THE SAINT OF

a contentious election season added another scar to our growing history of division and enmity. Americans haven’t been this far apart from one another in decades. All we seem to agree on is that the other side is an existential threat to the nation we all hold dear. Yet the union stands, and so it must. This is our strength, our bulwark in a tumultuous world. As President Abraham Lincoln said after an even more harrowing time, one that nearly tore our nation apart: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.” That will require more than good intentions. For our inaugural issue, Deseret has convened some of the nation’s leading writers, politicians, religious leaders and thinkers to find specific pathways to common ground. They come from across the country, all over the ideological spectrum. Some have experienced political violence; others have lived with the impacts of bigotry and racism. Each brings unique insight on the healing we so desperately need.

By JEFF FLAKE

“was that gunfire?” I scanned the baseball diamond in front of me. Colleagues on the infield looked at each other, equally puzzled.

It was a pristine June morning in 2017. The Republican team had traveled across the Potomac to a Virginia suburb to practice for one of Washington’s most anticipated rituals: the annual Congressional Baseball Game. Having played in the game as a congressman and now as a senator, it would be my 17th contest. And I was happy to be back in the familiar surroundings of center field after several uncomfortable years parked at third base. I was anxious for the game the following day. My family was in town, and in just 36 hours, they would join some 20,000 fans in the stands as I walked with a bat to home plate. It’s an adrenaline rush for those of us who typically get our kicks from appearing on C-SPAN.

This year, however, the adrenaline came early, and for the worst reason. We were nearing the end of practice, when, seconds after I heard the first shot, an unmistakable volley of gunfire pierced the air, followed by our third baseman yelling “Shooter! Shooter!”

The gunman stood just outside of the third base dugout, firing indiscriminately on the infield with a large caliber rifle. I turned and ran toward the opposite dugout and dove for cover.

The next eight minutes were an intense blur. The gunman fired nearly 100 rounds at members of congress and staff. As the sound of gunfire filled the air, a staff member who had been shot in the lower leg made his way to the dugout before collapsing on top of those of us already on the floor. I tightened a belt around the wound and held it there — a makeshift tourniquet to slow the bleeding. All the while, gunfire raged around us as the Capitol Hill and Alexandria police engaged the shooter.

When the gunfire finally stopped, I ran back out on the field where Congressman Steve Scalise appeared to be in critical condition. I pressed my batting glove against a bullet wound on his thigh while we waited for first responders. I called Steve’s wife, Jennifer, to tell her the news before her television did.

Thankfully Steve and the others who were wounded would recover, and the only life lost that day was that of the gunman, who was mortally wounded in the shootout. The most enduring memory I have of that terrible morning came as I watched bullets dislodge bits of gravel in my path toward the dugout.

I couldn’t help but wonder: Why us? How could anyone look at a bunch of middle-aged lawmakers playing baseball and see the enemy?

It’s a fool’s errand to delve into the psyche of someone sick enough to carry out such an act, but the shooter didn’t hide his view that my political party was such a threat to the nation that we all deserved to die.

Of course, politically motivated violence is no respecter of party. Nearly a year and a half after the baseball shooting, the FBI apprehended a man who mailed pipe bombs to several Democratic politicians and left-leaning media outlets. The bomber had even tweeted pictures of my family along with an aerial photo of my home in Arizona with a caption noting that my house had “a lot of entrances” and that he would see me and my family “soon.”

My sister, Kaija, recently compared our national predicament to the time when our aging father began losing his hearing. Dad controlled the remote in our house, and in his later years, as Kaija put it, “the volume slowly started to creep up and up.” Eventually the whole household was listening to the TV at max volume like it was normal.

That’s where we are. Discourse that would have been unacceptable not long ago has been normalized. It’s so loud that we’re starting to forget who we are, who we represent and the common ground we share.

In 2012, a year after Democratic Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was shot in the head while greeting constituents at a Tucson supermarket, she courageously attended the State of the Union address before Congress. I’m a Republican, and a conservative one at that, but in a gesture of friendship and solidarity, I sat next to her on the Democratic side of the House Chamber.

During President Barack Obama’s applause lines, Gabby wanted to stand up but was unable to do so on her own due to her continuing recovery. I helped her up, and that often left me standing, a lone Republican among a sea of cheering Democrats. My phone was flooded with furious text messages from those who wanted to know why I stood and how I could “agree with President Obama.”

I thought, “How did we get here? And how can we get back to having the constructive, civil deliberations regarding policy issues that our country deserves?”

I believe in the power of conservative principles to transform lives, lift countries, alleviate suffering and make people prosperous and free. A few years ago, I made a pilgrimage to Dublin, Ireland, to visit Trinity College, the school that shaped the father of modern conservatism, Edmund Burke. I hoped that just by walking those halls his intellect might rub off on me. My wife concluded that it might take a few more trips.

According to Burke, restraint is a statesman’s chief virtue. “Rage and frenzy,” Burke observed, “will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation and foresight can build up in a hundred years.”

At the heart of conservatism is a healthy distrust of concentrated power, particularly when that power is exercised by the chief executive. Conservatives embrace the art of persuasion. There is a reason why the founders made Congress the Article 1 branch of government. Legislative bodies decide policy through a process of deliberation, not decree. Power emanates from persuasion.

Legislative majorities, if they wish to remain majorities, rely not on brute force, but on convincing others of their ideas. The vessel of political conservatism, the Republican Party, my party, seems to be losing confidence in the power of persuasion. This also seems true with my colleagues across the aisle.

As a nerdy reminder of what it was like when the Republican Party trafficked in ideas, I keep a T-shirt from 1992. At first glance, the T-shirt looks like memorabilia from some touring rock group, with dates listed next to dozens of cities across the country.

On closer inspection, however, the “tour stops” mark the cities where debates took place that year over the flat tax vs. the fair tax between House Republican Minority Leader Dick Armey and the ranking member on the House Ways and Means Committee, Bill Archer.

This was a different Republican Party.

So when I was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2000, I was surprised that my party seemed less interested in ideas and more interested in how to use the levers of power to enact a preestablished agenda. The Democratic Party was no different. The desire to persuade gave way to “might makes right.” That’s largely the cycle we’ve been in for the past decade. Each party pushes through what it can while it is in the majority and tries to undo what the other party did when they held the reins.

In this game of thrones, elected officials have little incentive to deliberate, let alone cooperate or compromise. Every instinct in this environment encourages a politician to rush to the safety of the tribe, to state their position and stay there. Reaching across the aisle used to get you plaudits. Today it gets you a primary.

And yet, there’s reason to be optimistic for those who believe that the pursuit of raw power should yield to persuasion.

While we will have a Democrat in the White House, he is thankfully (and I say this as a compliment) a creature of the Senate. Joe Biden’s 36 years in the upper chamber spanned a period when that body further solidified its moniker as the “world’s most deliberative body.” But, even more important, Republicans appear to be on track to maintain control of the Senate and even potentially take back the House of Representatives in 2022.

After spending nearly two decades on Capitol Hill, I’ve come to believe that a divided government is almost always the best government. With divided government, no one party is under the illusion that it can impose its will at the expense of the other. The parties are forced to work together. The slow pace can be frustrating, but I think at this point the citizenry might prefer boring government.

If you think about it, the only real alternative to working together in this interdependent world is to be alone. I’ve tested that alternative, and believe me, it’s no vacation.

Several years ago, I clicked on Google Earth and located a bunch of small uninhabited islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Determined to live out a strange dream I’ve had since my childhood growing up on a dry, dusty Arizona ranch, I decided to maroon myself on one of these remote Pacific atolls for a week with no food or water and with minimal tools, just to see if I could survive.

