Hope in the Time of Caucusing
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| Photo by Diego Cambiaso / Creative Commons CC BY-SA 2.0 |
MONDAY WILL MARK THE FIRST TIME I've voted in a caucus, and the first time I’ve attended a caucus since I attended my small town’s Republican caucus back in 2000. Meeting in the elementary library, the seventeen-year-old version of me managed to rally enough people to put Steve Forbes solidly into second place in my precinct (which required like seven people).
Times are a lot different now. It’s a scary era in America, a time when cruelty, ignorance, and love of power are not only accepted, but proudly worn as badges of honor. Our leaders make no attempt to pretend they aren’t self-interested and self-dealing. They scoff at the notion that they should be forced to pay attention to constituents. Meanwhile, those with fortunes their grandparents would have been ashamed of feel no qualms about using their money to elect people who will protect their wealth, at the expense of those less fortunate.
Our country has been at war for half of my life, millions of Americans have little or no access to healthcare, those that have insurance pay small fortunes for insufficient coverage, and American leaders have tragically averted their eyes away when faced with the unflinching reality that we are destroying our planet.
We’ve also stopped valuing kindness. If you’re kind, you’re viewed as a chump, a doofus, somebody who doesn’t realize kindness doesn’t matter anymore. I beg to differ.
I’m not going to tell you who I’m voting for. I’m going to tell you what I’m voting for, and what I’m not voting for.
1. I’m voting for empowerment. I’m not voting for happy wishes. I’m voting for hard work. Most of our major problems won’t be solved with half-measures. Half-measures won’t fix the climate, just like the Affordable Care Act couldn’t fix the healthcare problem. When the status quo is injustice, half-measures are unjust. To be honest, I sometimes get scared, worrying that there aren’t enough Americans ready to support the kinds of changes that would be necessary to make our society a land of true freedom and justice. But if that’s the case, I’d rather lose fighting for the right things than lose fighting for half-measures.
2. I’m voting for true electability. There’s a popular notion that Americans won’t vote for someone considered to be on the “far” flank of his or her ideological group. That’s certainly what most people believed at the start of 2016, when President Trump was ridiculed for putting forth proposals that most mainstream, relatively “moderate” Republicans wrote off as non-starters. When Trump won, the conventional wisdom was that this was a singular event, something only Trump could do. But I think the truth is that voters want to be inspired. They would rather be inspired -- even in a negative direction -- than be frustrated by politicians who offer nothing more than the Washington status quo that got them so angry in the first place. I want to vote for a candidate who can inspire a movement. Most candidates in the field can’t do that.
3. I’m voting for pragmatism. Not DC “pragmatism,” but scientific pragmatism. Science says we must make major changes in order to limit the impact of manmade climate change. Making minor changes might be politically “realistic,” but it’s certainly not scientifically pragmatic. Once I saw an ad from a presidential candidate who argued for an incremental climate policy, because, the candidate said, a plan that cuts emissions by 50% but doesn’t pass Congress would end up cutting emissions by 0%. That’s a cute saying. The thing is, we’re past the point where minor improvements can solve the problem. Thus, a candidate who promotes a plan full of half-measures needn’t bother if the implementation of that plan won’t change the trajectory we’re on.
4. I’m voting for my kids. My children are five and two years old. I spend my weekdays in classrooms full of thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds. They have been failed by their forebears. The World War II generation is often referred to as “The Greatest Generation,” because they were willing to put their comforts and their lives on the line to fight for freedom. Since then, we’ve become inexcusably complacent. We’ve acted as if freedom and justice and equality were faits accomplis, rather than ongoing struggles. I don’t know if we can fix things, if we can turn things around for our kids. I think there’s a great likelihood that our children will face extreme hardship by the time they become adults, the kind I have never had to experience. I’m not willing to accept that without a fight.
