Everyday Election Activism

An Insider's Guide (#15) - March 6, 2025

Activists Needed!

That’s my takeaway from every news story.

Why are activists so important?

• Because activists are the public face of humanity. “Humanism is the only - I would go so far as saying the final - resistance we have against the inhuman practices and injustices that disfigure human history.” (Edward W. Said)

• Because activists are the ones who turn care into action. Many Americans are worried. They are alarmed. They are afraid. Activists feel all of that too, and we turn those feelings into acts of resistance and build our power for overturning Project 2025.

• Because activists look at problems and see solutions. The most successful people in life are the problem-solvers. Activists are the problem-solvers for our country’s woes.

• Because activism fuels the resistance. Elected leaders never take big action without a push from below. From the grassroots. That’s us!

• Because activists are more numerous than any other political force in the United States. That gives us an outsized role and responsibility for turning our country around.

The Great American Conversation

Everything we do aims at creating the Great American Conversation. With actions, words, and sometimes music and art, we engage Americans in a conversation about what matters and what kind of country we want. We offer an alternative to the treasonous narrative of the right wing and develop creative ways to reach beyond the choir. This is how we create change.

Activists cannot change our government by ourselves, but a small proportion of Americans can be the spark that makes change happen.

"Nonviolent protests are twice as likely to succeed as armed conflicts – and those engaging a threshold of 3.5% of the population have never failed to bring about change." (BBC, 2019, summarizing the research findings of Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist at Harvard University)

Our work is already paying off - the movement is growing by leaps and bounds. Do not let yourself get discouraged! Our local Bull City Indivisible group, founded in November and initially drawing about forty people to each meeting, now draws between two and three hundred people every two weeks for an in-person meeting. Wow! Once our movement reaches the tipping point, we will start to feel our power. With that power, we can and will prevail. I believe we will get there!

This is What Our Movement Looks Like

Calls to action fall roughly into four buckets.

Bucket # 1: Contacting our elected officials. We call members of Congress and state-level officials, we write them, we meet with them, and we ask hard questions at town halls. Our efforts upset the routines of elected officials and force them to defend their actions (or inaction). We express our anger and lay out our opposition to the Republican agenda. We aim to give members on both sides of the aisle the backbone to stand up to our so-called President.

Bucket #2: Organizing protests and rallies. We are making news with our protests. We are calling attention to Musk’s role in dismantling of government, to the abandonment of Ukraine, and to how the administration is lying to us while letting billionaires steal from the rest of us. (My current favorite protest sign: “The only minority destroying this country are the billionaires.”)

Bucket #3: Using social media and other online news sources to amplify our voices and sway public opinion. We have learned the hard way that pro-democracy messages need to reach a broader swath of Americans than they have in the past. We post on social media to let people know what is going on and to counter the lies coming at them from other sources. We show them what it means to protect our freedoms and advance our rights.

Bucket #4: Voter outreach. We bring voters into civic engagement. We want to empower voters unhappy with Project 2025 to get involved and commit to casting their ballots for Democrats. Election work channels our anger into building for the future so that we can vote out Republicans and begin the repair to our tattered country.

The Lonelier 🥺 Fourth Bucket of the Great American Conversation

Most activists right now are busy with the first three buckets - fueling the resistance and building the opposition. That is important work! We create pressure on the MAGA agenda. We cut through people’s isolation and fear. We motivate more people to join us. Let's keep doing this work!

But then there is the fourth bucket! Working on elections seems to be lowest priority so far this year. It shouldn't be this way. There are plenty of electoral calls for action across the country.

Think of voter engagement as another part of the Great American Conversation. Let us expand our view of voter outreach from the traditional approach of talking only about voting.

• Let's talk to voters about what is going on in the country.

• Let's show them how we can stand strong together.

• Let's help them get organized now so that in the coming elections we can vote the bastards out!

Those are conversation we all need to be having and the kind of support that all voters need to hear!

