A trio of New Year’s resolutions that millions of people pursue to improve their personal lives also can go far toward enhancing our country’s political life and societal dynamics. Consider:

1. Losing weight. Let’s resolve to shed the heavy burden of the disdain we too often feel for others with opposing views, the self-righteousness with which we present our own beliefs, and the cynicism that can make us lose faith in the value of consensus and compromise, patience and proportionality.
   
   Action step: The next time you hear someone advance an idea with which you strongly disagree, do your best to just listen without verbally or mentally responding, dismissing, or deriding. After that, think about what they had to say, and about why they may hold that position. You’re not likely to suddenly embrace their thinking, but you may come away with a better appreciation of why they feel the way they do – and of how you might engage with them more effectively.
   
   
2. Following a better diet: Let’s resolve to stop consuming the “fast food” of snarky social media posts, sound bites, and slogans in favor of following a fact-based diet that, like a good home-made meal, requires more time and work but is far more nutritious and satisfying.
   
   Action step: Select an issue you care about deeply and read a substantive, fact-filled article on the topic written by an academic researcher or other disinterested party. Your effort may be rewarded with a trove of new statistics that can be used to champion your cause more convincingly – or it may reveal nuances that argue against a hard-and-fast approach. Either way, your opinions and our political discourse will be the better for it.
   
   
3. Enhancing our relationships with others. Let’s resolve to remember that — whether you voted for Joe Biden or Donald Trump – more than 70 million people voted for the other candidate. Those opposing ranks include relatives, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. How are you going to get over your political differences with them? You’re probably not, and the more you try, the more likely you are to end up in an argument.
   
   Action step: Reach out to someone important to you who has political views very different than your own, and talk with that person about anything except politics. Too often, we neglect strengthening the ties that bind in favor of widening the gaps that separate us.

Driving significant, sustained change is very difficult, whether in our personal lives or in the political life of our nation. In both cases, however, the benefits are well worth the effort. Happy new year!

We will elect a President one year from today.

While the electorate is divided on many issues, there is agreement across the political spectrum that this campaign will be as contentious and downright nasty as any in recent history.

The impeachment process will be a prime source of discord. There also is no shortage of pollster-tested hot button issues that candidates will champion to “energize the base.” We can look forward to mean-spirited debates, odious social media messaging, and television ads that portray the sponsors’ opponents in ridiculously sinister terms.

Politicians and advocacy groups bear much of the blame for this sorry state of affairs. But an even larger share rests with us, the voters. Politicians pursue the approaches that will get them elected, and we’ve shown them time and again that fostering division and dissatisfaction is a winning strategy.

So long as we cheer unyielding stances and disdain compromise, respond to sloganeering and ignore reasoned argument, and prefer self-righteous self interest to disinterested concern for the common good, the politicians we reward with office will reward us with more of the same.

Candidates matter. Causes matter even more. Advocating for the people and positions we support is the essence of democracy. But we are operating today in a carnival-mirror environment in which campaigns and special interest groups have distorted the appearance of each election and issue to swell its stature and invest it with outsized significance.

Hyperbole is not new to American politics. But the ability to deliver an unrelenting stream of emotionally laden messages to highly targeted voters through social media, television, phone calls, and other means is – and our track record in withstanding that onslaught and sifting fact from fiction has not been reassuring.

A marriage won’t last if one spouse decides that any single issue – where the couple will live, how the children will be raised, what spending priorities will prevail – is more important than the marriage itself.

The country is no different. Unless we remember that no candidate or cause is more important than the underlying strengths of the country itself – including respect for the rule of law and civil discourse – we will continue to fray the fibers of our polity until we reach a point of dangerous disrepair (if we’re not there already).

At the highest, most-visible level, the well-being of the country depends on the officials we elect and policies we adopt. Beneath that, there are important questions about how we choose officials and implement policies. This encompasses debate on issues such as term limits, the Electoral College, voter-registration rules, and campaign finance. At the bottom – or foundation, if you prefer – are the people themselves.

The premise of this blog is that if we want better elected officials and better policies, we need to be better Americans. Somewhat paradoxically, that means caring less about a particular candidate or cause in favor of caring more about how we conduct ourselves when deciding who we elect and what we do.

Over the next 12 months, we can continue to stretch and shred the ties that bind by embracing adulation of candidates, intransigent positions, intemperate rhetoric, and arrogant disregard for opposing views. Or we can take a deep breath, a long view, and a mature approach to protecting the country from our own worst instincts. In short, we can seek a better America by being better Americans.