Paths forward
Legislative wins, climate action, free e-books & our community gathering
A smattering of links and notes that have helped me over the past few weeks, in case they’re also of help to you. Something else that might also help? Our community gathering tomorrow, Saturday 11/23! Scroll down for more info.
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Bright spots
We won many of the races where we sent our GOTV letters to: NY-18, NY-19, NY-22, OR-05, CA-47 and the AZ Senate seat. New York passed Prop 1 and ballot measures protecting human rights passed in six other states too. I’m celebrating these and other wins, because they matter.
On climate, specifically
I was on a call last week where an attendee reminded us that the red shift in U.S. politics doesn’t necessarily mean that voters rejected climate issues. Most voters likely weren’t even thinking about climate as a top issue, which means there is still room to move the needle.
Similarly,
reminds us that the U.S. is “a big country, and much of it is still in rational hands.” Wind, solar and battery manufacturing is already benefitting both Republican-led and Democratic-led states. Clean energy is now a job creator and economic booster; over the past four years, the price of solar and wind power power dropped below fossil fuels and, “as a result everything has begun to change”. That’s good news.
I’m reading Ayana Elizabeth Johnson’s book What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures, and she posted this perfect excerpt “What if we act as if we love the future?”
Here’s what I know: There are innumerable possible futures. I know that we each get some say in which future we’ll collectively have, and a chance to help build it. I know that every tenth of a degree of warming we prevent, every centimeter of sea level rise we avoid, every increasingly unnatural disaster we avert, every species we save, every bit of nature we protect and restore, matters. I know that our efforts add up, and that our fates are intertwined. Averting climate catastrophe, this is the work of our lifetimes. So, go where there is need and where your heart can find a home. And when it all feels too much, return to this simple guiding question: What if we act as if we love the future?
Some ideas for our next steps
First, Finding Steady Ground: strengthening our spirits to resist and thrive in these times:
To be in shape for the long haul, we have to get our minds and spirits ready, as well as jump into action.
When we’re in bad shape, our power is diminished — we’re less creative, more reactive, and less able to plan strategically. If we intend to stay active and effective in the world, we have a responsibility to tend to our spirits.
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Elizabeth Warren’s post-election plan:
I understand my assignment in the Senate, but we all have a part to play. During the first Trump administration, Democrats vigorously contested every special election and laid the groundwork to take back the House in the 2018 midterms, creating a powerful check on Trump and breaking the Republican trifecta. Whether it’s stepping up to run for office, supporting a neighbor’s campaign, or getting involved in an organization taking action, we all have to continue to make investments in our democracy—including in states that are passed over as “too red.” The political position we’re in is not permanent, and we have the power to make change if we fight for it.
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The time to look to your community is now.
This is the time to join your school board. To volunteer as a guardian at your nearest abortion clinic. To fight the shuttering of a community garden. To fight book bans and censorship in libraries. To get to work at your local food pantry. To volunteer at local LGBTQ organizations. To organize donations for migrant families in your nearest city. To read about down-ballot progressive candidates and volunteer for their campaigns. To BECOME a down-ballot progressive candidate.
If enough of us were to commit to thinking small, the change would be seismic.
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A seminal 10 ways to be prepared and grounded now that Trump has won, by Daniel Hunter for Waging Nonviolence.
All of us will benefit from actively organized nodes to help stabilize us. In a destabilized society, you need people who help ground you.
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Also, our beloved Haymarket Books is offering ten free e-books for getting free, through TODAY only. May I recommend Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit, and then all of the others too?
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I really appreciated this excerpt from a Working Families Party email:
Whenever you're ready, we will be here as your political home. Because if there is one thing that is clear from last week's results it is that we need a political voice that represents and fights for working-class voters of every race. And we believe WFP was built for this moment.
Now’s a good time to catch up on any WFP Mass Calls you might have missed. May I recommend Call #7? At around the 23 minute mark through the 33 minute mark, you can hear about strategies and vision for building a multiracial working class party over the next 25 years in both so-called “red” and “blue” states. It’s a powerful 10 minutes that filled me with hope for what we can accomplish together.
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And tomorrow is our community gathering at 3pm ET.
We’ll do some quick debriefing and processing and then launch into some journaling and reflection on what roles we can play going forward over the next weeks and years. I’ve gathered some great prompts and frameworks for us to look at, and there’s already a nice little group signed up. We’ll gather online, so no matter where you are you’re welcome to join.
At this moment, we need to gather to process what just happened, deepen our bonds for the challenges ahead, and orient ourselves to taking strategic action on the road ahead.
Join us in preparing to build resilient communities that can organize. Because there's so much worth fighting for.