A strange idea, I know.

Just how alone was I? After a few days on the island of Jabonwod, I picked up one of the hermit crabs that wandered through my camp and, with a sharpie pen that inexplicably made it into my meager survival kit, I wrote “number one” on his shell. I wanted to know if he would recur during my stay. A while later, I picked up another hermit crab and wrote “number two” on his shell. By the end of the week, I had 126 numbered friends. I grew quite fond of number 72, with whom I often shared scraps of coconut. I was not so fond of 47, who pinched my big toe. And I still miss good ol’ 44.

No man is an island. And no man should be voluntarily alone on an island for long — that I can confirm. When I find it difficult to be civil or pleasant to those with whom I disagree, when I am inclined to ignore the better angels of my nature, I think back on the alternative. So, in my conversations in the new year, I’m committing to rediscover the healing art of persuasion. Rather than reaching for cruel rhetorical cudgels when challenged by others, I’ll listen. When challenging others, I’ll make better arguments at a lower volume. And I’ll lend my political support to those who do the same. Jeff Flake served six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and one term in the U.S. Senate representing Arizona. He is also the author of The New York Times bestseller “Conscience of a Conservative: A Rejection of Destructive Politics and a Return to Principle.”

By FABIOLA SANTIAGO

we are all marked, shaped by our beginnings. Mine as an American started with a “Freedom Flight” out of Varadero Airport, Cuba, in 1969. Window seat, my suited father by my side, my mother in front of us trying to keep my rambunctious little brother in check.

Our hearts broken by leaving everyone and everything we loved behind, I nursed in my young heart the useful emotion of hope amid uncertainty.

Three months earlier, the Americans had walked on the moon.

A country that had accomplished this unimaginable feat, I told my 10-year-old self, couldn’t possibly be as bad as we were told in school by teachers forced to indoctrinate children to hate “los yankis.”

Applause rang through the cabin as we landed in Miami, bittersweet tears flowed, and from that moment, my introduction to the United States and my alliance to this country was sealed.

The memory of this point of leaving and arrival — of rupture and repair — keeps me grounded in troubled times. It connects me not only to who I was, an immigrant child, but to what America was, and I believe still is despite the ugly talk, a nation of immigrants.

At the barracks where we were processed at Miami International Airport, kind people offered us ham sandwiches and Coca-Cola. An older woman, a volunteer, approached me and gave me a small handmade green teddy bear made of cloth.

Her gesture so touched me.

I had been forced to leave all but a small doll out of my beautiful collection, now property of the state.

A club to which this woman belonged had made the bears for the Cuban refugee children arriving on what became a historic exodus that brought 265,000 Cuban exiles to the United States between 1965 and 1973.

Fifty-one years later, with the unprecedented times we’re living weighing on my mind, my heart swells at the memory of a welcoming America, beacon of democracy to the world.

Strong and steady in times of strife, land of refuge and opportunity, this is the America I’ve hung on to for the last four years, when I’ve felt alien-

ated and damaged by the political rhetoric and the disheartening divisions among us growing wider everyday.

It’s hard to hold up a mirror to our own politics, but it’s easy to judge, with or without facts, The Other.

Yet, it is the diversity of experiences and the richness of cultures that distinguishes this land from sea to sea. All that immigrants have brought through the generations from other parts of the world are what makes us most American, unique and exceptional.

But we’ve shattered the joy of our own house.

Restoration requires healing.

The need for healing implies the existence of loss.

We have, in our discord, indeed lost something precious to our national identity. We have become a fractured “we, the people.” It has left us in a state of angst, grief, and its twin brother, anger.

It has made us bitter.

In a misguided shift of blame for our problems, we have lost the innocence with which America embraced and welcomed The Other — and we have left a deep wound.

An election behind us, a hopefully peaceful transfer of power ahead of us, how can we heal our individual and our collective national souls?

We heal by sharing our truths.

We heal by reaching deep into our capacity for empathy and kindness.

We must, at least, attempt to reach out, not as partisans but as participants in democracy.

We’re a nation in pain, torn apart by a political divide now deeply entrenched. But it is possible to search for common ground, to find redemption and reconciliation on our way back, if not to each other, at least to civility and coexistence in our communities.

There’s so much on our plates to resolve.

We can heal if we dare to listen and engage with those with whom we disagree without hurling insults.

We can heal if we step out of red and blue corners, acknowledge that personal experience plays a significant role in shaping our political views — and create spaces where we can share our stories, our humanity.

Make room for people like me, forever touched by the kindness of a stranger and now part of the tapestry that is us, the United States of America.

And never, never underestimate the healing power of a frumpy little bear placed in a little girl’s hands. Fabiola Santiago is a Miami Herald columnist and author of the novel “Reclaiming Paris.”

By SEN. TIM SCOTT

during my time in washington, I became best friends with former Congressman Trey Gowdy — someone whose background differed from mine. But my friendship with him taught me so much and exposed me to different perspectives. That’s something we can all do: expose ourselves to different backgrounds and ideas and learn to respect those we disagree with. Every American has a different outlook based on his or her experiences in this country, and that’s why I think all Americans can benefit from learning from each other. It is unlikely friendships that teach us and challenge us as people, and these relationships are one way we can help heal this nation. And there’s no better way to build friendships than by serving others.

As a Christian, I know helping others is one of the core teachings throughout the Bible. It’s how we heal those around us and ourselves. Despite the challenges our nation faced this election season, it is important that we rebuild and unite as Americans; this begins as we reach out to one another and lift those around us.

I created my Opportunity Agenda for this reason — to help Americans who grew up in similar situations as I did and are living without hope for the future. Within my Opportunity Agenda are Opportunity Zones, distressed areas designated by states to allow us to foster entrepreneurship and job creation in neighborhoods that need it the most. Recently, we have seen 1,500 projected jobs coming to Hampton County, South Carolina. And currently Erie, Pennsylvania, is planning to tackle a 25-year revitalization project of its abandoned city in five years. In Charlotte, North Carolina, a group has planned to remodel a hotel, where it will employ and house homeless veterans.

Not every act of service or gesture to help those in need has to be big. We can heal each other in small ways. It can be something as small as befriending someone from a different background. Sen. Tim Scott has served as the junior United States Senator for South Carolina since 2013. He is the author of “Unified : How Our Unlikely Friendship Gives Us Hope for a Divided Country” with former Congressman Trey Gowdy.

By GABBY GIFFORDS

on jan. 8, 2021, it will have been 10 years since I was shot.

Those 10 years have held more highs and lows than I could ever count. I’ve stared in the face of someone who sought to kill me and faced my own mortality. I wondered if I would ever be able to walk again — and then I did. I wondered if I would ever be able to speak again. And then I did.

I have been fortified and lifted up and encouraged by countless people who have shown me the best of humanity: my doctors. My speech therapist. My husband. My staff. The many, many elected leaders and survivors who have shown courage in the fight for safer gun laws.

In times of difficulty and hardship, my personal heroes, the people I look up to most, don’t ignore their pain, or pretend it doesn’t exist. They acknowledge it, they accept it, and then they move forward. This idea, in its two-word distillation — move ahead — helped me persevere during my recovery.

2020 has been a difficult year for the vast majority of Americans. There has been no shortage of tragedy, suffering and division. When people talk about the future these days, there is often a nostalgia for the past embedded in these hopes and dreams, a wish to go back to the way things were before COVID-19 upended our lives.

But the future can never, and indeed, should never, be just a repeat of the past. We are not the same country we were in February 2020, and we never will be, even after a safe and effective vaccine is available to all who want it. No amount of wishing or longing will allow us to rewrite the past, but the future is ours for the writing.

