It’s easy to be anti.

                  Whatever is is less than perfect. Make of those imperfections a grievance. Conjure visions of improvement. Stoke resentment. And abracadabra you’re a hero to the hurting. No feasible plan required, hardly any thought. Just rail, promise, delude. And when anger hurtles you to power, what then? We’ll worry about that when we get there.

                  If the Nameless One has a talent it’s for telling the grumpy what they want to hear, truth be damned. Con man, huckster, humbug, grifter, fleece ‘em and flee has been his guiding principle. Problem is, what he stole – America – he can’t easily unload. He got rich quick – you bet – but now what? Gradually his sleepy dupes wake to their swindle. Nothing that he promised is coming true. Meanwhile cash is bulging out of his and his cronies’ pockets. Billionaires proliferate and we can’t pay the rent.

                   These days you and I are anti the Nameless One. If we don’t eject him from authority, we and our grandkids are cooked. Do or die. But then what? “Without vision the people perish.” But how to inspire with candor? Lead without misleading? The Promised Land is thrilling until you get there, only to find no grass grows and the plumbing’s punk. Moses was lucky to kick before arriving.

                   Our next leader, to rescue us, must stand for, not against. America, born as an idea, must become an idea again, not a get-rich-quick scheme for a grabby few. What good are we? What good can we bring to our hour? Whining is a cinch – what might it mean to win?

                   Our next leader will need guts, luck, and prophetic zeal for their idea. No bullshitting or pandering, as little “politics” as possible, a faith impervious to the allure of advantage or convenience. Reaching, preaching, teaching are among the talents required – and no lies!

                  What idea?

                 It’s easy being a sage on the sidelines, almost as easy as being anti. We gassers have a construction permit for castles in the air.

                 The idea must precede policies. My idea is an America for all. What’s best is what’s best for most – and for tomorrow. That means nutrition, education, health, opportunity, justice, fairness, decency. It means being a good neighbor to the world – credible, reliable, strong. It means reducing the gap between the rich and the rest and ridding our politics of the pollution of purchasers. It means enforcing both individual freedom and community responsibility, an impossible and essential calculus. It means protecting our kids from the noxious lies of commerce and conmen.

                 Goodness is unattainable – in people or nations. Self-interest overrules the best intentions. Sometimes one must dance with the devil or not at all. A perfect state’s as implausible as a perfect paragraph. Yet the right idea may get us growing in the right direction.

                 America has not licked its present sickness. Bad seems to keep getting worse. But hope can’t help window-shopping for a refurbished tomorrow. Insensibly, we’re sizing up successors to our present succubus. Such daydreaming is not just woolgathering. If you know where you want to go, it’s likelier you’ll get there.

                My dream-leader is a person of faith. Not religious faith, though that’s no disqualifier, but faith in an American idea. A politician who doesn’t reek of their profession. A truth-teller who doesn’t flinch. Our next leader will be cursed and blessed with a crisis as grave as those faced by Washington, Lincoln, FDR: can democracy be made to work?

                Does this paragon exist? Impossible to predict. Even that eventual individual doesn’t know for sure. But we can dream. And dreams invigorate.