One of U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy's annual traditions is walking across the state of Connecticut to be more in touch with his constituents.
Murphy started this jaunt throughout his state because he was worried that his constituents were fixated about issues that gained traction online or on cable news programs. And while that was true for some of the people he encountered, others talked about less splashy matters.
"They don't watch the cable news shows, they barely pay attention to politics," Murphy said. "What I realize over and over again every year is that they're just evergreen issues that matter to everybody that don't go away. It's education, it's the safety of your neighborhood, it's how much money are you making. And so the walk is just this grounding exercise for me."
Murphy talks about people he met on his walk in his new book, "The Crisis of the Common Good: The Search for Meaning and Connection in a Broken America." He explores how globalization and technology advances sapped distinctiveness from small towns and cities throughout the country.
The Democratic senator was in St. Louis County last week to promote his book. During an interview with St. Louis Public Radio, Murphy pointed to his upbringing in the small town of Wethersfield, Connecticut. He said that when he was growing up, it was home to family-owned grocery stores and vibrant service organizations that sponsored Little League teams. He compares that to the present day, when large corporations dominate business in small towns and fewer people are involved in civic groups that foster community connections.
"We've been told that you should just be happy being a global citizen and buying the same stuff that everybody else buys in the whole country from the same stores," Murphy said. "That feels empty and incomplete to people."
Still, Murphy acknowledged both in the book and the interview that some of the institutions he highlighted as positive contributors to American life were by no means perfect.
For instance, he noted that some service organizations, like Kiwanis or Rotary Clubs, were almost exclusively male.
"That was a good thing that people woke up every day and one of their primary tasks was belonging to a club that just did good things for their community," Murphy said. "It was not a good thing that those clubs were almost exclusively male. But why couldn't you say, 'Let's create a culture in which more people can belong to service clubs and just decide that this time it's going to be everybody, not just men?' I think you can pick and choose what you want to bring forward, while admitting that it was nowhere close to perfect."
Highlighting Hawley
Murphy's book spends quite a bit of time warning about the dangers of technologies like artificial intelligence and social media – especially toward children.
He's worried about the use of artificial intelligence "friendship bots" for advice and companionship.
"I think that we are going to actually have to have regulations to protect kids," Murphy said.
In the book, Murphy points to U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri as one of the few Republican lawmakers willing to stand up against his party's conventional wisdom on corporate power and against large technology companies.
"The cult of Trump demands total loyalty, and so the few Republicans who might want to work with Democrats to raise the minimum wage or put age restrictions on social media use are too wary of drawing Trump's ire to stick out their neck," Murphy wrote. "And the few who do, like Josh Hawley, are treated like pariahs by their colleagues and the broader MAGA movement."
While emphasizing that he in no way condones how Hawley objected in 2020 to Joe Biden's electoral vote victories in Pennsylvania and Arizona, Murphy said Missouri's senior senator understands "that these technologies and the companies that run these technologies are really destroying kids."
"Nobody is perfect to work with on the Republican side," Murphy said. "But Josh certainly has shown a willingness to take on the pro-corporate conventional wisdom in the Republican Party."
Hawley said he's been glad to work with Murphy on barring artificial intelligence companies from pushing pornography to minors and bar chat bots from telling children to commit suicide.
"No amount of profit justifies that kind of exploitation of children," Hawley said. "And my bill with Chris Murphy would close those loopholes, put those guardrails in place, and actually do something about protecting our children. I think we need to do more."
Path forward for Democrats
Murphy has gained attention in the past couple of years for warning about Trump launching America into an authoritarian era.
But in his book, he's also advocated for Democrats to understand why Trump gained so much popularity, especially with working-class and lower-income white people without college degrees.
He said Trump is "a symptom of something that's more fundamentally broken."
"People are less connected, they're less happy," Murphy said. "The economy has abandoned people, and when people wake up every day and they don't feel purpose and meaning in their life, they are prone to be attracted to scapegoating politicians. If you don't solve that underlying spiritual rot that's happening in the country, even if Trump gets defeated electorally, somebody else who's kind of like him will come along, and people will just continue to be unhappy."
He said Democrats should reach out to voters with differing views and philosophies, especially since they may connect with the party on economic issues.
"I think that we should be trying to win elections and trying to convince people who might not agree with us, might never agree with us on some of these very important issues, to vote for us," Murphy said. "Because then when we have power, we can work on it all. We become kind of perfectionists in the Democratic Party. You've got to agree with us on everything, or we don't want you anywhere near our coalition. I think that's a prescription to lose."
"St. Louis on the Air" brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. Layla Halilbasicis our production assistant. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr.
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