The Boring Work of Change

I saw a lot of powerful, emotional rants about the state of the United States yesterday, and rightly so, since the incident in San Bernardino is the 355rd mass shooting in 2015.

In situations like this it is convenient to picture a person, or group of people, wholly responsible for the situation our society finds itself in. I imagine that I can, with a flourish, root out the injustice. I want this to be true because it is convenient and satisfying. I dream of this because in reality the process of solving the problems we face is actually quite tedious.

For the past 20 years now, the Republican party has been engaging in a campaign to get a new generation of conservatives involved in local elections. This effort dates all the way back past Newt Gingrich to the Moral Majority of the 1980s. Republicans have encouraged their electorate to go out and vote in city, county, and state elections, putting a lot of money into these small races. Their work over the past 20 years is yielding its black fruit; most local-level politics are now dominated by people with ideologies that lead to both the systemic problems that allow shootings like this to occur as well as the radicalization of the shooters in the first place.

People in their 20s are good at activism, and we understand the power of the presidency, but given how overwhelmed most of us are —under-employed, lacking the finances to cognitively offload problems— it makes it very difficult for us to be an informed part of the electorate on a local level.

I struggle with this. It is a lot more interesting to support protests by spreading hashtags than it is to read about the platforms of the various candidates for the local comptroller position. One is exciting, the other is kind of dull; there is a night and day difference in how I feel when I engage in these acts. The reality is, however, that both are equally important.

A great deal of the systemic injustice people of color face stems from local-level politics. Police chiefs, city aldermen, district attorneys — in most places these are elected officials. These representatives are often voted into office because they run unopposed, or the voter engagement is too low among progressives. This has to change.

Next to protests, engagement in the political process is the most powerful tool we have for enacting change. So the next time a shooting like this occurs — and we all know it will soon — I plan on on taking some of the time I would spend retweeting the insights of activists and the statistics about gun violence, and instead look up when the next election is for my city. I will educate myself on the platforms of the officials running in my district; devote time to a campaign for a progressive running for a local seat; champion the voices of the young politicians moving up through the local assembly.

None of these will by themselves cut the Gordian knot, but they are a tool; one that I have the ability to wield.