I can’t go back to the life I had before a gunman murdered six people and injured more than a dozen outside of a supermarket 10 years ago, because I’m not the same person I was back then. Not because of my physical limitations, but because of the strength and fortitude that I’ve developed as a result of these limitations.

Rather than let my suffering overcome me, I overcame my suffering. I channeled my grief and anger into the fight to end gun violence.

Now is the time for us to come together as a nation and do the difficult work of rebuilding. We must reject the notion that our country is irreparably broken, that the cracks and fissures in our nation are stronger than the ties that bind us.

We must move ahead, despite our losses. Channeling our pain into purpose will not make the pain disappear. But it will give us something to fight for, and sometimes that’s all you need to make it to tomorrow. Gabby Giffords served as a member of the United States House of Representatives representing Arizona’s 8th Congressional District from January 2007 until January 2012, when she resigned due to a severe brain injury suffered during an assassination attempt. A member of the Democratic Party, Giffords was the third woman in Arizona’s history to be elected to the U.S. Congress.

FINDING YOUR PLACE IN AMERICA

By REV. MARIAN EDMONDS-ALLEN i’m a bridge builder, someone who works to bring people together across political, social and faith divides. Usually my work centers around the LGBTQ and faith divide, or how religious liberty can bring us all together. Recently, however, people have been reaching out in deep distress asking for help, asking, “Is there a place for me in America? I just can’t stand (those people) and I feel like they have no respect for me, that they hate me for who I am.”

Which “side” does that come from, do you think? The left or the right? People of faith or secular? Mask wearers, anti-maskers? Whatever you guessed, you are exactly correct. People from all walks of life, all positions on every issue, are saying the same thing – they feel unwelcome, unheard and too often, afraid and even depressed. There is good news, however. Even with the deep divides we see around us, those divides are matched by a longing: to be seen as human and worthy of respect, and a longing for connection. It is that longing, coupled with abilities each of us has, that will change our communities and nation back to places where disagreement is healthy and necessary, and all people are respected and valued.

Whether you care about healing divisions in your family, community or country, you are the one who holds the key: practicing and sharing love and exercising your natural curiosity. These are natural gifts that you possess, and here is how to use them:

Start with curiosity. I hear every day from someone who can’t “even begin to understand” how (someone) could think the way they do. That is your cue! If you are incredulous or outraged or “can’t imagine” how someone could think that way, ask them. Ask someone you care about and ask with two intentions: look to understand, ask for a story if you are having trouble understanding. And while you seek to understand, also look for where you might find something that resonates with you, even a little.

Along with curiosity, practice love. When I see a photo in the news or hear an outrageous story, I find that I react in negative ways — I recoil or even feel revulsion. That is our next cue: to respond with love. Find the well of love within you and share it with those who are difficult for you to relate to. I am a Christian pastor, and one of my faith practices is to notice those people in the world who I disagree with, and to pray for them. That act of prayer blesses me deeply.

Lastly, to heal our nation’s divides, please make a friend or rekindle a friendship with someone who is very different from you. These seemingly small acts are actually the powerful forces of love. All that is required is for you to be the person you were born to be, a person worthy of respect, deeply connected to our world, and sharing your gifts of curiosity and love. Rev. Marian Edmonds-Allen is the executive director of Parity, a New York Citybased national nonprofit that works at the intersection of faith and LGBTQ+ concerns, and the director of Blessed by Difference, a project that seeks to promote

curious and collaborative bridging across the LGBTQ+ and faith divide.

By CINDY McCAIN

in arizona, we start teaching kids the word “respect” in grade school. If children can learn what it means to respect each other at the age of 6, elected officials can too, and it’s about time that they remembered the meaning of the word.

We, as Americans, should expect more from our leaders.

My husband used to say the most noble thing you can do is serve a cause greater than your own self-interest. Those are the words we both lived by, the words we taught our children, and the words I continue to try and live up to.

John, an icon of decency in politics, believed in working with others, respecting those with different viewpoints, and focusing on doing what was best for the country.

Remembering John’s words and his actions while he served in the Senate made it hard to watch the events that unfolded over the last four years. I couldn’t understand how we got into this situation.

I told other women, we may not agree with Biden on every issue, but we have to step across the aisle and get the country back to a place where decency, honor and respect are core tenets to live and govern by.

That’s the message that resonated with Republican women, and the reason they decided to vote for Biden. Sen. Mitt Romney also provided an important reminder about what was really valuable in an elected official, and I’m so grateful for his hand in all of this.

Biden has already made clear how he’ll lead: He will work for the good of the country rather than the good of himself and his own party. That’s the way he and John worked when they were both in the Senate.

We should look to our elected officials and remind them to respect each other. John said it best in his concession speech in 2008. He said the people have spoken and have elected a new president and it’s time to heal the divide and move forward. I believe there’s only one way this country can heal: respect. Cindy McCain is an American businesswoman, philanthropist and humanitarian. She is the widow of 2008 Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain from Arizona and the mother of television host and commentator Meghan McCain.

BE THE GOOD

By THERESA DEAR the media seems to inundate us with negative news. It may all be true and factual, but among every negative thing that we hear or read today, where is the good stuff?

America could be suffering from “good” deficiency, where there has been a severe lack of good. This undiagnosed anemia forces us to look for the good, when it is not presented to us.

Looking for the good is not always an excavation exercise. There are several places we could “look for the good.”

We should look for the good in ourselves. We were amazingly designed — created a little lower than the angels. (Psalm 8:5). Our molecular core is designed for good. Yet, we can become enamored with the belief that our success and status define who we are, but there is a far bigger and greater purpose for us than what the world would have us believe. Sometimes modeling good is how others appreciate, acquire and apply good.

We should also look for the good in our neighbors. Sometimes, we have a tendency to look at others through an opaque filter, with measurements that allow us to size up people and accept or discard them according to our standards. We could be better at being good, if we remove the filter, befriend people who are not like us and sit through the discomfort of the experience, without judgement. Look for good in new relationships and intentions. Challenge yourself this year and look for the good in obscure and less obvious places.

In his book, “Be All You Can Be,” John Maxwell, a renowned author and speaker on leadership said, “If you are unchallenged, you are unchanged. Leaders stretch with challenges. Followers struggle with challenges. Losers shrink from challenges.”

Look for the good. Build upon the good. You don’t have to look far. It’s there. It starts with you. Be the good. Theresa Dear is an ordained elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. She serves at DuPage AME Church where she leads community expansion initia-

tives and serves on the board of REACH, a nonprofit empowerment organization.

By TOM UDALL

“we disagree in politics — but not in life.” That’s what the late Republican Sen. John McCain said about his bond with my uncle, Mo Udall, a longtime Democratic congressman from Arizona. And it’s a sentiment I hope can guide us moving forward — because we’re going to need to work together to tackle the big issues facing the country.

Finding common ground with those you disagree with is hard. But during my service in Congress, I’ve seen that it’s possible — even on the big issues.

As we confront a period of intense division, I believe that the fundamental barrier to progress in Congress is the flood of powerful, special interest money drowning out the voices of the American people. That’s what promotes extremism, and prevents compromise.

The large majority of elected officials are good people stuck in a broken system. The real reason for obstruction is the special interests that have figured out how to game the system to inflame our partisan divisions and punish compromise.

