Hope is informed optimism

The purpose that you wish to find in life, like a cure you seek, is not going to fall from the sky. ...I believe purpose is something for which one is responsible; it's not just divinely assigned.

The American political experience can therefore be viewed as optimism in the collective.

I've dropped my pebble in the ocean, and hopefully; throughout the course of the day; millions of others will drop theirs in too. No single one of us knows which pebble causes the wave to crest, but each of us, quite rightly, believes that it might be ours; an act of faith.