By Vince Bzdek

I’m seeing a lot of signs lately of a real unhappiness with our national unhappiness, of a hunger for a return to a little wholesomeness.

Take pop culture for instance, always a good barometer of the nation’s mood.

My wife and I went and saw comedian Nate Bargatze during a recent stop in Colorado Springs, where he packed the World Arena with over 8,000 folks on a Tuesday night. He’s currently the No. 1 comedian in the world according to Pollstar, with more than 1.2 million tickets sold in 2024 and over 20 venue records broken.

His humor is refreshingly relatable, clean, observational, centered on family and everyday life. He’s not coasting on shock or outrage. He’s filling arenas without it.

A writer in the Atlantic put it this way: “If comedy is a proxy for the mood of American society, Bargatze’s sudden popularity suggests that he’s tapped into something powerful: the discontent with our discontent. He insists that stand-up can be a great unifier, bridging the divides that have emerged within families, among friends, between red states and blue states.”

“People are worn out,” he told me. “It seems like every form of entertainment these days has to have a message, and it’s gotten old.”

The No. 1 movie in the country, “Project Hail Mary,” reinforces my point. “Hail Mary” has grossed nearly $650 million worldwide with a refreshingly wholesome, redemptive story about the friendship between a science teacher and an alien who save not just one world, but two. One reviewer called it an antidote to dystopias, real and imagined — a cultural glint of hope and optimism.

The American novel that just won the Pulitzer Prize is about a detachment of American doughboys in World War I who rescue an angel shot down in combat, an angel that represents a kind of goodness and soulfulness that has been damaged beyond recognition by the machinations of war.  When was the last time an angel played any role in our popular mindset?

And here’s the wild twist to the story: I’m starting to see this hunger for wholesomeness not just in culture, but in the place where real life doesn’t get any realer, politics.

Politics is usually where wholesomeness goes to die, but take a listen to this candidate down in Texas, James Talarico, who, in a run for the U.S. Senate, is practicing what he calls the politics of love.

“I am tired of being pitted against my neighbor” Talarico said in a recent speech. “I am tired of being told to hate my neighbor. It’s been more than 10 years of this kind of politics. Politics as bloodsport. There is a deep hunger in this state and in this country for a different kind of politics. Not a politics of hate, not a politics of tribes, not a politics of division, but a politics of love. A love that can heal what’s broken in America.”

By fusing progressive politics with unapologetic Christian faith, the 36-year-old seminarian in cowboy boots has garnered praise from both Barack Obama and Joe Rogan — something I thought was impossible in today’s climate.

Closer to home, there’s an organization in Colorado called Reclaiming Civility that is also trying to bring decency back into politics through workshops and community roundtables. They’ve just held several events in Colorado Springs: at UCCS, at the Chamber, and in the mayor’s office with Mayor Yemi Mobolade and his new chief of staff, Wayne Williams.

The UCCS event featured Maury Giles, CEO of Braver Angels, and Alexandra Hudson, best-selling author of “The Soul of Civility.”

The New York City-based Braver Angels describes itself as “the nation’s largest cross-partisan, volunteer-led movement to bridge the partisan divide and strengthen our democratic republic.”

Author Hudson, who also founded a national group called Civic Renaissance, appeared at the Chamber event and discussed the “overview effect,” which Mayor Yemi then reiterated at last Friday’s gathering.

“The idea is that when astronauts are in space … and they look back at the earth, they’re flooded with this overwhelming sense of our common humanity,” said Lisa Brandt, cofounder of Reclaiming Civility.

“So when you look at Africa and there’s no borders, it’s very life changing. And so both Alexandra and Yemi were exhorting us to rise above the fray and take a different view of things.”

Why are we so hungry for a little more wholesomeness and civility in our lives?

“I think the first reason is that we’re just exhausted, we’re tired of it, we’re fed up,” said Brandt.

I think we’re starting to worry that this ugliness and division in our politics is settling into the marrow of our country’s bones permanently, changing who we are.

“Another reason that I’ve heard from city leaders here, is that if we do not turn around and go a different direction, we’re not going to have people who are even willing to serve in public office,” Brandt said. “It’s scary.”

For example, Brandt noted, the former head of School District 20 has experienced death threats, as has the mayor of Palmer Lake. I knew that many of our Congress members receive regular death threats, but I hadn’t realized such threats had reached local officials.

Reclaiming Civility cofounder Lori Leander said she recently heard a seasoned politician say that if you are civil, you won’t get elected.

“That thinking, however, comes from a misunderstanding of what true civility actually is,” she writes in her Reclaiming Civility blog.

“Author Alexandra Hudson explains that civility is more than mere politeness. Politeness refers to polished surface behavior. We have all encountered people who are polished on the outside but duplicitous on the inside,” Leander notes

“Civility goes much deeper. According to Hudson, civility is:

“A disposition that recognizes and respects the common humanity, the fundamental personhood, and the inherent dignity of other human beings.

“Civility is not just behavior. It is a posture of the heart that shapes every interaction.

“And it is the necessary starting point for productive dialogue in both private and public life.”

Taken together, all these data points suggest something real: in a cultural moment saturated with irony, outrage, and cynicism and an uptick in political violence, we may have finally had enough. Our hunger for wholesomeness might be less about nostalgia than about exhaustion with the present.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

The appetite for sincerity, warmth and optimism I’m sensing is not naïveté; in other words, it’s a form of resistance.

Vince Bzdek, executive editor of  The Gazette, Denver Gazette and Colorado Politics, writes a weekly news column that appears on Sunday.