Not all issues in Congress are stuck in partisan gridlock. Indian Country’s priorities have historically been addressed in a bipartisan manner, with senators working together for better health care, education, housing, and other resources for Native communities. The federal government’s obligation to uphold its trust and treaty obligations is sacred. Some of my proudest achievements have been the result of working with Tribes as vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. Most recently, a bipartisan coalition in the Senate passed legislation that strengthens the principles of Tribal self-governance, provides Native entrepreneurs the resources they need to grow businesses and economies, and secures investments in Native language revitalization. The lesson is: Bipartisan cooperation is possible — but it is still too hard in today’s Congress. We must reform our democratic system and return the real power to the

hands of the American people. And we must remember that while we disagree in politics, we do not disagree that we all want a brighter future for our children and our nation. Sen. Tom Udall has served as U.S. Senator from New Mexico from 2009 to 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the U.S. Representative for New Mexico’s 3rd Congressional District from 1999 to 2009 and was the Attorney General of New Mexico from 1991 to 1999.

By SEN. MITT ROMNEY

i didn’t think it would happen here.

The divisiveness, the resentment, the suspicion, the anger that pervade so many countries seemed foreign to the people I had met during my campaigns only a decade or so ago. What impressed me most about my fellow Americans was the optimism, the sense of purpose and the willingness to help one another. The Great Recession had not made us bitter; it seemed to have made us more determined to pull together and cheer each other on.

Something happened to change that — not for everyone, of course, but for what has become a larger and larger portion of us. Following the recession, we looked around to see who was to blame for the misfortune we had experienced. Politicians and the media were quick to point the finger— bankers and Wall Street-types: “They should go to jail.” “Washington had ‘bailed out’ the guilty.”

It was not lost on people vying for our attention that stoking anger enhanced their prospects. The same was known to be true from the beginning of history: Appealing to resentment and our more base inclinations could always attract a crowd. The Founders took every step they could devise to protect the Republic from so-called demagogues; their efforts worked for over 200 years. Several developments have combined to threaten that success.

Institutions that enhance mutual understanding are declining. Americans are less likely to go to church where they interact with people from different races and backgrounds. Social endeavors like the Boy and Girl Scouts are waning. Even face-to-face interaction has become less frequent as we and our children disappear into our cellphones — a trend felt even more acutely because of the ongoing pandemic.

Media, embodied by the likes of Walter Cronkite, once provided information trusted by almost all of us. Newspapers, once admired for their comprehensive and accurate coverage, are closing down. Now our information is curated by apps and crafted by radio and cable networks that appeal to our prejudices. Increasingly, the most successful media personalities rile their target base.

Most disappointing of all, too many political figures have stoked these divisions. Demagogues on the left scapegoat the rich; demagogues on the right scapegoat the immigrant. They each scapegoat the other. Politicians’ language is more vulgar, bullying and offensive. Reagan, Eisenhower, and Kennedy would not recognize today’s political discourse. My reading of history suggests what can heal social sickness. First, a great leader who “calls upon our better angels” can bring us together. Churchill rallied his nation to resist and defeat Nazism. Roosevelt elicited the endurance that overcame despair. Lincoln healed a nation torn apart by war, insisting on “malice toward none and charity for all.” I do not believe one can overstate the impact the leader of a nation can have for good or for bad. I earnestly pray that our President can rise to the challenge.

Who we choose to lead us shapes our society. I believe that it is our national character that made America the greatest nation on earth, that the public personal character of leaders like Washington, Lincoln, Reagan and Truman had more influence on us than even the policies they promoted. Today when I vote, I pay as much attention to the character of the candidate as I do to their policies. If we choose leaders who inflame resentment and division, our nation will be angry and divided. We have a choice to make: Would we rather have our “side” win to punish the “other side” or would we rather have our nation united?

But presidents and politicians are not the only leaders who influence society. Leaders of churches, congregations, classrooms, businesses, charities and homes can influence the character of the nation. When each of us encourages comity, understanding and grace, we heal. When we disparage, bully or treat others with contempt, we deepen the rift that divides us.

I believe that we should watch and read, not just sources we tend to agree with but also sources we disagree with. If Fox is your regular diet, watch NBC, CNN or ABC now and then. Conversely, if MSNBC is your regular, don’t make it exclusive. We need to broaden our reading as well. I note that news organizations like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times make an effort to get the facts and when they make a mistake, they acknowledge it. Social media has no fact-checkers, no editors and often doesn’t even disclose who actually wrote a post.

I pray for the healing of the nation. Literally. I wish there were more faith in God, more reverence for all of his children. A brilliant leader of a respected think-tank in Washington has concluded that love is the only sure answer to what ails us. I think he’s right. Sen. Mitt Romney has served as a U.S. Senator from Utah since 2019. He previously served as the governor of Massachusetts and was the Republican Party’s nominee for president in 2012.

By GREGORY SMITH

when we turn to our shared history as Americans, we encounter stories that can unite our future. Last September, I played a role on behalf of the White House in facilitating what might seem like a small

thing: fixing the misspelled headstone of Seraph Young Ford at Arlington National Cemetery.

But I was struck how this gesture brought together people from all different backgrounds — historians, government officials, educators, politicians, and the descendants of Seraph — to remember and honor this American suffragist.

After the Utah territory passed an equal voting law in 1870, Seraph Young — the grandniece of then-president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Brigham Young — became the first woman in the United States to cast a ballot under the new law. Last year marked the 150th anniversary of that historic vote.

But, in many ways, Seraph had been forgotten to history. Her name was misspelled on her own gravestone (it erroneously read “Serath”). Some of her own descendants weren’t fully aware of her historic role until historians drew renewed attention to it.

During a brief ceremony at the Arlington National Cemetery in which a new headstone was featured, Utah dignitaries and White House officials joined Seraph’s own living descendants, including 9-year-old Hope Rice. Hope’s grandfather, Russell “Rusty” Rice Jr., called the ceremony “absolutely” inspiring for Hope.

That’s what happens when we learn about the stories of those who have come before; those who have toiled and sacrificed to make a better life for us. While some have supposed that we can find better unity by erasing or condemning the past, I witnessed how the past can inspire and unite. This isn’t to say that America should avoid its duty to right wrongs; nor do I believe the nation should gloss over past or present injustices.

In fact, remembering the story of Seraph Young Ford helped inspire us more than a century and a half after she cast her historic vote. Our union grew stronger as we drew inspiration from a woman who fought for a more perfect one. Gregory Smith is special assistant to President Donald J. Trump and Deputy Director of Political Affairs for Policy and Personnel.

HEALING OUR NATION THROUGH UNDERSTANDING HUMAN RIGHTS

By KATRINA LANTOS SWETT it has become almost trite to refer to the year just concluded as difficult, divisive and, due to the pandemic, undeniably deadly. There is a yearning across our land for a path forward toward healing and renewal. Yet, it appears that this path is much like the road “less traveled by” in Robert Frost’s famous poem; it appeals to many, but most travelers are inclined to take the more popular path, which in this day seems to be a path of conflict and discord. I would suggest that the work of global human rights can help us to find and choose to walk the noble, unifying road of respect and unity.

My work fighting for human rights across the globe has given me a powerful awareness of the underlying strength of our system of constitutional democracy and rule of law in the United States. In 2020, we were sorrowfully reminded of the terrible ways in which we have fallen short of our high ideals, particularly in matters of racial justice and equality. But for all our shortcomings, the vision of America as a shining city on a hill continues to resonate not only for Americans but also for the many drawn to our nation in hopes of achieving their own dreams. Even more remarkable, this vision remains a beacon for those in far flung places from Hong Kong to Venezuela who are bravely fighting to defend their own fundamental rights. They draw both inspiration and courage from the United States.

Their belief in what America aspires to be should encourage and, perhaps in some instances, shame us into more fully living up to our national creed eloquently expressed in the Declaration of Independence but never fully realized. My late father Congressman Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor ever to serve in the Congress, used to refer to this as the long story of closing “America’s hypocrisy gap.” In 2021, we must resolve to do better at closing this gap at home so we will be worthy of the human rights leadership that we have long exercised around the world.