Reaching out to voters at this point in time has the same goal as the first three buckets. To permanently disable Project 2025, we need to inspire people to vote, and vote for Democrats. Voting remains the endpoint and the only reliable mechanism in a democracy for changing laws and policies (and revoking executive orders). The path to democracy runs through voters.

Even if Project 2025 falls on its face, even if a large majority of Americans agree with our point of view, it does not translate automatically into election wins. This may be one of the most misunderstood (and sad) features of our democracy. People do not turn out in large numbers without personalized voter outreach. People who feel marginalized by the political system need to be invited to vote, and then supported in navigating the system.

So why does talking with voters and working on elections seem to be low on people's priority list these days?

• On an emotional level, it makes sense. The dismay we feel as the news rolls in captures our attention. We want to stop the coup. We demand the restoration of everything MAGA is destroying. Barring that, we want to slow down the destruction, challenge it, and counter the deception with truth. We speak out to defend ourselves, our ideals, and the country we love. If we do not speak out, our silence will be taken as consent. Time spent working on elections means less energy for the battles at hand. Urgency prevails!

• Electoral work is out of sync with our feelings. Many of us did a lot of voter outreach last year, and Kamala Harris lost. Our efforts last year may feel like a failure, and we are discouraged. We forget that less than 50% of the electorate voted for our so-called President, and that in swing states where we worked the hardest, the margins of losing were minuscule and much smaller than in other parts of the country. A defeatist attitude is not warranted, but our losses from last year still color our attitude.

Our Views of the Democratic Party Color Our Activism

The biggest reason that fewer activists are turning to Bucket #4 may be that electoral work requires full-throated support for the Democratic Party, and many of us are ambivalent about the Party.

While some of us are gung-ho Democrats, others of us are less than enthusiastic. Many in our ranks are Unaffiliated voters who do not identify with the party at all, even though they vote for Democrats.

Nevertheless, for better or worse, we are stuck with our two-party system for the foreseeable future. Given the treasonous renunciation of democracy by the Republicans, we need to unite behind the Democratic Party. It is the only way to take control away from the emboldened MAGA movement.

We all understand that the Democratic brand is tainted. Democrats in Congress are particularly unpopular now with Americans. Recent polls show an overall 21% approval rate, and even among Democratic voters, only 40% voters approve. CNN reports that Democrats have their lowest favorability rating since 2006.

Historically, the Democratic Party talks the talk, but does not consistently walk the walk. It promotes values we admire: democracy, justice, human and civil rights, and a government that helps people thrive. It practices what it preaches some of the time, but it is overly influenced by deep-pocketed donors and it has a checkered history of support for everyday Americans, communities of color, and for oppressed people around the world.

Right now we are unhappy with the Democratic party because it seems pathetically unaware of how much potential power it wields and how much it is unthinkingly yielding to the Republicans! The Democratic Party should be wielding power, not yielding it!

No wonder so many activists feel hesitant about supporting the Democratic Party. We have been burned too many times. Even when Democratic leaders say the right words, they do not engender trust. I am a Democrat because I believe in the party’s professed values, and I only vote for Democrats, but I am not pleased when the party fails to stand up for its values with fierceness and steadfastness.

We need a Democratic Party that inspires, builds hope, and fortifies us with determination. But here's the thing: If we sit around waiting for the Democratic Party to change, if we hold back until a charismatic Democrat appears on the scene, it will be too late. We need to see ourselves as holding the power of the Democratic Party.

We Can Not Wait for the Democratic Party to Become the Party We Need!

We need to step up and be the Democratic Party. We are the Democratic Party! Not the Democrats in office, not even the fiercest of them, like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Jamie Raskin, AOC, Al Green, or Jasmine Crockett. Not the Democratic National Committee, and not our state or county Democratic Parties. To riff off of Gandhi’s famous directive to embody the change you want: Be the changed Democratic Party you want to see in the world!

