The following essay we written the day after the 2014 midterm elections.

Beneath the micro-trends, the gaffes, and the personalities of the midterms are four moral, foundational crises in American politics:

1. Crisis of DEMOCRACY: Close to no one has faith or trust in our national legislative system. They believe, rightfully so, that money buys results in Congress. They see that legislators spend 30-70% of their day dialing donors for dollars. They see majoritarian issues — like minimum wage raises and rolling back the War on Drugs, which have 60-70% support nationwide — languishing, while unpopular deep-pocketed private-interest requests skate through. We spend precious time during short Congressional sessions debating how to organize Syria, Iraq, and Libya by fiat from afar before addressing our own community’s desperate needs: ones which we actually have the democratic legitimacy — rather than just the brute force — to address. The democratic infrastructure that used to give the common citizen a shot at making a difference — national federated organizations, national churches, national participatory unions — has been replaced by managed shells from afar that only talk to ‘folks’ when they need checks or votes or eyeballs. Americans feel shut out from the very facet of society whose purpose is to ensure we all never feel shut out: democratic politics.

2. Crisis of ECONOMY: The economy, as it is organized today, does not provide widespread security nor creative, productive empowerment. While productivity has increased, wages have stagnated for decades. Tens of millions of Americans make less today, adjusted for inflation, than *any worker* made in the late 1960’s. Those working in the fast-growing service industry (fast food, retail, even home health care) have little recourse when they want higher wages or more power at the workplace. Money circles around the Wall Street casino — apparently “ensuring liquidity” — while productive ideas go unfunded. For most Americans — those outside of Silicon Valleys, those who never went to colleges with innovation labs, those without wealthy uncles to give them $20k for a good idea — a business environment of health insecurity, lack of clear startup capital and bureaucratic corn mazes pushes, for many, the idea of starting a small business out of reach. At the turn of the 20th century, a nation of artisans traded their creative workplaces and family farms for the passive employment security of the Industrial Revolution. Now, we want both — security and creativity from employment — but a growing number have neither. The local worker and consumer cooperatives that could provide an alternative are ignored in Washington. Do any of America’s small business owners and would-be small business or co-op dreamers really believe either party — one which ignores them and the other which stacks the deck for their multinational mega-corporate status quo players — speaks to their needs?

3. Crisis of CARBON: The urgent recommendations of our scientific, international and military community — that we must, with all deliberate speed, reduce carbon emissions — are silenced by the American culture war. The mercenary PR teams of innovation-scared oil magnates have successfully deluded a sizable portion of conservatives — the political personality which historically defended prudence, checked greed, warned of radical changes in the environment, and invented conservation — into believing that doubting the science of Bill Nye, Pentagon generals, the Pope, South Carolina Republican Bob Inglis and an overwhelming consensus of international scientists was somehow helpful to their project of limited government, moral revival, common sense and service to God. The result is set to be disastrous for our children’s most vulnerable neighbors. Again, one party ignores the gravity of the issue — scared of speaking Truth to shale — while the other shills for their corporate paymasters.

4. Crisis of CULTURE: Our culture continues to centralize and drain of moral language. A nation that once had many national cultural centers now packs the cutting-edge into only 3-4 cities, driving up housing prices there and leaving vast swaths of the nation ignored. Regional cultures that flourished and allowed for trips across the country to be interesting and varied are in danger. Enjoyment that came from neighbors, local sports teams, local art, and the like is replaced by time spent alone watching something written by a few people far away. The heroes who are fighting back — cultivating culture and community in the nooks and crannies of America and the internet — are ignored by our politicians. Meanwhile, the centralized culture is drained of public, moral language. The idea that there might be something Good to do — as opposed to just something fun to do — is rarely discussed, replaced by cost-benefit analysis. Our centralized culture does a good job of defending individual rights, making sure cruel bullies are condemned, and building our understanding of marginalized lifestyles — indeed, projects which are tremendously important and for which I am immensely grateful — but fail to discuss other hard questions, like “How does one live an honorable life?” and “How does one choose what to do?” The result: public school classes helping students be “career-and-college-ready” while ignoring the task of educating for citizenship; politicians re-enforcing our self interests rather than challenging us to have higher interests; and a public morality that angrily condemns slips of the tongue and zipper, but not of the wallet and cluster bomb. Without a spice of moral culture, eventually even the liberal bulwarks of rights and tolerance will fall due to lack of desire for common maintenance. And again, both parties ignore this real cultural challenge, while stoking the flames of a fake culture war from which our generation has already moved on.

The GOP response to these crises: transfer the tax responsibility from profitable corporations to citizens; roll back safety, health and conservation protections for workers and consumers; and ensure the construction of a pipeline that Bill McKibben has called a “carbon bomb.” This is a ridiculous response to the crises above, let alone the jobs crisis they have repeatedly raised since 2009.

The Dem response to these crises: leveraging their newfound advantage in the culture war with a “War on Women” messaging while mostly ignoring the other War on Women — the 2/3 of low wage workers who are women struggling without union representation, the millions of undocumented women who face the dangers of living in America without access to police, and the millions of women suffering under the particularly violent patriarchy that grows where poverty reigns — as well as lining up hundreds of plutocratic fundraisers for their leaders to attend, so that they can get in on the action that the GOP used to have to themselves.

Until someone truly speaks to these crises — with a clear voice and vision — we are going to have the same back-and-forth games that we have seen in the last 10 elections. As we vote in the primaries in 2016, we should be on the look out for who is and isn’t ready to address these crises in bold ways.

One response to this all is to be cynical. But that’s exactly what Mitch McConnell wants you to do…explicitly. From the new biography on McConnell, appropriately titled ‘The Cynic’: “‘Mitch said [in early 2009], ‘We have a new president with an approval rating in the 70 percent area. We do not take him on frontally. We find issues where we can win, and we begin to take him down, one issue at a time. We create an inventory of losses, so it’s Obama lost on this, Obama lost on that. And we wait for the time when the image has been damaged to the point where we can take him on.’” As the biography summarized: “In other words, wait out Americans’ hopefulness in a dire moment for the country until it curdles to disillusionment.”

But cynicism cannot be the option. Every “I give up” or “There’s no hope” or “Let the ship go down” or “Every politician is bad” is another point on the board for the Washington insiders — they don’t want you in the game, they’d rather have you check out.

So, what’s the alternative to cynicism? You’re probably expecting me to say “Hope.” But we already tried Hope. It didn’t work.

But, there’s even an alternative to hope. As Roberto Unger writes, “It is a common mistake to suppose that hope is the cause of action. Hope is the consequence of action: you act and then, as a result, you begin to hope.” So, this time around, let’s trade in our cynicism — let’s even trade in our hope — for action. This weekend, pick an issue and get into it. Pick a block in town and think about how you can address a problem in it. Pick a democratic institution and help revive it. Pick a primary in 2016 and run in it. Have not hope, but faith: faith that the creative genius and vigorous action of ordinary men and women like us can confront these crises of this Age of Disappointment.

I can already see the garden in bloom again, but only when I grip my trowel.