Putting the Civil Back in Disagreement

A week or two ago I was slouched in my TV chair, idly scrolling through Amazon Prime’s offerings in the hope of finding something entertaining to watch, when something caught my attention. I sat up straight and clicked to see if it could really be true, and yep, there it was: all six seasons of Northern Exposure, a quirky and heartwarming fish-out-of-water dramedy from the ’90s about a young New York doctor working off his med school scholarship the small fictional community of Cicely, Alaska.

I LOVED that show the first time around, and immediately began bingeing it to enjoy it again.

Along with the nostalgia at the appearance of now near extinct technology (cassette tapes, landlines, pay phones) there were surprising moments of resonance with the present day. In one of his many poetic soliloquies, the morning DJ Chris Stephens of station KBHR (“K-bear,” played by a young John Corbett) mentions AI. Maurice Minnifield, a wealthy retired astronaut (played by Barry Corbin, who uttered the memorable line, “Goddammit, I’d piss on a spark plug if I thought it’d do any good,” in the 1983 film WarGames), defends his accountant’s creative tax avoidance by whining, “Donald Trump doesn’t pay taxes!”

Northern Exposure aired from 1990-1995.

I’m well into Season 4 now, but I there’s an episode in Season 3 called Democracy in America that puts a hopeful spin, in miniature, on fraught political times. Small town Cicely’s long-time mayor, Holling Vincoeur, owner of the one bar and restaurant in town where all the locals gather, is being challenged for office for the first time in 23 years.

His neighbor, Edna Hancock, frustrated over Holling’s unfulfilled promise to install a stop sign near her property to quell the noise from passing logging trucks, announces she has decided to run against him for mayor. What follows are small town examples of contentious debates, ethically questionable electioneering in the form of free beer, and the appointment of the so-disinterested-he’s-sure-to-be-impartial Doctor Fleischman as election judge.

The episode contrasts the stress a young Ed Chigliak (played by Darren E. Burrows), a first-time voter, feels at the responsibility of voting, with the wistful you-only-know-what-you’ve-got-when-it’s-gone yearning of Chris Stephens, who explains to Ed that the reason he won’t be voting is that he can’t: he’s a convicted felon.

That doesn’t stop Chris from praising, even marveling at, the democratic process as it unfolds, up to and through election day. There’s a lovely scene of townsfolk voting at a polling place that would be familiar to anyone who grew up in an American small town, a church building-cum-town hall that hosts weddings, funerals, and town meetings. Chris dresses up in a suit and tie, just to come observe and show respect for democracy in action.

Back on the radio, Chris praises America’s democracy, while acknowledging, in a jarringly matter-of-fact way, the sins of our country’s history (OMG!! He was WOKE back in 1992!!! Call the thought police! Ban some books! Get that history off the air!). He accompanies these musings with a reading from the quintessential American poet, Walt Whitman (this quote came from a transcript of the episode’s publicly available subtitles posted on a site called Subslikescript.com):

My friends, today when I look out over Cicely, I see not a town, but a nation’s history written in miniature. Inscribed in the cracked pavement, reverberating from every passing flatbed.

Today, every runny nose I see says “America” to me. We were outcasts, scum, the wretched debris of a hostile, aging world. But we came here, we paved roads, we built industries, powerful institutions.

Of course, along the way, we exterminated untold indigenous cultures and enslaved generations of Africans. We basically stained our star-spangled banner with a host of sins that can never be washed clean.

But today, we’re here to celebrate the glorious aspects of our past. A tribute to a nation of free people, the country that Whitman exalted:

“The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislators,nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges or churches or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors, but always most in the common people.”

Wrapping up his morning show, Chris says,

I’ve never been so proud to be a Cicelian. I must go out now and fill my lungs with the deep clean air of democracy.

Democracy’s air has struggled to stay clean lately. But there were notable moments. It felt clean when one man found the backbone to do his constitutional duty on January 6, 2021, despite death threats. It stayed clean when another public servant declined to “find 11,000 votes” that simply weren’t there.

As things heated up in fictional Cicely on the day of a scheduled candidate’s debate, Chris admonishes the Cicely’s populace,

“Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the last generation.” Abe Lincoln, ladies and gentlemen. But the sentiment goes ditto for your K-Bear correspondent. Democracy is not a spectator sport. That means your presence is gonna be required tonight at the candidates’ debate.

and later, more Lincoln:

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break the bonds of our affection.” Lincoln’s words to a divided nation. My counsel to a divided Cicely.”

On election night, an exhausted Chris announces the election’s results, delivered on a piece of notepaper by Ed to Chris at KBHR.

Edna won by 8 votes.

And then something remarkable, that nevertheless used to be normal and commonplace America, happens: instead of throwing a tantrum, inciting violence, and lying pathologically and unremittingly about a supposedly stolen election, the losing candidate for Mayor of Cicely courteously offers his congratulations and a handshake to the winner. This being TV, and the losing candidate the owner of a bar, he also offers to buy the victor a drink.

Pax vobiscum, Cicely, Chris says. Peace be with you.

And also with you, my friends, and please, peace be with our country and may peace come to this fragile, war torn, hate inflamed world.

“By their fruits ye shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?” Matthew 7:16. This was meant as a way to identify false prophets (and maybe lying politicians?) but to me it’s also a way to identify, as explained by New York Times opinion columnist David French, the difference between simply declaring faith and actually demonstrating it.

Voting is a way to demonstrate faith in American democracy. I believe America can sort itself out, and that democracy can survive. But, as Chris said, it’s not a spectator sport. And in the words of John Stewart, who has blessedly, mercifully, and quite essentially returned to The Daily Show on Monday nights for the duration of the election year, said, “democracy is a lunch pail job.” Meaning it’s something we all must work at, every single day, if we want it to survive.

Looking up the schedule for upcoming township, school board, park district board, and zoning appeals board meetings, I remain,

your hopeful, too-much-TV-bingeing, aspiring to be a better, more active citizen,

Ridiculouswoman