When Dave shared a stage with Aaron Sorkin at the Conference on American Television in the 21st Century (CAT21C) this summer, the tension was palpable. Sorkin had previously called Dave "a purveyor of cynicism and doubt," while Dave had started an Indiegogo campaign to buy Sorkin a writing class. But against all odds, the men quickly found common ground, and co-sponsored what turned out to be the only manifesto to emerge from CAT21C. (The CAT21C attendees were near-unanimous in their condemnation of the second season of True Detective, which Sarang called "Truly Defective," but his motion to repudiate the show bogged down when Dave inserted a poison-pill amendment endorsing the use of a chain-type price index for calculating cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security recipients.)
The Dave/Sorkin manifesto, entitled "What Kind of Day Has It Been?", bemoans the polarization that has gripped American politics and the partisanship that has frozen our institutions of governance. While both men largely blame the rise of an ignorant and aggressive right-wing movement mobilized by resentment and hate, the manifesto argues that "sometimes to build a bridge, you have to reach out from your side of the chasm and trust, no, hope that someone is reaching out from the other side, bolting steel on steel in the mists." In that spirit, the manifesto calls on American liberals to "find what is good in the Republican Party and celebrate it not just in our work but in our hearts." (Dave has issued an addendum reaffirming the manifesto but disclaiming any responsibility for its prose.)
One can fairly ask whether Sorkin has upheld the spirit of the manifesto. By and large, in the months since the manifesto he has praised Republicans who are pro-choice, Republicans who believe in global climate change, Republicans who favor gun control... in other words, he finds Republicans praiseworthy mostly when they aren't being Republicans. This is not perhaps the best way to build a bridge.
Dave's latest effort, The Party of Lincoln, takes a very different approach. Despite the name of the book, Dave focuses on the personal, not the political, and portrays conservatives in moments of personal integrity or sacrifice. He opens with a domestic story about a conservative politician in rural Indiana. The man's politics are decidedly conservative, with a strong undercurrent of spite against homosexuals and single mothers. But when his teenaged daughter begins acting out in high school, often disrupting class or skipping school altogether, he defends her and manages to avoid her expulsion in exchange for a promise to get counseling. His wife wants to send her to their minister, who is also a good friend and political supporter. The politician insists on hiring a licensed psychologist from a big town, someone with no personal or political entanglements with the family.
Dave never explains what motivates the politician's stubbornness in the face of intense pressure from his wife and his fellow parishioners. Does he sense something in his daughter that might make his minister an unsuitable source of counseling? Does he harbor doubts about his minister? Or does he simply believe that his daughter deserves to be helped by a professional psychologist? Whatever the reason, he risks paying a high personal and political price to get his daughter the counseling she needs.
My favorite story revolves around a gun store owner in Florida in the Vietnam era. His son is seeking conscientious objector status, and he asks his father to sign an affidavit attesting that he (the son) is a member of the Communist Party. The story shifts back and forth between present-day (late 1960s) and 1950, when the father's unit withstood a savage attack by the Communists at the Pusan Perimeter, a battle that cost him his left arm. It's clear that the father has never been able to acknowledge his son's politics, but over the course of the story he engages in the painful process of disentangling his son's values from his love for his son. It's a beautiful and touching story that remains psychologically true-to-life even though it could stand as an allegory for the entire Dave/Sorkin project.
Unfortunately, it seems probable that Dave's efforts will be unavailing, at least in the short term. Already conservative reviewers are calling the gun store owner a "pussy" and attacking Dave's protagonists as RINOs (Republicans In Name Only). But in a way it doesn't matter: the book is more than justified by its artistic merits, and it will have served its purpose even if for now it only expands liberal minds and hearts.
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