a digital killing field for friendships and civil discourse.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't have some concerns about this election. There are issues at play, including our national security, that are very important to me. Some issues could vastly affect the prosperity and even longevity of our nation. They are important issues for important times. But there is something that concerns me even more than the actual issues.

It's how we treat each other as we address those issues before, during, and after the election.

As a guy who used to focus a lot on unconventional warfare by disrupting hostile nations from the inside out through subversion and sabotage, I learned a few things about human behavior and social dynamics along the way. One of those things is that a population at war with itself is the perfect operating arena for bad actors bent on doing us harm here at home.

As a career soldier, I've always tried to remain apolitical in the public execution of my duties in defense of the Constitution of America. Sure, I have very strong opinions about the issues facing our nation. And I've been very vocal about those issues. I have no problem calling out leaders on either side of the aisle when they are culpable or doing the right thing.

However, I found that an apolitical stance with how I engage on the leadership front is a pretty good place to be for me. In fact, I intend to remain there as I explore this new chapter of my life here at home.

However, it is very difficult to witness the tension and conflict that surrounds us at every turn as we move deeper into this election disconnection.

For those in the "exhausted majority" that I describe in my book, Nobody is Coming to Save You, I'd like to offer a different approach this election season: Vote your beliefs and espouse your point of view, but also fight for your ability to stay connected as a people, no matter the political outcome.

For me, that starts with leading myself first. I have to protect my agency and state of mind, as well as my long-term levels of connection with my neighbors and community.

I will not let the election results deter me from maintaining my own mental autonomy or enjoying the relationships and social capital I've built around me over the years. 

Here's how I'm going to do it.

I will wrap up my due diligence on the issues I think matter the most to this country and to me. Then as a citizen, I'm going to walk proudly into my county library, show my identification, take my ballot, move to a private ballot box, and cast my vote for the candidate and amendments that I think make the most sense for the world around me, my country, my family, and my higher power.

Once I make those votes, I'm going to exit the library and resume my life, proudly sporting my "I voted" sticker with a big-ass grin on my face. You see, for me, I can't help but think about the buddies who I served with in Afghanistan and Iraq who left this world far too soon fighting for the civic action that I was gifted.

Voting.

They literally gave everything so that I could fill in those little bubbles and have my voice heard. You might think it's corny, but I'm going to say a quiet prayer of thanks for their sacrifice. Then I'm going to resume living a life that they would be proud of.

Sure, the pressure of division will come at me hard as it always does this time of year. The Churn grows into a roiling lava field of fear, anger, and catastrophizing. It can lure me into a trance state of "survival" if I'm not careful. It's so easy to get sucked in. And hey, there are real problems and issues at play. I get it. But none that warrants treating my fellow citizens with contempt.

None.

This is where my agency comes in. I need to put my emotional oxygen mask on first. If I stay on the 24/7 news channels, I'll easily be lured into a trance state of fear-based or anger-based division, and I will become an unwitting pawn for the divisionist politicians and their spew-slinging surrogates.

Make no mistake, much of this divisionist behavior is fueled by the corporate and media leaders who make a ton of money from my unblinking attention to a digital screen. As I endlessly scroll and click, I drop deeper and deeper into a manufactured trance state around agenda-based reporting and rigid dogma that has far less to do with my wife, kids, and neighbors than they would have me believe.

It’s not just legacy media. Social media engineers know they will hold my attention longer if they can lull me into a trance state, and the attention-based economy they thrive on will benefit from my tribal behavior.

Instead of cooperating with them, I'm going to do everything I can to conduct daily rituals that will allow me to break my trance state when it comes on. I'm going to conduct as many digital detoxifications as necessary throughout the day to reclaim my agency, and stay plugged into the natural world—not the represented world that's coming at me with everything they have.

I'm going to focus on the world around me. I'm going to double down on the attention I give my wife and my boys. I'm going to double down on the attention I give to you, and on the conversations we have about getting big sh*t done, no matter who is in office. I intend to focus less on the issues and more on how I treat the people around me who are dealing with these issues.

I'm going to start my day with rigorous movement and functional exercise. I'm going to do those throughout the day, even if it's a walk up the driveway with Monty or 15 pushups between Zoom calls when I feel the pressure coming on strong.

I'm going to use diaphragmatic breathing, or as my friend, Dr. Belisa Vranich calls it, horizontal breathing or belly breathing throughout the day. This is a great way to manage my energy and my state. I simply close my eyes, expand my belly on the inhale, and squeeze my belly like a balloon on the exhale. I repeat that in 5 to 10 repetition sets until my sympathetic state of fight, flight, or freeze drops back into a parasympathetic state of calm and connection. I'll open my eyes slowly, notice three new things around me, and then step back into the arena, more intentional and available than I was 3 minutes prior.

A micro-reset to avoid the Churn.

It might sound overly simple, but just these actions to maintain my agency allow me to be more present and more intentional. Functional movement, horizontal breathing, and digital detoxification allow me to be a catalyst for connection and thriving when everyone else around me is in a trance state of division and surviving.

I get lots of comments from pundits and divisionists on both sides of the aisle saying I need to pick a side. The future of the world is at stake if you don't side with our group.

Bullshit.

I've seen how in-group and out-group behavior ends in some of the roughest places on Earth. I can tell you the ending is far uglier than anything Hollywood could conjure up. We are not exempt from that ending. We are just as susceptible to the horrors of shadow tribal behavior as any country on the planet.

We fool ourselves into thinking that if we allow rigid ideology to justify treating each other with contempt normally reserved for one's enemies, somehow, we are above the savagery that can result because we are more advanced and sophisticated. Nothing is further from the truth.

We are just as primal and just as tribal as the most remote places on earth. We just dress a little better (My wife might even disagree on that last bit when it comes to me :)).

I know that in these times when nobody is coming to save me, I can still get big shit done by simply fighting for my own agency, standing up for my own autonomy, and exercising my right as a citizen to vote. But more importantly, I can pursue my obligations as a citizen to create an environment of civil discourse, respect, and human connection.

Those are the things that my brothers and sisters also fought and died for. They are harder in many cases to achieve, but no less important in a country that was once described as individualism rightly understood.

Of course, we're going to disagree on issues, sometimes passionately, but make no mistake, we are all members of a frontier outpost, with bad actors circling around us and within us, who salivate at the notion that we might treat each other with the contempt and disdain that they feel for us.

This election will be a challenging time, but I know that leadership in my arena starts with me and the actions I take to lead myself in Resistance to the Election Churn.

That's what I'm going to do, and I hope that you'll join me, no matter how you cast your vote. I'll see you on the Rooftop of our remote outpost.