How To Be the Democratic Party We Want

How do we embody the Democratic Party we need? By offering hope and solidarity. By being:

• Friends and neighbors who care

• Community members who look out for one another

• People outraged by the lack of civility and humanity in the Republican camp

• Voters who demand better for our country

Talking to the electorate shows you hold hope for the future. It shows you believe the monster of Project 2025 can be defeated. If you despair that future elections will be canceled or that they will be a sham, then surely we will not win. If fear keeps you from working on elections, then fear and Project 2025 have won. Voter outreach requires daring - daring greatly, as Theodore Roosevelt famously said. We will never win elections if we don’t dare to try!

Lessons from Conversations with Voters

Here’s some good news! It's not hard to dare. I have been a canvasser and phone banker for a number of years now, and it has never been easier. People are open to talking. Everyone knows what is going on, even if they say they are not political. People seem to be looking to us for hope and information. I have never enjoyed voter outreach as much as I do now.

In Durham we are canvassing in unorganized precincts, inviting Democrats to attend a precinct meeting so they can become official members of the Durham County Democratic Party. The neighborhoods we visit are mostly low income and predominantly Black.

• Lesson 1: If you want people to volunteer, don't wait for them to come to you. Reach out and invite them. It works for democracy, too!

People are friendly. We do not need to persuade or twist arms. There are plenty of people eager to attend a precinct meeting. One woman told me that she had lived in the neighborhood a long time and never been invited before. She signed up on the spot!

• Lesson 2: People will seek us out if we make ourselves visible!

People are curious. Last week a woman driving by stopped my canvassing partner and me to ask us what we were doing. It turned out she is an informal organizer in her neighborhood. She told us she would attend the precinct meeting, and also publicize information about it to the whole neighborhood.

It wasn't the only time people seeing us knocking on doors sought us out. My first time out this year a young woman wearing the skimpiest of tops shouted up to me from the parking lot when she saw me knocking at the door to her second floor apartment. I came down to talk with her and she charmed me. She was all in for coming to her precinct meeting. A few weeks afterwards in a different neighborhood, a man stopped his car as well. He was concerned about the new administration and eager to come to his precinct meeting.

• Lesson 3: We can demonstrate that Democrats make good neighbors!

Another canvasser told me how she helped a woman overcome barriers to participating in her precinct meeting. The woman who answered their knock was in her 80s and in a wheelchair. She wanted to attend the meeting but it was going to be online and she had never used Zoom. With her permission, the canvasser called the voter's daughter. The daughter agreed to help her mother and wanted to be involved with the precinct as well. A little bit of trust-building, a little on-the-spot problem-solving, and voila! Two people who otherwise would never have attended the meeting will be there.

A final story: A few weeks ago I canvassed together with a woman who embodies the care we want associated with the Democratic Party. When my fellow canvasser went 'off topic' and then continued off topic for 15 minutes while we stood outside on a front porch on a cold afternoon, I was surprised. Just as surprising, the woman who answered the door didn’t seem impatient or bothered by the cold, even though she was not wearing a coat.

We signed her up for her precinct meeting, but the conversation did not end there. We learned that she was living with and taking care of her mother, after moving back to NC a few years ago. My canvass partner revealed that she too had been a caregiver for her parents, but she did not focus on her own story. Instead she led with empathy, drawing out the voter about what it was like for her – the difficulties of living apart from her husband, the challenges of younger siblings who do not help out, and the ways she has found support from neighbors and her church. The ‘off-topic’ conversation was wonderful! A perfect example of getting to know our neighbors and strengthening the bonds of community.

Have you got the picture?

The fourth bucket, reaching out to the electorate, is as important as it is meaningful. It energizes us and the people we talk to. It helps build our movement in spaces and places that we would otherwise miss. Just as now is the moment to make our voices heard in public, it is also the moment to help other people become involved and make their voices heard. The time to Get Out the Vote will come later. Right now we need to bring everyone into the Great American Conversation, and voter outreach is part of our work.

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