What Republicans need to do is to go back to their roots -

Host: The city was quiet tonight — a strange, contemplative quiet, like the long exhale after a storm. The Capitol dome glowed faintly in the distance, wrapped in a pale mist, and the streets shimmered with the last traces of rain, each puddle reflecting the ghost of a nation still arguing with itself.

Inside a nearly empty restaurant, the kind that stayed open just past reason, two voices lingered over the dying light of a candle. The smell of coffee and wet pavement mingled with the faint hum of an old radio murmuring political analysis that no one was really listening to.

Jack sat at a corner table, his jacket draped over the back of his chair, a notebook open before him. His grey eyes, reflective and sharp, were fixed on the words he had underlined twice:

“What Republicans need to do is to go back to their roots — starting with Lincoln — and remind the nation that they are the party of national growth, racial equality, and unity of purpose. These Lincolnian themes will serve Republicans — and the nation — much better than becoming the party on the lookout for the supposed rat head of higher taxes.” — Alan Siegel

Across from him, Jeeny sat quietly, her hands clasped around a cup of tea gone cold, her brown eyes calm but watchful, like someone waiting to see whether a truth would be defended or destroyed.

Jeeny: (softly) It almost sounds like nostalgia, doesn’t it? “Back to Lincoln.” The past always looks cleaner when the present feels too dirty to touch.

Jack: (dryly) Nostalgia’s the safest kind of revolution. You get to sound idealistic without risking anything.

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) You think Siegel’s wrong?

Jack: (closing the notebook) Not wrong — just late. The party he’s describing doesn’t exist anymore. The one that talked about equality, growth, unity — it’s buried under decades of slogans, resentment, and tax cuts.

Host: The rain started again, soft and rhythmic, drumming against the window. It wasn’t the violent rain of chaos, but the steady kind that washes away only the surface of things — never deep enough to touch the roots.

Jeeny: (gently) But isn’t that what he’s saying? That it could exist again — if people remembered what it was supposed to mean?

Jack: (with a low laugh) You can’t resurrect Lincoln in a time when no one reads more than headlines. The party of equality? Unity? Try saying that on the floor today and watch how fast you’re eaten alive.

Jeeny: (calmly) That’s the point. Maybe they’ve forgotten what their story was. Every movement needs a myth to guide it — and Lincoln was theirs. The man who tried to bind a broken country together.

Jack: (gritting his teeth) And what happened to him, Jeeny? He was shot for believing unity was worth dying for.

Jeeny: (quietly) Maybe that’s why his ghost still matters.

Host: The light from the candle danced faintly across her face, illuminating the quiet defiance in her expression — the look of someone who refuses to surrender her faith in history’s better angels. Jack’s shadow stretched across the table, sharper, darker — his skepticism carved deep into it.

Jack: (leaning forward) You really think politics can still be about purpose? About growth and justice and unity? That’s not politics anymore — that’s branding.

Jeeny: (with a hint of sadness) Maybe branding is just what happens when belief forgets its soul.

Jack: (smirking) You sound like you want to save them. The party, the country, the whole lot.

Jeeny: (firmly) I don’t want to save them, Jack. I want them to remember themselves. The Left preaches progress, the Right preaches tradition — but both forget their humanity in the sermon.

Host: The rain grew heavier, the sound filling the pauses between their words. Outside, a man hurried across the street, his umbrella catching the glow of a streetlight, a fleeting figure in the great argument of history.

Jack: (bitterly) You think unity is still possible? Look around. Every conversation now is a battle — every difference a war.

Jeeny: (softly) Unity isn’t sameness, Jack. It’s remembering we’re all still sharing the same table, even when we can’t agree on the meal.

Jack: (murmuring) You make it sound poetic.

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) Maybe that’s what politics needs again — a little poetry.

Host: Her words drifted into the air like smoke, curling around the edges of the candle flame. Jack watched her, his expression half skeptical, half softened — the way someone looks at a language they once spoke but have forgotten the rhythm of.

Jack: (after a pause) “The party of racial equality.” That phrase hits harder than it used to. Coming from Lincoln’s lineage, it’s almost ironic now.

Jeeny: (nodding slowly) It’s tragic irony, not comic. History doesn’t erase the meaning of ideals; it just buries them under newer disappointments.

Jack: (quietly) And what’s left when ideals stop meaning anything?

Jeeny: (softly) People like Siegel — and maybe people like us — still asking the question.

Host: The candle flickered violently, then steadied, as if refusing to die just yet. The rain softened into mist, the kind that blurs the world into something more forgiving.

Jack: (leaning forward, voice low) You really think invoking Lincoln could heal anything now?

Jeeny: (with conviction) Not Lincoln himself. But the idea of him. The reminder that greatness once meant holding opposites together — not tearing them apart.

Jack: (after a long silence) You make it sound almost holy.

Jeeny: (gently) Maybe it is. Politics, at its best, is just a secular form of faith — faith that we can build something larger than ourselves, even after all the damage we’ve done.

Host: Jack looked down at his hands, tracing the ring left by his coffee cup. His reflection in the window wavered between the candlelight and the dark beyond. When he looked up again, his tone had softened.

Jack: (quietly) You really believe we can go back to our roots?

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) Not back — but through. You can’t go backward to save a tree; you dig deeper and feed the roots that are still alive.

Host: The clock above the bar struck midnight, its echo hollow and patient. The candle finally went out, leaving only the faint gold halo of the city’s lights beyond the window.

They sat in that gentle darkness — two small figures in the long shadow of history, trying to find meaning in its echo.

Jack: (softly) Maybe Siegel was right, then. Maybe the roots are still there — waiting for someone brave enough to remember what they were planted for.

Jeeny: (whispering) Growth. Equality. Unity.

Host: Her words fell like prayer — fragile but fierce, the way hope always sounds when spoken out loud.

Outside, the rain stopped. The city lights glimmered on the slick streets like the scattered pieces of a flag long torn but never abandoned.

And in that quiet moment, Alan Siegel’s words seemed less like commentary and more like instruction —
a soft, persistent reminder that nations, like people, can lose their way —
but their roots, if tended, can still remember the shape of light.