The past year has surely highlighted many ways in which we are divided but, despite the differing political paths that we may take, it is good to remember that every fork in the road is also a place where paths converge. Though politics and pandemics may separate us, we can still come together around our love of country and our dedication to universal human rights. Katrina Lantos Swett is the President of the Lantos Foundation. She is also an American educator and the former chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom from 2012 to 2013, and then in 2014 to 2015.

BUILDING BETTER COMMUNITIES

By SEN. BEN SASSE

what works in america is that we are relational beings and social animals. We are meant to do joint projects and group work. We want to do verbs, not just be nouns; we want to do stuff together. And the word for that is community.

That’s something Alexis de Tocqueville noticed when he visited America in the 1830s to understand what makes us distinct as a nation. What he found is that it’s not isolated individualism that makes us great; it is togetherness. And it’s not coerced. It’s togetherness that’s by choice as we work together. Two are better than one because if one falls down, the other can help them up.

What’s happening in America is a collapse of local institutions. The nuclear family structure is in statistical collapse and friendship is strangely in collapse. That ache spills out lots of different places. And one of the places where it spills out is into our politics, because political tribalism is ramping up right now, and that’s happening because the good kind of tribalism is in collapse. Good tribes are your nuclear family. The way you stick up for your brother and your sister, that sort of bond you feel parent to child and child to parent and grandparent and cousin. A good tribe is deep friendship

rather than the social media sense of friends. There’s data which shows if you go from 200 to 500 social media friends, you don’t get any happier. You go from 500 to 1,000 social media friends, you don’t get any happier. If you go from 1,000 to many thousands of social media friends, you actually get less happy, because you have to spend more time tending to the grooming of this online persona.

And conversely, if you go from three to four real human friends, these are people who, when you’re happy, they’re happy — not because it’s transactional, but just because they love you. When my 7-year-old boy is flying down the street on his bike, and the sun is shining on his face, and there’s nothing in the world except that moment of goodness that he’s feeling, my chest expands. I’m just delighted. Or when one of my daughters is hurt by something, I hurt, because they are a part of me and I love them. If you know the person two doors down from you, you’re statistically much likelier to be happy than if you don’t know the person two doors down from you. The social media world has potential for good, but a lot of the time what it really does is displace the local, which is really where people find happiness and meaning.

We’ve got to think about how to love our neighbor. Part of that is I need to understand my neighbor’s view, and I want to have dinner with him or her, and I want to argue and persuade and maybe listen enough to learn or be persuaded. That’s what principled pluralism really is. Government is not going to solve all our problems, government’s not supposed to, and maybe we’ve gotten to this point by thinking the government, and our politics, whether we’re on the left or the right, is going to solve these problems that divide us. The government in its best form in the American system is designed to maintain a framework for ordered liberty, so the really important communities can flower. And those around your dining room table.

To move past what divides us, we have a pretty well thought out understanding of what will make our neighbors happy. And that is family, that is friendship, that is deep work. We’re going to have to together figure out how to build the new habits of social capital and of neighborliness and of community. Despite the fact that technology is always whispering to you, “Hey, the place you’re at right now isn’t that interesting. You should flee to somewhere else.” Actually, most of the time, the really interesting place to be in the long run is by loving the people that God has put in front of you, right where you sit right now. Sen. Ben Sasse has served as the junior U.S. Senator for Nebraska since 2015. He is the author of “Them: Why We Hate Each Other — And How to Heal.”

By SEN. MIKE LEE

to actually heal america’s political divisions, we first have to remember that disagreement is not a disease. It is a natural, universal and healthy human reality. The tone of political discourse can certainly become toxic, and that is a problem. But political division itself is something prudent societies try to channel or harness, not eradicate.

For the root cause of America’s divisions is a core fact about our nation that we tend to think of as a strength, not a weakness: our diversity.

The reason politicians disagree in Congress is the same reason citizens disagree in the voting booth. The United States is a huge country – third most populous on Earth and fourth largest by area. Of course 330 million people stretched across a continent (and an ocean!), of every race, ethnicity, religion and culture are going to have sharply divergent ideas of the good life, and the government policies that lead to it.

We would not want it any other way. America’s ability to make our diversity a strength is part of what makes us the greatest nation on earth. Our job is to make sure our diversity pulls us together instead of pulling us apart.

The good news is, we already have a proven way to achieve this goal. The United States has always been diverse. Our Constitutional framework was specifically written for a regionally, culturally, economically and religiously diverse nation. The Constitution’s checks and balances and separated powers simultaneously empower political majorities while protecting political minorities and, most of all, individual rights.

Given America’s wide diversity, political issues decided at the federal level are by their nature going to be the most divisive. People in the East and the West, on the coasts and in the interior, in rural and urban areas — to say nothing of “red” and “blue” states — are always going to see the world differently.

Allowing 51% of such a diverse society to impose their values and priorities on the other 49% is a recipe for resentment and distrust. That’s why the U.S. Senate requires a super-majority of 60 votes to end debate and pass legislation — to discourage one-sided legislating and encourage consensus and compromise.

Today, with the parties so closely divided, it’s hard to get 60 votes on partisan legislation. You need bipartisan compromise, which on many issues is simply hard to come by. The media sees inaction on controversial issues as a failure. But it’s really just a signal that the country is still making up its mind.

The thing we have to remember is that under our Constitution, this is OK.

If states as different as Rhode Island and New Mexico and Alaska have different political preferences, they don’t need to resolve them in a zero-sum war in Washington. Congress can simply devolve decision-making on more contentious issues to the states, where the more homogeneous Rhode Islanders, New Mexicans and Alaskans can experiment with approaches that work best for them.

This isn’t about the size of the federal government — the federal government is going to remain huge for a long time to come. Rather, it’s about the need for national consensus to validate federal policy. 51%-49% issues are controversial, by their nature. Some issues — like national security or immigration – by their nature must be decided at the federal level, no matter how controversial they are. But most issues — from education to welfare to health care to housing to infrastructure — really can be decided at lower, less divided, levels of government.

Blue states can be as blue as they want; red and purple states can go their way too. And all Americans — across the country and across the political spectrum — would be happier not to be in a constant zero-sum battle against the other party on every single issue under the sun. The founders called this approach “federalism.” Philosophers call it “subsidiarity.”

To me, it’s the only realistic way to restore trust in our public institutions, detoxify our national discourse, and heal some of the wounds of our current divisions. Sen. Mike Lee has represented Utah in the U.S. Senate since 2011. He has published four books since his election to the Senate, including “Written Out of History: The Forgotten Founders Who Fought Big Government.”

by michael j. mooney portrait by pierce thiot

NO CITY LOVES A MAN THE WAY Kansas City loves Andy Reid. Bakeries here sell cookies shaped like his head, with his trademark glasses and mustache drawn on with icing. At least two different businesses sell prayer candles bearing his likeness. Local TV news recently broadcast a story about a man who meticulously tilled 27 acres of a Missouri soybean field into a portrait of Andy Reid visible from the stratosphere.

A mural on the wall next to McFadden’s Sports Bar in the Power and Light District downtown features several of the Kansas City Chiefs’ most popular players. There’s star quarterback Patrick Mahomes flexing his throwing arm. There’s veteran tight end Travis Kelce, depicted mid-stride. Defensive end Frank Clark celebrates a tackle. They’re all in uniform with their helmets on. The only face visible in the massive painting is Andy Reid’s.

