Are you ready to change the game?
The future of democracy depends on what we do next
I am feeling a lot of things today, and I imagine many of you are, too. It can be hard to hold multiple diametrically opposed ideas at once.
But I will try.
On the one hand: PRIDE
A lot of people worked incredibly hard for a very long time to deliver yesterday’s election results. Some of those efforts fell short. Many succeeded. One hundred women will serve in Congress in 2019, and that improvement in our largest body of national government will almost surely be better for all of us. Those who knocked doors, made calls, texted frantically in the dark of night, and those who ran campaigns, coordinated and otherwise, you should take a moment to appreciate yourself and your teams. Only in contesting elections do we make them competitive and therefore more truly representative. And you did that. Probably with not enough sleep and for less pay than you deserve. You left it all on the field. You did everything you could. You went for it. Thank you for your dedication and service. You should be proud.
On the other hand: DOUBT
What are we to imagine possible in the future if this was a retributional blue wave? We turned the volume all the way up on our democracy, fielded incredible candidates in unlikely places, and they lost. We banged the drum to Volunteer! Donate! And Vote! We did this much longer and harder than we typically do and many people responded. We spent BILLIONS of dollars, more than has ever been spent on a midterm election ever, to win some and lose some. Doing the math on governors and House races, Democratic performance is basically a coin toss. In the Senate, Democrats fared far worse. In most of the places Dems lost, it was by close to 1% and in places like Florida, third-party voters once again stole votes from the top.
Doing what we’ve always done will get us what we’ve always gotten.
When you turn the volume up all the way, can you turn it up more? Can you expect people to take a loss in stride and say “Okay, we’ll do better next time!”?
This is the current premise of Democratic politics. But it is unsustainable.
We have to realize that doing what we’ve always done will get us what we’ve always gotten.
So if we want a government other than the one we have, we will have to do something differently.
On the other hand: FEAR
It is clear from last night’s election that there is a prevailing sickness in the American republic. People feel angry, fearful, and unheard. Racism is alive and well. America’s president and his allies have effectively harnessed this fear to their own advantage, and no amount of voter contact on the phones or the doors in the two months leading up to an election will change that.
What’s more, establishment Democrats are not offering a counter-vision or even an honest assessment of the true needs of most Americans in this moment. It’s no wonder that voters in Michigan have switched the partisanship of their vote in almost every election cycle since 1962. The only thing people are reliably voting for is CHANGE. They are using their ballot to scream into the void, “Bring me another, this one ain’t working!” And when their newly elected leader proves ineffective, they throw them out again.
In this moment, a majority of Americans are fearful about the future, fearful of each other, and angry at the inefficacy of government to address their needs. These are not people to whom we can say “Voting is the best way to improve your lot!” Because they’ve been doing that a long time, to no avail.
On the other hand: DETERMINATION
I remember clearly the feeling of waking up on November 9, 2016, exhausted and devastated, with no notion of what to do next. I vowed that moment would never come again, and I must admit, in the lead-up to this election, I was much more a spector of skepticism than a harbinger of hope. I shielded myself from that disappointment, my grandmother’s admonition burning in my ears:
“Fooled me once, shame on you.
Fooled me twice, shame on me.”
Since that time, I’ve started a company, written a book that will be published early next year, and experimented and talked with a host of incredible people about how we could change the nature of our democracy.
I have realized that getting out the vote is a late-stage solution to a deeper early-stage problem. The fact that 45% of Americans do not belong to a political party, and 56–60% of Americans do not vote pertains more to the fact that those people think voting is useless than their inability to figure out where and when to vote. To get those people engaged, we can’t just knock on their door and offer them some campaign lit about who they should vote for and expect them to care. We need to invite them into the room much sooner, and make them feel welcome, regardless of their past politics. We need to take them at their word and ask, “What does the future need to look like for you to want to help make it possible?” We need to hold space for the fear that has let racism fester and grow in America for far too long. We can show one another that love, more than fear, is a pathway out of the darkness.
If we truly want to change the nature of politics in America, we have to help people feel heard and supported. We have to stop looking to Washington for solutions to our problems and make commitments to collaborate towards the common good at a state and local level. We need to understand each other and our shared conviction. We need to overcome the silos of social media and step into the real world to talk to real people In Real Life.
In 2019, I pledge to begin these conversations, to create space where we can talk and understand each another. And in so doing, to help us arrive at a clear shared vision for the future we can all strive towards together.
There are 730 days until the next election.
That’s a lot of time to do a lot of good.
Let’s get started.
