This past Monday, I had several options as to how I would spend my evening:
A) Watch the presidential debate
B) Watch Monday Night Football
C) Have a birthday drink and talk jazz with a friend
D) Watch a documentary on the mating habits of Morpho butterflies
Without much deliberation I chose C (the butterflies were my second choice).
The presidential debates have been an overrated affair for some time. When was the last time debates changed the course of the election? And if one were to offer when Gerald Ford famously uttered: "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe," that was 40 years ago. Moreover, there is data suggesting other factors were more critical to Ford's defeat in 1976.
There's also the nonsensical post debate-debate to determine the victor. This is comprised by a unique scoring system that includes raising the bar for one candidate, lowering it for the other; finally, with the utilization of conjecture and heightened decibel level, a decision is rendered by a cavalcade of pundits.
Who won? Does it really matter? How many minds were changed?
If you've been following the election moderately, you probably had an idea as to how Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump would respond to the questions posed by NBC's Lester Holt.
The overwhelming majority of Americans already know how they will vote in November. And barring an "October surprise," I believe Hillary Clinton will be victorious.
Clinton will win for the following reasons:
1) A flawed, but knowledgeable, experienced and prepared candidate will invariably trump (no pun intended) a flawed candidate.
2) The Electoral College map, at least this century, favors Democrats.
3) Clinton possesses a vastly superior ground game and that will make the difference in many of the states currently polling within the margin of error.
4) Anger, which appears central to the rationale for the Trump candidacy, is not a path to 270 electoral votes.
But my less-than-adequate portrayal of Nostradamus matters little because what troubles America is greater than illegal immigration, trade agreements, or anemic economic growth.
America is in search of a new narrative. Another way to say it: "What does liberty and equality look like today?"
That somewhat fluid definition that has sustained us since the end of World War II feels inadequate today. Some have chosen to push abrasively forward, while others have sought to return to a vision of America that probably never existed.
Instead of examining the aforementioned question with courage, there is a tendency to reclaim the old narrative and blame others for the failure of its return. Alas (for some), the old narrative is gone and recalibration is the only path forward.
The old rules suggest difference, from the perspective of the status quo, is deficient. That, however, is inadequate in the 21st century for a nation formed not on homogenization, but rather on the ideals of liberty and equality.
These two concepts are inextricably linked. Since the nation's founding, they have periodically created anxiety when they moved from the lofty heights of idealism to the messy reality of implementation, reminding the nation that none are as moral as the ideals embraced.
Does it matter who the next president will be if we don't define this new narrative? Will fear, uncertainty and frustration magically dissipate on Jan. 20, 2017? Will obstruction, which has become a viable political tool, reducing the needs of the American people to a secondary consideration, suddenly become abhorrent?
Black Lives Matter and the tea party, though I suspect they would vehemently disagree, have more in common at the macro level than they realize. They embody America's struggle to find its narrative.
Both have identified issues worthy of public attention. At the core, they are issues of liberty and equality. Yet, they cling to a largely unexamined narrative that has only room for their prevailing suppositions.
The tea party has enshrined a commitment to not compromise as central to its orthodoxy.
Anyone who does not see the world through the marginalized lens of Black Lives Matter is racist. How has this worked so far?
Both are infused with the toxins of certainty that ironically enhance the problem they seek to address.
It is easy to suggest that we go back to what the Founders intended. But the question we must consider: What do those two cornerstones (liberty and equality) of our republic look like in the 21st century?
The Rev. Byron Williams is a writer and the host of the NPR-affiliated "The Public Morality".