It’s not just that the fan base of the Kansas City Chiefs is perhaps the most zealous and loyal in the NFL, or that Reid, the team’s head coach for the last eight seasons, has ushered in an unprecedented era of winning. They don’t just love him because his brushy mustache and teddy-bear physique make Reid, nicknamed “Big Red,” the most avuncular, everyman character in all of professional sports. Or because he’s prone to hilariously endearing turns of phrase, like shouting “son of a buck” when a play doesn’t go the way he’d planned it, or the time, after an ugly win, he told his team that “not all of Mozart’s paintings were perfect.”

Reid also promotes local businesses any chance he gets, without compensation, publicly espousing his affinity for the ribs at Jack Stack Barbecue — what might be a controversial opinion if uttered by any other public figure. But his contribution to regional commerce, substantial though it may be, isn’t why he’s so beloved, either.

Kansas City’s affection for the 62-year-old head coach is about something deeper than all of that. A sample of that love is on display on a bright, crisp Sunday afternoon in early November, when the Chiefs are hosting the Carolina Panthers. Arrowhead Stadium has about 15,000 distanced fans in attendance. Hundreds more, though, have walked past that giant mural to sit and watch the game for free on an outdoor movie theatre-size screen in the courtyard between the half-dozen open bars and restaurants in the Power and Light District.

This is where thousands of members of what they call “Chiefs Kingdom” jammed together to watch the Super Bowl at the end of last season, before so much of 2020’s chaos unraveled. Now groups are keeping their distance, but every table outside is occupied and a few stragglers are sitting alone on the stairs and leaning along the second-floor railing. Most people are wearing candy-apple red Chiefs hats or shirts. As servers collect food and drink orders before kickoff, the screen briefly shows Reid shuffling down the Chiefs sideline wearing a plastic shield over his face. The fans give a smattering of applause — something that won’t happen again until more than 10 minutes into the game, when Mahomes completes a 14-yard pass to Tyreek Hill.

The Chiefs have been great again this year, losing only once in their first nine games. Early in the second quarter, though, the Panthers are leading 14-3. You might expect to see some anxiety, some frustration. But not here. The closest anyone gets is when, as the Chiefs face a third down and the screen briefly cuts to Reid’s face calling a play, a man sitting on a picnic table yells out, “Do the right thing, Andy!”

EVERY WEEK OF the football season, Andy Reid stands in front of reporters and answers dozens of questions. And yet he almost never reveals anything even remotely substantive about his team or himself. Every press conference goes the same way. Reid comes in wearing his Chiefs cap and a bright red parka that makes him seem like a floating, disembodied head. He talks about his football team with the caution of a poker player or master politician.

He starts by going over the injuries on the roster, as required by the NFL. Then he often shares some brief thoughts, a sentence or two at most, about the team the Chiefs are playing that week or the way the season is shaping up. Then, without fail, he tells the gathered reporters the same thing, with the same words.

“With that,” he always says, “time’s yours.”

Time’s yours. Like so many things that come out of Reid’s mouth, the utterance is at once insipid and profound.

What usually follows is a series of questions about specific plays, specific players, rivalries, strategies, any number of coaching decisions he’s made that week. He answers in a deliberately guarded tone, stopping periodically to clear his throat. He’s never angry. He’s never rude. He’s never dishonest. He just delivers one plain-spoken response after another, while doing his best to say nothing at all. And he’s done this several times a week, every week of the season, for more than 20 years.

Despite working under intense public scrutiny — a lot of people have a lot of thoughts about a lot of his decisions — the outside world knows close to nothing about the man. It’s not clear if Reid does anything outside of football except eat and sleep. And Patrick Mahomes often jokes that Reid doesn’t actually sleep.

There are legends about the long hours the coach spends at the office and tales about the way he fiendishly conceives hundreds of offensive plays a season — X’s and O’s, blocks and receiver routes. He draws them up on 5-by-7 notecards and sends them to his players and assistant coaches at all hours of the day. Regular “SportsCenter” viewers have also seen Reid show up to offseason events year after year wearing his bright Hawaiian shirts, even as all the other coaches don expensive suits.

He also mentions cheeseburgers all the time. As far back as his early days in Philadelphia, it’s just a thing he would work into conversations. Reid would sometimes end meetings by saying something along the lines of “Treat you to a cheeseburger!” He’ll sometimes playfully offer to bet with players over something like whether their opponents might start the game with a long pass. The wager is always the same: a cheeseburger.

He almost never gives extended interviews. Even before the public tragedies in his life, he didn’t allow much deep access. But, because he’s been an

NFL coach for so long, you can watch years of press conferences and read dozens of profiles. You can listen to old interviews and find clips of him at practices or in the locker room. And if you look deep enough, between all the intentionally sparing public statements, you’ll see snippets of something bigger. You’ll see glimpses of the real Big Red.

He’s funny, gregarious, someone who learns not just the names of everyone in his organization, but the names of their family members. The theme that comes up most, though, is his obsession. The way this game has transfixed him so consistently for so long. It’s not the fame or the roar of the crowd or the way strangers love him with an almost religious devotion. What he really seems to love is the strategy involved in coaching, the chess-match aspects of football. He likes studying until he can figure out a team’s weakness, then he studies some more until he can figure out a way to exploit that weakness. See, in movies and TV shows, a football coach’s job is to deliver rousing speeches that motivate his team to go out and win. But in the NFL, where players already receive millions of dollars of motivation, speech-giving is a tiny sliver of a coach’s job. Like the CEO of a big corporation, the head coach establishes the culture of a franchise, the energy, the attitude. The best coaches lead by example and spend countless hours preparing for each opponent, scouring game tapes for matchup advantages and weaknesses the way a trial attorney looks for legal loopholes and advantageous precedents. Between personnel research, draft decisions, offseason camps, training camp, and all those games to prepare for there’s always more to do.

In the NFL, the most valuable commodity a football coach has is the one thing Andy Reid happens to mention at every press conference: time. And the people of Kansas City understand that their team’s head coach will always put in more of it than anyone else.

FOOTBALL WAS ALWAYS going to be his life. When they were kids, Andy’s brother, Reggie, older by 10 years, collected books about camping and hiking. The first time Reggie came home from college, Andy had taken all of those books off the shelves in their room and replaced them with books about football and baseball.

Their family lived in a two-bedroom, stucco house with a tile roof in the Los Feliz part of Los Angeles. His mother was a radiologist with an analytical mind and a compassionate bedside manner. His father was a Hollywood set designer, an artist with an eye for detail. They were strict parents. If Andy didn’t, in his words, “take care of business,” his father, a World War II veteran, would spank him with a razor strap. The coach once told a reporter in Philadelphia that as a kid, he “tried to be smarter than that razor strap.”

He had a reputation as a trustworthy boy. His father got Andy a job with a Hollywood caterer, where he’d sometimes be in charge of things like the meatballs in a talk show green room. One time he had to tell John Wayne that no, he couldn’t have more than three meatballs.

The time he wasn’t working or in school was dedicated to sports. He’d play baseball and football with the neighborhood kids. He kept a scrapbook with L.A. Times stories about the Dodgers. He went to Reggie’s high

school football games, and then when his brother graduated, the younger Reid kept going. He’d sit in the grandstands, sometimes taking notes about plays, players, some basic strategies of the game.

Reid was also a natural athlete, a fact aided by his size. At 10, he was too big for any of the flag football belts. (They sewed two together.) By the time he was 12, Reid was something like 6 feet tall and weighed north of 200 pounds. He played quarterback in junior high and dominated local Punt, Pass and Kick contests.

One competition in 1971 was held at the Coliseum in Los Angeles and aired on Monday Night Football. The footage periodically resurfaces on the internet. Reid, who had to borrow a jersey from the Rams starting running back that night, is literally more than twice the size of the kid behind him in line for the throwing portion of the contest. He looks like he could be the boy’s father.

