Right after the Inauguration, I asked you what would be left after all the shouting. The elation after eight parched years lifted us up, which in itself has value — we remembered that we can reach higher — but would "Yes We Can" end up being much more than a campaign slogan?

At least a couple of you doubt it. "Although the President seems to be honestly calling for change," one reader wrote, "he certainly is not setting the tone. All of the financial stimulus is floating to the top "¦ Business as usual as far as I can see."

Exactly, said another. "We at the bottom are being told that we are going to pay and pay to bailout these super-rich CEOs that have run their companies into the ground and have skimmed profits and taken outrageous salaries to boot "¦ by the time they get [to the White House] they are bought and paid for and they better ask how high when the people that paid to put them there tell them to jump."

Which brings us to where that Inauguration week column left off. "Government leaders," I suggested, "best represent whoever comes at them with the biggest stick. For as long as the oldest of us can remember, that's been well-organized lobbies, permanently embedded in the White House and Capitol. If We the People want the biggest and most effective stick, we have to do three things," which I said I'd spell out later. They are these: We have to put together the biggest stick we can. We have to commit to carrying it permanently. And we have to use it with intelligence and focus.

Let's look at the first of these. Putting together the biggest stick we can starts with challenging this "fact": America is just so deeply polarized. You hear it so often that it must be true, right? And it is "¦ if you limit your focus to a short, predictable list of issues: abortion rights, same-sex marriage, criminalizing flag-burning, prayer or the Ten Commandments in school. "Polarized" is a mild word for the heat these generate.

But scan the historical landscape on these issues and here's what you find: In almost every case, these issues flare up during even-numbered years. And what is it we do in November of every even-numbered year? Hmm. You don't suppose "¦ naah, you'd have to be a real cynic to believe that.

None of these red-meat issues are trivial. But how much do we want to keep investing them with the power to divide us? I know people who wake up in the night's darkest hours, worried sleepless about what's going on in the world. I don't think I know anyone who wakes up wondering if a flag's burning somewhere.

Are we polarized when it comes to wanting a health care system that doesn't bankrupt families, cripple businesses and ignore the root causes of illness? Are we polarized when it comes to wanting an economy that compensates hard work well enough to support a family, and offer enough cushion to make it through old age? Are we polarized about wanting to know that our kids and their kids will have plenty of clean water to drink and air to breathe?

Which doesn't mean changing the national anthem to Kumbaya; wanting a secure, thriving world our grandchildren can enjoy doesn't mean we agree on the details of getting there. But if we're determined to carry a bigger stick to Washington than the "super-rich CEOs" — which probably means unifying the voices of 30, 40 or 50 million Americans whose views on economic justice are getting closer all the time — we need fresh conversations with people most of us have been avoiding because they're "wrong" on those polarizing issues. You know for a fact that there are people who'll never accept a woman's right to choose and who are as angry as you are that Wall Street's Masters of the Universe are stuffing their pockets with tax dollars.

Invite these folks who never vote like you to your next barbecue. Strike up a conversation at a Little League game, not about their opinion of Ronald Reagan, but about their own story. About the experiences that shaped how they see the world. About what keeps them awake at night.

This isn't Kumbaya. It's the groundwork for a popular majority too big to deny, the biggest stick Washington's ever seen. The raw material's out there. Refining it is the obligation of everyone with enough guts to reach across the old divide.

Jeff Golden is the author of "Forest Blood," "As If We Were Grownups" and the recently released novel "Unafraid," with excerpts available at www.unafraidthebook.com.