Everyday Election Activism

An Insider’s Guide - August 8, 2024

This is our moment!

We have our presidential ticket - Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.  We are unified as we charge out of the starting gate, on the way to a blue tsunami!  

We are clear about what we want and we are determined.  It feels as though we are bathed in energy and light.  Joy is back.  Compassion is back.  Fighting for the common good is back. 

We are prepared.  Our yearning for a brighter future has given birth to a huge national effort.  We have in place a strong pro-democracy movement.  Ever since the 2016 election it has grown in size, intensity, and focus.  A mind-boggling web of grassroots organizations and informal groups has mushroomed into existence.  Activist leaders have honed their strategies and developed local, regional, and national collaborations.  More and more Democratic Parties at the state and local level are joining in.  Hundreds of thousands of experienced volunteers are ready to welcome new activists to their ranks.   

We have optimism and hope on our side, but no certainty. 

I am optimistic that democracy is going to win in 2024!  I have hope that American voters are going to show the world what they are made of.  At the same time, I know that optimism and hope are not synonymous with certainty.  There is no guarantee that we will win.  Everyone tells us that the presidential race will be close.  The same is true about control of Congress.  It appears that the future of our country will be decided by small margins in a handful of states.  We understand this, too.  We know that we need to go all out for our Democratic candidates.  Everything we do matters.  We have made ‘hope’ into a verb.  To hope is to take action!

Action.  Activism.  Do you consider yourself an activist?  Or its opposite, a passivist?  Passivism is a made-up word of course, but you get the point.  Activism  overcomes passivism.  Activism is the opposite of recoiling from problems.  It is an ocean away from ranting about injustice and the bad actors, while doing nothing.  Passivists may care a lot about the world around them, but they are overwhelmed and paralyzed by worry, pessimism, and even cynicism.  They focus more on the problems and fears than on the solutions.  Passivism is not an ideal approach for our personal lives, so why approach citizenship in that way?   I can guarantee that when people like us transform our concerns into action and become activists, we feel better about ourselves and our country!  

The path of an election activist is clear.  You begin with a vision of how things could be. Imagine!  You take a good look at the problems we are facing, feel them in your bones, and use that to gird yourself with determination.  Then you take effective action to turn voters out to the polls, protect them from voter suppression, and advocate for voting rights.  You figure out who is doing good work, and you lean in and take action.  The great thing about activism is that you will not be alone.  You will be taking action together with tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of other people. 

If you are like me, the desire to take action brings up lots of questions.  The ones I grappled with early on, before I called myself an activist, were about taking those first steps.  I asked myself, how do I get beyond all the inner obstacles?  What do I do about:

• the worry that I can not do enough to make a difference?

• the fear of being expected to do more than I want to?

• the feeling that my personality may not be not well suited for the work?

• the reluctance to give up precious free time that I could be spending with family or friends, and pursuing other interests?

And then there are the practical and longer term questions:

• What are the most effective ways to take action?  

• What is the best use of my time?

• How do I keep showing up week after week, for months and even years?  

If some of these questions have occurred to you, you are in good company!  I have contended with these questions for a long time, and talked with others who have dealt with them as well.  I have sought answers by reading, and I have learned directly from those with more experience. Gradually I figured out my role in the world of activism.  

If activism is calling you, please join me in this Insider’s Guide as we explore together.

The Insider’s Guide

This guide is an exploration of what it means to show up and volunteer:  how we find our place in the ecosystem of election activism, identify the actions that are right for us, build our skills, and muster the determination and focus needed to keep on keepin’ on.

Before I became an activist myself, I felt no connection with activists.  They protested in the streets and organized in their communities, continuously and boldly speaking up for freedom and justice, taking risks to stand up for what they believed in, and making tremendous sacrifices of time, money, and sometimes their lives.  I admired them, but did not identify with them.  I also knew nothing about their strategies or the organizations they worked with.  The world of activism was outside my experience. 

But then activism came to me.  It came to me because I could no longer ignore all the people struggling around me.  As I immersed myself more deeply in the multi-racial city of Durham, NC where I live, I could not un-see all the preventable suffering.  I could not turn away from my growing understanding that people of color continue to be denied opportunities to develop their genius and live out their dreams, and how that hurts all of us.  I became disgusted and outraged with the ill will and greed among many of those with wealth and power.  There is something in me that likes to root for the underdog. ‘Fair is fair’ and what I was seeing wasn’t fair.  The unfairness of it all got to me.  I eventually became obsessed with voting rights and elections.  

Why voting rights?

• Because voting rights are the basis of all our other rights. 

• Because when we vote we can overcome fear, hatred, and narrow self-interest.

• Because democracy needs us to tend to it.    

• Because voting is power.  

Activism came to me because I could not look away.  I started to feel responsible, not for fixing things, but for doing my part.  One of my mentors likes to paraphrase a quote from the Methodist Minister, Colin Morris, to the effect of:  “Pick up the near edge of some great problem, and act at some sacrifice to yourself."  I have taken this to heart.  

It has been a journey.  I started out as a research psychologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and here I am, years later, a retired, everyday election activist.

I hope I’ve given you an idea of what to expect from these pages.  I know that as I write, I feel like I’m talking to you, and that you are ‘my people.’  I already feel as though you can see and hear me.  That is how personal it feels. I invite you to join me in this journey.