In high school, Reid was the baseball team’s starting pitcher and played both offensive and defensive line on the football team — and he was also the team’s place kicker. He’d dreamed of playing football at the University of Southern California, but he wasn’t good enough, so he played at a local community college with the same colors. After two years there, he had an offer from Stanford, but hurt his knee — he still has a deep scar visible when he wears shorts — and ended up on the offensive line at Brigham Young University instead.

Reid was one of the few Lutherans on campus. When he got to BYU he was a journalism major and contributed to the school paper, but he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his life. Maybe he could be a doctor, like his mother? Or a sports writer? Then LaVell Edwards, the legendary head football coach at BYU, suggested a new career path to Reid: coaching.

At BYU, Andy Reid also met a woman named Tammy and fell in love. Not long after that he asked to be baptized by her father into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When a teammate asked him why, Reid told him, “I really believe for me this is the way.”

The couple was married in 1981, the same year Andy started work as a graduate assistant under Edwards. Over the next decade, as Reid worked his way up the coaching ranks, he and Tammy moved from BYU to San Francisco State, then Northern Arizona, then University of Texas El Paso, then Missouri. Everywhere they went, their social lives revolved around football and their own growing family. Their oldest, Garrett, was born in 1983, followed by Britt and three more kids.

In 1992, Reid was hired by Green Bay Packers head coach Mike Holmgren to be his tight ends coach. Within a few years, Reid was promoted to quarterbacks coach, working closely with future-Hall of Famer Brett Favre as the Packers went to back-to-back Super Bowls and Favre won three league MVP awards.

In 1999, Holmgren left the Packers and the Philadelphia Eagles hired Reid. At 40 years old, Reid was the second youngest head coach in the league. He’d never been a head coach at any level. But Andy Reid turned out to be very good at coaching. Good at recognizing and developing talent. Good at designing plays and figuring out a way to win more football games than he lost.

A lot more. When he took over the Eagles, they had one of the worst records in the league. In his third year with the team, they made it to the conference championship game — one win away from playing in the Super Bowl. In fact, with Reid at the helm, Philadelphia made it to five conference games. They lost four of them. The one Super Bowl they made? They lost by three points to Bill Belichick, Tom Brady and the New England Patriots.

Imagine setting out every year with the same goal. Then coming close — sometimes really, really close! — but never achieving that goal. That’s what Andy Reid was known for after 14 years in Philadelphia. After more than two decades as a head coach, Reid had won more professional football games than all but five men in the history of the sport. But not the one game that matters most.

You’d think that might eat at him. You’d think the Sisyphean futility might eventually break him. But every year, he’d take a few days off at the end of the season. Then he’d be ready to do it all over again.

THE STORIES ABOUT the insanely long hours he’d work started in Green Bay. Reid would wake up at 3 a.m., spend a few hours at the office, come back home to have breakfast with his kids, then head back to the office until deep into the night. Then when he got to Philadelphia, the breakfasts stopped. When the Eagles built a new training facility in 2001, they made sure Reid’s office was big enough to fit a bed. Some weeks he’d spend three or four nights there.

He tried to make it to as many of his son’s high school football games as possible, even if it meant coming late and only watching a few plays from the parking lot before going back to the office. Even on holidays, Reid couldn’t resist his work. One Christmas when Andy was still in Green Bay, Reggie came to visit. The Packers played a game that day, but after dinner Andy asked his brother if he wanted to go to the office with him to watch film of offensive linemen.

For years, the only thing the public saw was the coach’s mellow demeanor at press conferences and the intensity on display during games. The first hint to the outside world that all was not well in Reid’s home life came in early 2007, when both Garrett and Britt were arrested six hours apart after separate incidents. Garrett, 24 at the time, pleaded guilty to drug possession. Britt, who was 22, pleaded guilty to pointing a gun at someone.

Then, a few months later, Britt was arrested again after he appeared lost in the parking lot of a Dick’s Sporting Goods and police found more than 200 pills in his Dodge Ram. His blood reportedly tested positive for nine different controlled substances. A judge equated the Reid household to a “drug emporium” and called the Reids “a family in crisis.” Outside his court hearing, Britt was swarmed by reporters. Wearing a pinstripe suit and a red tie, he appeared gaunt. As he was being escorted back to jail for violating his probation, he looked into some of the TV news cameras, smiled and said, “Hi Mom and Dad.”

Andy Reid did something he’d never done before: He took time away from football. He asked the organization for a five-week leave of absence. The coach tried to understand addiction the way he understood football. When something goes wrong in a football game, you can look at the tape. You can see who made the mistake and you can correct it. But life isn’t like that. Still, Reid wanted to know which approaches work best, which variables contribute to better outcomes. He wanted to plot his way to victory in this battle like he had so many times as a coach.

When none of that worked, Reid drove his oldest son to multiple detox facilities. After Reid went back to work the next month, he continued making weekly trips to the jail where both sons were serving their time. He also talked to a few coaching friends he knew had dealt with similar issues in their families. Mostly, though, he didn’t talk about his family’s struggles.

The next window into the Reid household came five years later, in 2012. One morning during the Eagles training camp that year, at Lehigh University, Garrett was found unresponsive in his room. Also in the room: heroin, syringes and a spoon. Garrett, nicknamed “Little Red,” was 29 by then and had been assisting the Eagles strength and conditioning staff. Things seemed to be going better. There were struggles, but most of the time he’d seemed happy, healthy. A team doctor tried to revive him, but Garrett was gone.

Nearly 1,000 people attended the funeral, more than the church could hold. Current and former players. Current and former assistant coaches. People from throughout the Eagles organization. Friends and opponents from around the league, including Bill Belichick and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. All coming to give their condolences to Reid and his family. People who were there say Reid spent much of the time consoling others.

He disappeared from public for a day, but then it was back to the business of football. He showed up to the regular press conference before the next preseason game. He walked to the podium in a black T-shirt and white Eagles hat. His mustache looked like it hadn’t been trimmed in days.

“All right,” he said as he looked out at the reporters assembled in front of him. “I’m a humble man standing before you.” He said he was touched by the outpouring of support from fans, members of the media, people all over what he called his “football family.” He stammered and his voice cracked a few times, but he never cried. He said that he’d miss the friendship he had with Garrett and that he knew his son would want him to go back to coaching. He thanked God for giving him what he called “the strength to work through this.”

The Eagles went 4-12 that season, the worst record of Reid’s career. He was fired on New Year’s Eve. Multiple teams sent private planes to Philadelphia to interview Reid for potential coaching positions. One was from the Kansas City Chiefs.

A MONTH BEFORE the Eagles fired Reid, a Chiefs linebacker named Jovan Belcher drove his Bentley to the team practice facilities, next to Arrowhead Stadium, and stepped out of the car with a gun pointed to his own temple. Belcher had just shot his 22-year-old girlfriend, Kasandra Perkins, nine times, killing her in the home they shared with their 3-month-old daughter.

Scott Pioli, the Chiefs general manager at the time, was just arriving for a Bible study. He tried to convince Belcher to drop the gun. Soon the team’s then-head coach Romeo Crennel was in the parking lot, too. Belcher thanked both men for the opportunities they’d given him and asked if Chiefs owner Clark Hunt would look after his daughter. As the sound of sirens got closer, Belcher knelt on the ground and shot himself in the head.

The sports world was shocked, outraged. Columnists and commentators from coast to coast weighed in with opinions on everything from football and domestic violence to gun culture to the hidden dangers of concussions. (A post-mortem of Belcher’s brain showed signs of CTE, a neurodegenerative disease triggered by head trauma and linked to dementia, memory loss and depression.)

