Fifty-four years ago, Robert F. Kennedy gave a rousing speech at the Cleveland City Club where he made a compelling case for our common humanity. America was in the midst of a social upheaval after moral giants like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, John F. Kennedy, Medgar Evers and Fred Hampton were murdered in successive fashion. Instead of stoking fears and inciting people’s passions, RFK spoke to the better angels of Americans and did his best to unify a divided nation.
“Whenever any American’s life is taken by another American unnecessarily – whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence – whenever we tear at the fabric of life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.” [credit JFK Library]
Sadly, the same violence that Kennedy spoke against shortly thereafter felled him as an aspiring president was assassinated by the very evils that took his brother’s life five years earlier. The 1960s inverted our country’s heart and perverted our politics in ways that are still evident to this day. Political leaders and those who sought office learned a valuable lesson as they realized that speaking too loudly about unity and addressing the root causes of social inequalities could very well end with the loud bang of a riffle or a deafening chorus of media-driven scandals.
The end result is a politics that is so dysfunctional that it has driven most Americans away from civic engagement where two equally corrupt and, quite frankly, anti-American parties have hijacked our Republic and are driving our nation over the cliff. We keep voting for the lesser of two evils only to get the same result no matter who is in power. A government that is supposed to represent We the People has become a rubber stamp for multinational corporations and billionaires as our concerns are ignored at every turn.
The only way we can restore fairness in our country and ensure equality of opportunity for all Americans is if we stop voting for narcissists and start supporting empaths. Sadly, we are far from this reality as the present course we are on rewards self-centered politicians and punishes people who think of the greater good. Part of this phenomenon boils down to human nature; people who believe in humanity above vanity are too busy believing in others to have the sheer audacity needed to step up on the stage and seek the limelight.
I speak about this from personal experience; I spent more than 14 years encouraging my fellow Ethiopians to be more involved in US politics and for someone from our community to seek political office. I wrote articles after articles and advised doers and entrepreneurs to run for Congress only to be met with hesitance. In hindsight, I understand the lack of willingness as politics is the reason why most Ethiopians fled our birth land, involvement in government was not encouraged but avoided at all cost for fear of courting torture or worse.
It was not until a few months ago that I realized that I should take my own advice and run for Congress. I was so busy believing in other people that I did not invest as much energy in myself as I expended upon others. What is true of me is true for countless many as legions of deeply compassionate and highly motivated thinkers who share a profound commitment to ensuring justice take a back seat to super-narcissistic individuals who see nothing wrong with squeezing everyone in order to juice their achievements.
I have a theory that humanity is split evenly between empaths and narcissists with most people residing somewhere in the spectrum between the two polarities. Both sides have one thing in common: pains experienced during childhood. What differentiates one from the other is the decisions made as a consequence of those traumas; empaths chose to protect others from the hurts they endured even if that meant hurting themselves while narcissists chose to protect themselves from ever having to experience pains even if that meant throwing others under the bus in the process.
Our politics is broken and our nation is breaking because we keep looking to narcissists to deliver us, it is time to value empathy and redeem humanity through love. #Fikre4VA
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What we are witnessing in our nation’s capital is a conclave of deep narcissists who have perfected the art of gaslighting us into believing they care about our pains while they make gains for themselves. Sadly, an army of empaths keep lining up and believing in these egotistical politicians hoping to be delivered by millionaires who are working for billionaires while working the “bottom 99%” over. This year has to be different; we cannot keep being bamboozled by the social actors, we need to empower empaths who are more than willing to sacrifice their narrow self-interests for the sake of the collective whole.
I used to always say that the revolution we have been waiting for, not one of guns but one of hearts and minds, will be led by artists. Well consider this a challenge to my fellow empaths, let us rise up and meet the challenge. I am running for Congress precisely because I believe that we must turn the page on the era of narcissists and instead return to the virtues of empathy, conservation of our planet and collective progress for humanity. I am Teddy Fikre and I am asking for your support.