How Others See Our Choices

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump at the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial
Foundation Dinner in New York City. Spencer Platt / Getty Images

The whole world is watching us.

Over the last month, I have logged tens of thousands of miles, visiting three continents. From the steamy poverty of Sierra Leone to the pubs and castles of Ireland, there is one thing that tied all the people together. Nearly every conversation I had began by someone asking, “So, what do you think of Trump and Hillary?”

This question occurred with such regularity that it soon evoked spontaneous laughter. It was comical to me that people as diverse as a tipsy Irishman, Lady Dunsany (originally from Columbia) and an African preacher from the bush should all be fixated on American politics.

At first, it made me wonder if these people have nothing better to do with their time than watch a dog and pony show taking place a half a world away. Has the American presidency become something akin to the royalty of the British Empire? Do they watch us like we watched the soap opera of Charles and Lady Di?

Actually, no. In time, I learned that their interest is not idle entertainment. It was the Irishman who drove home the reality: we are talking about the leader of the free world.

I have heard this phrase for decades, but I had never heard it through the mouth of a non-American. The simple reality is that America is the world’s greatest super-power, and the only one with freedom at its very foundation. As America goes, so goes the rest of the world. And as America’s freedom goes, so goes that of the entire free world.

What has dawned on me over the last month is that the President of the United States of America is, for better or for worse, the world’s president. American hegemony is so powerful and so influential that American politics and culture have a direct impact upon the politics and culture of countries scattered around the globe. The people that I met on my travels know this well — even if you have never thought about it.

All this reminded me of a startling realization that I had back in graduate school. I can remember the very lecture when it happened. We were studying the politics of the Roman Empire at the time of the first Christians. It blew my mind when I learned that the average man on the street had absolutely no say about the people and the way he would be governed.

His leaders were chosen for him by politics and wars, treaties and betrayals far above his paygrade. A Roman citizen at the time of Christ could go his entire life without ever casting a vote. But no matter how far he might be from having any control over the politics of Rome, the politicians of Rome had a great deal of control over him. Other people and other factors chose his rulers, but he was not unaffected by it.

For a Christian in the first century, an emperor like Nero could dip you in tar and light you on fire, or an emperor like Nerva could stop the persecutions and roll back corruption. Either way, you had no say whatsoever about which it would be. It suddenly dawns on me that this is very similar to the way much of the world looks on American politics. They are affected by both the good and the bad of our choices.

They watch from afar as we select leaders who will affect them in ways we cannot fathom. They are more than curious. They are concerned.

If you have ever tossed up your hands in frustration and said, “My vote doesn’t matter anyway,” you might want to think about the billions of people around the world for whom that is really true. Your vote may be only one in a hundred million, but it is still that. Pastor Lansana, the preacher from the bush, and Lady Dunsany of Ireland don’t even have that.

Think about that as you go to the polls in November. People around the world are depending on the American voter. What we do here will most certainly affect billions of people beyond our shores. Not only does your vote truly matter for you, it matters for people you have never met, in places you have never visited.

While you are thinking about these things, think about something else as well. The relationship between American politics and people around the globe is not the only place where other people’s actions affect innocent lives profoundly. This is, in fact, the constant reality of the entire human condition.

None of us are islands. Our personal choices do not affect only us. They affect everybody around us in ways that we may never understand. We live in community. That means there are no such things as private sins or inconsequential choices. Every decision you make has a ripple effect upon the entire world.

What parents do in private affect their children. What families do behind closed doors, affect the whole community. What countries do within their own borders have an impact on those beyond the border. Life is made up of a thousand choices between good and evil, right and wrong. And those choices matter to people that you never even knew existed.

Perhaps there is a silver lining to this strange campaign season. Perhaps in the flawed charactors of Clinton and Trump we can be roused into remembering these basic truths. Character counts. Virtue matters.

Remembering these things, perhaps we will also stop obsessing with the flaws of others and start looking more honestly at ourselves. Anxiety comes with the feeling that nothing you do matters to the world around you. By that same thought, virtue fades.But confidence and humanity are restored when you know that even your most miniscule and private battle to do the right and shun the wrong has a greater impact on the world than you will ever know.

You matter. Your choices matter. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.