“I’m not necessarily going to vote for him,” I told my husband a week ago, when he found me furtively watching yet another interview with presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg. “I just like listening to him.” It was like any YouTube obsession: One video naturally led to the next. I kept clicking, and Buttigieg kept calmly answering questions exactly the way I would if I were a more hopeful, smarter person, which suddenly I wanted to be.
I’m an atheist. I have bemoaned the fact that my country’s motto is “In God We Trust,” that elected officials are sworn in on holy books, legislative sessions begin in prayer, and big political speeches seem predestined to end with the phrase “God Bless America.