The entire Chiefs organization was stunned. There weren’t many public statements because — well, what could anyone say? The Chiefs had long struggled on the field — the last time they’d won a playoff game was in the early 1990s, when Joe Montana was finishing his career in Kansas City — but the franchise had always tried to maintain a wholesome, family-friendly identity in the community. The team finished the season with the worst record in the league, then Hunt dismissed most of the front office and coaching staff.

All of this was just another blow to the people of Kansas City. Most of the 20th century was a slow bleed of people and money exiting the region. The city was also slower than other parts of the country to recover after the Great Recession in 2008. Downtown has seen new developments in the last few years, but other parts of town haven’t been so fortunate.

Football can’t bring back factory jobs. It can’t find houses for families experiencing homelessness or feed the hungry. But it can bring a temporary reprieve from the stresses of life. It can unite strangers, if only for a moment. It can give an entire region a reason to feel proud.

The franchise was looking for someone who could help both the organization and the community heal. The meeting with Reid was scheduled for two or three hours. It lasted for nine. Hunt, whose father founded the franchise and coined the term “Super Bowl,” wanted to know if Reid was ready to coach again. Reid convinced him he was.

After Garrett died, some of the coach’s closest friends suggested he take a season off. But he’d been coaching somewhere for 30 years in a row at

that point. Football is his escape from the pains of life. It’s a world he can control. It’s a world that makes sense. So Reid canceled his other meetings, talked it over with Tammy and took the Chiefs job — and immediately started studying and scouting and plotting all over again.

Sports Illustrated reported Britt Reid saying that “taking a year off and sitting around thinking about something tragic” wouldn’t have been good for his father. And a longtime friend of Andy’s has been quoted saying he suspected the coach “feared the emptiness” of not coaching.

Here’s how the coach himself put it, in his very Andy Reid way:

“It probably was a good healing process for me and for the Chiefs,” The Washington Post’s Kent Babb reported him saying. “They had gone through some things. I went through some things. It was a good match.”

IN REID’S FIRST season coaching in Kansas City, the team started 9-0 and made the playoffs. Like his time in Philadelphia, Reid’s coaching tenure here has been defined by his ability to recognize and cultivate talented players and coaches. While he was with the Eagles, Reid had famously signed Michael Vick after the quarterback served 21 months in federal prison on dog fighting charges. But in Kansas City, the coach seemed even more dedicated to using football to provide second chances in life.

In 2013, he drafted tight end Travis Kelce, who’d been suspended at the University of Cincinnati after testing positive for marijuana. Within a few years, he became one of the best players in the NFL.

Then in 2015, the team drafted cornerback Marcus Peters, who had been kicked off the University of Washington football team for fighting with his own coaches. A year after that, the Chiefs selected wide receiver Demarcus Robinson, who had been suspended four times at the University of Florida.

Then Reid drafted Tyreek Hill, a wide receiver who had been dismissed from the Oklahoma State team after he was arrested for domestic violence. The Chiefs also traded for defensive end Frank Clark, who was dismissed from the University of Michigan football team — also for domestic violence.

Critics have suggested Reid was getting more desperate to win a Super Bowl, that he was filling his roster with talented criminals. Others understandably questioned the decision to bring in known domestic abusers only a few years after the Belcher incident.

But Reid’s players and closest friends see something different. They see a man who knows that doing bad things doesn’t always make someone a bad person. They see a man who believes people are worthy of redemption — and maybe football can help.

It doesn’t always work. The team traded away Peters and cut running back Kareem Hunt after video surfaced of him pushing and kicking a woman. But most of the so-called “problem players” Reid has brought in have thrived on the field and avoided trouble off of it.

He also seems to have changed his approach to work-life balance in at least a few small ways. He talks about the importance of family more. He says the word family more than he ever used to. The Chiefs training facility has signs up that say “ENTER AS A TEAM, LEAVE AS FAMILY.” He also makes time for his nine grandkids. His office often has toys on the floor. He even takes a few hours off work every so often to go to dance recitals and school basketball games. It’s not a lot of time away, but in a job where any minute of preparation could be the difference between success and failure, it’s something.

Reid hasn’t just used his time in Kansas City to give second chances to players with problematic pasts, either. He’s done the same thing with coaches. The Chiefs linebackers coach, for example, spent time in jail on gun and drug charges. But he served his time and worked his way up from a low-level assistant job. That coach’s name? Britt Reid.

Last year Andy Reid was asked about his relationship with Britt, who wears a red beard reminiscent of his father’s mustache.

“I’m probably too hard on Britt,” the elder Reid said. “But that probably comes with the territory when you’re the coach’s kid. I’m proud of him for the job that he’s done.”

While some things changed when the Reids moved to Kansas City, some things didn’t. Andy Reid has had a winning record every season he’s been with the Chiefs, but his streak of painful playoff losses followed him from Philadelphia. At the end of the 2013 season, the Chiefs lost 45-44 in a devastating shootout to the Indianapolis Colts. At the end of the 2015 season, Reid led the Chiefs to the franchise’s first playoff win in 22 years, but then lost the next week to the New England Patriots. In the 2016 playoffs, the Chiefs lost to the Steelers 18-16. The year after that Reid lost to the Titans 22-21.

In the 2017 draft, the Chiefs traded up to select Patrick Mahomes II from Texas Tech. Mahomes, the son of a professional baseball player, seemed to have a special mix of raw physical talent, mental acuity, and the natural ability to lead. In all his time strategizing and scheming, Reid had never had a chess piece like this.

Mahomes was a backup in his first season, watching from the sidelines to learn all the subtle things about being a professional quarterback. In his first year as Reid’s starting quarterback, Mahomes led the league in touchdown passes, won the NFL MVP and brought the Chiefs to the conference championship game, one win away from the Super Bowl. Again Reid’s team faced the Patriots. This time, as the fourth quarter wound down, the Chiefs intercepted Brady to seal the victory — except an off-sides penalty negated the interception and gave Brady a second chance. The Patriots went on to tie the game, then win in overtime.

In replays of the interception-called-back, Chiefs defensive end Dee Ford had lined up 4 inches past the line of scrimmage. Four inches was the difference between going to the Super Bowl and going home to wait another year.

Reid has watched supportively as his former colleagues and assistants — guys who got started as his interns — became head coaches and won Super Bowl rings before him. Comments about how he could never win the games that mattered most didn’t seem to bother Reid. Even in the losses, he’s learned, there’s something positive.

ALL OF THOSE PAINFUL positive lessons over the years finally paid off. At the end of the 2019 season, Andy Reid got his second chance to coach in a Super Bowl. On the team’s flight to Miami, Reid wore a suit and a Chiefs-red tie. His players, though, all wore aloha shirts to honor their coach. At one of the media events, Reid was asked about spending time with his grandkids. He smiled.

“They keep you young,” he said, “and at the same time make you feel old.”

Then he might have meant to describe that paradox as “bittersweet.” But that’s not what the coach said. Instead, in his Andy Reid way, he went on to say, “It’s kind of like sweet and sour pork.”

On their first possession of the game, the Chiefs pushed deep into enemy territory before facing a fourth down on the 49ers 6-yard line. Most coaches probably would have kicked a field goal in that spot. But not Andy Reid. Instead, he called a play that involved Mahomes and three other players in the backfield twirling in unison in the same direction before the snap. The ball went directly to the running back, Damien Williams, who picked up the first down and was called down just short of the end zone. Mahomes ran the ball in for a touchdown on the next play, but that crazy twirling play — apparently inspired by something Reid found in old footage of the 1948 Rose Bowl — will feature on highlight reels for decades. continues on page 78