Everyday Election Activism

An Insider's Guide (#14) - February 17, 2025

Hello friends,

Our country is facing an emergency, and the call has gone out: All hands on deck! People are responding, streaming onto the deck from all directions. Our activism gives us hope. It also gives us hope to know that we are not alone.

• We have allies. Lawyers are filing lawsuits and judges are granting stays on executive order after executive order. Impacted civil servants are speaking out, and some Democratic politicians are making noise along with us. A special shout out to the attorneys who have refused to dismiss corruption charges against Mayor Adams.

• Approval ratings for the new administration are plummeting, and pro-democracy activism is getting more recognition from the Democrat leadership (despite some kvetching) and from a range of commentators. Jay Kuo and Lucid are two of my recent favorites.

Our pro-democracy movement is maturing! Hard times force kids and movements to grow up fast. No time to bask in childhood or go through adolescent turmoil. We are building the plane as we are flying it, and there is no turning back.

A narrative of resistance is emerging that can not be denied. I hold great gratitude for those who are translating our goals into a coherent opposition strategy. Simon Rosenberg is helping us build that strategy, and a recent post by Antonia Scatton, How to Fight Back, gives us the bigger picture.

On the ground we are getting a glimpse of future political power in the receptivity to resistance among voters often written off as disengaged. Two examples of what I am seeing in North Carolina:

The first example is related to the fight against Jefferson Griffin’s legal challenge to 60,000 voters from the November election. Grassroots organizations Carolina Federation and Down Home NC, plus the NC and Durham County Democratic Parties, have been convening phone banks to reach out to impacted voters. I have participated in a number of them. (If you’d like to be part of the effort, click here for a list of current opportunities).

Many voters we reach are unaware their votes are being challenged. If you can engage them in conversation, they are interested and angry. Sometimes they interrupt to ask what they can do, and some of them - more than I expected - are willing to take a stand. We are finding people saying ‘yes’ to attending a rally, writing a Letter to the Editor, making a public statement, speaking to the press, and/or creating a 30-60 second video. These are not simple asks. It is encouraging.

A second example comes from my experience of canvassing neighborhoods that are not organized into a precinct structure. I have canvassed twice so far with the Durham Democrats, knocking on doors in low income Black neighborhoods, and inviting registered Democrats to attend a Precinct Kickoff event. Everyone my buddy and I talked to was friendly to us white canvassers and no one liked Trump, to put it mildly. We signed up six people the first time, and notched another four people the second time. Men and women, young and old. No arm twisting required. No need for persuasion. Other canvassers are having similar results.

What this tells us: The moment is ripe for engaging people. My bet is that this moment is going to be around for a while, as more and more people find out what the Republicans are up to and feel the impact.

Preparing for the Marathon

As you prepare yourself for the marathon, you may run into internal resistance, exhaustion, and discouragement. Welcome to the club! Even making daily calls to members of Congress is hard to sustain. Although it only takes a few minutes, it requires keeping up with the latest crisis and putting your thoughts together before calling. It is disheartening to know there is no end in sight.

It is more important than ever to take care of ourselves. I hope you have been getting this message from other sources as well. But self-care - pacing yourself, deciding how much and how often to read the news, tapping into the joy of being alive, leading a balanced life, and taking breaks - is only part of what is needed. In the end, we need to each figure out what it means for us to be an activist.

I recently joined an online writing community, The Writing Room, and signed up for an 8-week ‘book camp.’ My hope is to find support and wisdom from other writers. (I do a lot of writing in addition to this blog.) On the first night one of the facilitators asked us to jot down our thoughts in response to a set of questions, and to keep coming back to our answers over time when we needed them. I have rephrased a few of the questions here, preserving the spirit of them, because they are equally applicable to activism. Like writing, activism is a practice that needs cultivating and nurturing. It does not matter whether you are embarking for the first time or are a seasoned practitioner.

The first questions ask you to be clear about your purpose and develop your identity as an activist.

• What do I want to achieve?

• What is at stake if I do not follow through?

• What is the driving force inside me?

• How will activism change me?

• How will my activism benefit the future me?

The rest of the questions point you towards making activism a part of your life. Think in concrete terms how you will achieve this and anticipate the internal challenges you will encounter.

• What changes in daily routines will allow me to make activism a part of my life?

• What habits, distractions, and fears hold me back?

