Dear Friend:
I know you were horrified when Trump got elected. You follow the news and feel angry about the state of the country. But are you doing anything to make sure the midterm elections turn out differently than 2016?
Dear Friend:
Remember the way you felt on November 9, 2016? There’s something concrete you can do with that rage, that fear, that helplessness, and that’s why I’m writing you today.
It’s been a hellish two years for too many, and even more so for people from marginalized communities. Millions of our friends, family members, and community members elected a despicable man, and since then it’s been a rapid descent into chaos. From dismantling our health care piece by piece, to accelerating the decay of our natural environment, to mocking, well, everyone who isn’t him, and perhaps most heinously, locking children in cages for days, it’s not controversial to call this is one of the darkest points in our history.
Then there are the lies: big and small; consequential and trivial; personal and political. His daily attempts at undermining what we know to be true has made it impossible to engage with people with other political views because we end up arguing while rooted in two different universes — one real, one perceived. Every political conversation is injected with deep frustration, stemming from our inability to make them see that we want to uplift the many, and the Republicans strive to uplift the few. It can be enough to make you throw your hands up, retreat to the status quo, and pretend everything will work itself out because it always does, right?
No, friend. It won’t.
After spending the last 2+ years hanging on every bit of political news and letting it absorb into my DNA, I feel confident in saying it is not going to be ok. That is, it’s not going to be ok if you leave the work to other people.
This isn’t just a fight for American values — it’s a fight for American People: the teachers and the social workers and the nurses and the artists and the farmers and the restaurant servers and the writers and the domestic workers and the auto mechanics and the civil servants. Each and every one of us deserves peace of mind and the tools to succeed. And that begins with elections.
In elementary school, you were taught that we live in a Democracy. “Every voice counts,” your teacher might’ve said. But she didn’t mean that the government is going to pay attention to your voice whenever you raise it. Your vote is your voice. Knocking on doors to tell your community about the candidates who will fight for racial, gender, income, employment and LGBTQ+ equality is your voice. Sending letters to undecided voters is your voice. Your voice is so much louder than you know. And it’s time to join the chorus.
We have mere days until November 6, 2018 — a milestone that’s been looming since the moment we began this dark chapter — and you can decide how to use this precious time. I fully recognize it’s not easy. You may work long and unpredictable hours, have personal commitments that leave you with little free time, or you’re simply scared to get involved in the legwork of elections, quite possibly for the first time, because if YOU’RE forced to get involved in the political process, then there must be something really wrong.
No, that means there’s something right.
For far too long, we (me included) assumed that elected officials and career activists would do the heavy lifting while we tried to get by as best we could. That was a mistake. And one we can fix. Right now.
That’s why I’m asking — imploring, really — you to do something.
Make a plan to knock some doors or make calls on behalf of a candidate.
Send texts for a candidate.
Write a few letters.
Help everyone in your inner circle register to vote or check their voter registration status.
Help them create a plan for getting to the polls on Election Day.
These small radical acts will change the course of history. And no, this is not hyperbolic.
But above all, I want you to care. I want the outcome in November to keep you up at night. I want you to feel the gravity of what’s at stake. I want the horror that coursed through your veins on January 20, 2017 to be present.
It’s time to do something. Do it now.
~Marisa
