Editor’s note: This essay is part of Mississippi Today Ideas, a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share fact-based ideas about our state’s past, present and future. You can read more about the section here.

There’s a tone many of us recognize in our bones. Not outrage. Not apathy. It’s that faded, sepia-toned feeling – the sense of standing just offstage while the rest of the country barrels past in red or blue. You care, but you don’t quite belong.

That’s where millions of Americans live. Nearly 80 million eligible adults didn’t vote in the last presidential election. These aren’t people who don’t care. Many simply don’t feel spoken for by either party or the culture at large.

What we hear again and again, here in Mississippi and beyond, is this: Most people genuinely want what

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