• When motivation drops, how will I respond? Whom or what will I turn to for support?

• What challenges do I anticipate and how can I prepare?

Talking with Friends, Acquaintances, and Anyone Else

As we figure out our role in the movement and coach ourselves on how to stay in the game, we still have to go on with our lives. Along the way we encounter a lot of upset family members, friends, and co-workers. It is easy to get caught up in their fear and their anxiety. After all, we feel those same feelings. It’s all too easy to enter their world of hopelessness. I know. I’ve been there.

How to talk with them? Here’s how not to! One morning last week, I was walking with a few of my women friends, when one of them started to review the latest outrages, bringing up fact after fact about the disasters that Musk is unfurling. I could feel myself falling into her hopeless/helpless place, and her words sent me into a rant about how strong the activist movement is becoming, how the majority of Americans do not like - or soon will come to dislike - how the government is stealing from us and threatening our lives and livelihoods, how there is power in taking action, that we can’t expect an immediate result, and so on. After a few minutes someone changed the subject, and we moved on, chatting happily about other topics.

When I got home I texted them an apology for my rant. To my surprise, I got back only expressions of gratitude. They said my words were helpful, that they needed the encouragement and the push to take action. I felt better: now those are good friends! But still… there are alternatives to rants!

I Do Not Recommend Rants

Quiet conversation and patience are better. I am finding that many of my non-activist friends are interested in what I am doing and why I think it’s useful, effective and important. I do not need to tell anyone what to do or how much to do. I would prefer to be seen as a source of encouragement and support. I want to share the hope and energy I have for this fight. When someone is open to that conversation, it deepens our relationship. In the process I am getting to know better friends at the periphery of my social networks and finding common ground with friends of friends.

Many in my circle of friends and acquaintances are already taking action alongside me, and more are joining every week. I see people I know popping up on zoom calls. Last week, a friend in another state spotted me on a national zoom call, and it has been so much fun to reconnect after losing touch for at least 25 years.

You may be experiencing this too - how good it feels to connect to friends (activist or non-activist or future activist!) around activism. I imagine many of you, like me, are also meeting new people as you start to take action, and connecting in new ways with people already in your networks.

When people tell me that they don’t speak out because it is pointless, I ask them:

• What would it feel like right now if no one was denouncing the illegal and immoral actions of the new administration? If all we heard were the Republicans and their spokespersons?

• Wouldn’t that silence feel eerie? Wouldn’t that feel creepy?

I leave these questions hanging.

Be Advocates for Democracy, but also Work on Voting Rights and Elections. Here are Some Opportunities!

I feel the need to speak out and to reach out to my elected officials. I attend an occasional rally or protest. For the most part, however, I am committing the majority of my activist energy towards reclaiming power. Some of my work is with the local Democratic Party, some is with grassroots organizations embedded in the communities they serve, and some of it is focused on building electoral power in other states.

To help others find opportunities to take action, I have re-launched Everyday Election Activism - The Opportunities. The byline is still, An opportunity for every mood! I keep the page updated at least weekly. It covers:

• Advocating with officials at the federal level

• Reaching out to voters in critical special elections across the country

• Actions to take in North Carolina (because that’s where I live!)

Many opportunities to participate are virtual, so you do not have to live in North Carolina to dip into that section of the Google Doc. Wherever you live, you can help us North Carolinians build our electorate, wrest power back from the Republican-led legislature, and most immediately, defend against the attempt to overthrow our recent NC Supreme Court election.

In the coming weeks I plan to add sections with Skill Building resources and information about groups fighting misinformation and lies.

You can find some of this information through Jessica Craven’s North Carolina page, Chop Wood, Carry North Carolina.

So, friends, onwards! As the Poor People’s Campaign reminds us: Forward Together, Not One Step Back!

Last Words

So here we are, all together in a big mess with a long road ahead of us. We are learning the hard way that democracy is fragile, and we must rethink what it means to be a citizen, with the responsibility to keep democracy going.

If we connect with one another and form a united front, we can take impactful action. And that is how we will prevail, and it is the only way.

Thank you for reading this, and welcome to our ever-growing community!

I leave the last words to others:

Lin Yutang: “When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set.” — Lin Yutang. To which novelist George Saunders responds: “Unless we, through firmness and creative action, oppose the small men and thereby keep the sun up there.”