With all respect to , this is a bizarre and frankly disturbing ad that suggests that the path to "common ground" is entirely on white space and the assuaging of white anxiety. Really?
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I’ve been to that chapel several times. I’ve driven down countless boarded up Main streets in Kansas & Nebraska to get there. Look beyond to ’s excellent memoir of growing up poor in Kansas, “Heartland”:
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No doubt the ad speaks to the anxieties and sufferings of people on those Main streets in Kansas and Nebraska. But what does it mean to meet "in the middle" by implying that those are the only or the critical anxieties facing our country?
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Don’t know that the ad implies strongly that these are the “only” anxieties our country faces but the anxieties are “critical” in these communities to be sure. No fan of the ad myself - used Kansas as a prop; he steered for a “middle” in his Jeep that ain’t there.
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For good reason too - Jeep steered wrong. The geographic center of the US is near Belle Fourche, South Dakota. But there’s no quaint chapel there to use as a prop. And who wants to be reminded of their governor?