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We’re not going to encourage you to vote. If you’re serious about American government, you’ll certainly find time to participate after all we’ve been through these many months.

But we would like to remind you that there’s more to democracy than narrow self-interest. You’ll be thinking about yourself and your family and your bank account, sure – but don’t forget about your neighbor and all the folks back home. They count for something too, right?

And if you really want to get carried away with this America concept, you might even consider the people in out-of-the-way places whom you’ll never meet. People who live differently than you do, have different interests and come from different cultural traditions.

Why? Because we’re still trying to prove that the idea works. The idea that people with all kinds of backgrounds and philosophies – and prejudices – can pull together for the common good.

The only way that can come true is if we see all of our fellow citizens as having an equal stake in what happens next.

It wasn’t too difficult to build a nation of billionaires and homeless people, with lots of citizens in between who are trying to beat the system without getting caught. The big test is whether we can evolve into a nation that takes the weights off those at the bottom.

We don’t have to turn into Scandinavia, but becoming a little less cutthroat would be nice.

And if you can’t let go of self-interest, look at it this way: You want a safe, stable nation to live in, one where you can pursue your own dreams without being sidetracked too often by waves of crime and economic convulsions. The only sure way to get there is by minimizing the country’s sum total of desperation.

As Carl Sandburg said, the slums take their revenge, and that’s true even if you live 300 bucolic miles from the nearest pit of despair. Poverty and injustice produce what you might call a trickle-up effect.