A “return to normalcy” is not going to be on the ballot this month, and it’s not going to be on the ballot in November. This is not a normal time and it’s not a normal election. As James Baldwin said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” We are in the midst of a battle for the soul of this country and for the survival of this planet. The battle’s been going on for years, and we’re losing. Badly. There’s no scenario in which the next few decades won’t be difficult, and won’t require hard, grueling work. But that’s not to say we must give up hope. I believe our best chance of making significant strides over the next four years is to choose a candidate willing to take bold steps and capable of rallying the American people behind values of freedom, justice, and empowerment. Our goal must be to transform this country, and that task is made easier when we vote for transformational leaders.
Times are a lot different now. It’s a scary era in America, a time when cruelty, ignorance, and love of power are not only accepted, but proudly worn as badges of honor. Our leaders make no attempt to pretend they aren’t self-interested and self-dealing. They scoff at the notion that they should be forced to pay attention to constituents. Meanwhile, those with fortunes their grandparents would have been ashamed of feel no qualms about using their money to elect people who will protect their wealth, at the expense of those less fortunate.
Our country has been at war for half of my life, millions of Americans have little or no access to healthcare, those that have insurance pay small fortunes for insufficient coverage, and American leaders have tragically averted their eyes away when faced with the unflinching reality that we are destroying our planet.
We’ve also stopped valuing kindness. If you’re kind, you’re viewed as a chump, a doofus, somebody who doesn’t realize kindness doesn’t matter anymore. I beg to differ.
I’m not going to tell you who I’m voting for. I’m going to tell you what I’m voting for, and what I’m not voting for.
1. I’m voting for empowerment. I’m not voting for happy wishes. I’m voting for hard work. Most of our major problems won’t be solved with half-measures. Half-measures won’t fix the climate, just like the Affordable Care Act couldn’t fix the healthcare problem. When the status quo is injustice, half-measures are unjust. To be honest, I sometimes get scared, worrying that there aren’t enough Americans ready to support the kinds of changes that would be necessary to make our society a land of true freedom and justice. But if that’s the case, I’d rather lose fighting for the right things than lose fighting for half-measures.
2. I’m voting for true electability. There’s a popular notion that Americans won’t vote for someone considered to be on the “far” flank of his or her ideological group. That’s certainly what most people believed at the start of 2016, when President Trump was ridiculed for putting forth proposals that most mainstream, relatively “moderate” Republicans wrote off as non-starters. When Trump won, the conventional wisdom was that this was a singular event, something only Trump could do. But I think the truth is that voters want to be inspired. They would rather be inspired -- even in a negative direction -- than be frustrated by politicians who offer nothing more than the Washington status quo that got them so angry in the first place. I want to vote for a candidate who can inspire a movement. Most candidates in the field can’t do that.
3. I’m voting for pragmatism. Not DC “pragmatism,” but scientific pragmatism. Science says we must make major changes in order to limit the impact of manmade climate change. Making minor changes might be politically “realistic,” but it’s certainly not scientifically pragmatic. Once I saw an ad from a presidential candidate who argued for an incremental climate policy, because, the candidate said, a plan that cuts emissions by 50% but doesn’t pass Congress would end up cutting emissions by 0%. That’s a cute saying. The thing is, we’re past the point where minor improvements can solve the problem. Thus, a candidate who promotes a plan full of half-measures needn’t bother if the implementation of that plan won’t change the trajectory we’re on.
4. I’m voting for my kids. My children are five and two years old. I spend my weekdays in classrooms full of thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds. They have been failed by their forebears. The World War II generation is often referred to as “The Greatest Generation,” because they were willing to put their comforts and their lives on the line to fight for freedom. Since then, we’ve become inexcusably complacent. We’ve acted as if freedom and justice and equality were faits accomplis, rather than ongoing struggles. I don’t know if we can fix things, if we can turn things around for our kids. I think there’s a great likelihood that our children will face extreme hardship by the time they become adults, the kind I have never had to experience. I’m not willing to accept that without a fight.
A “return to normalcy” is not going to be on the ballot this month, and it’s not going to be on the ballot in November. This is not a normal time and it’s not a normal election. As James Baldwin said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” We are in the midst of a battle for the soul of this country and for the survival of this planet. The battle’s been going on for years, and we’re losing. Badly. There’s no scenario in which the next few decades won’t be difficult, and won’t require hard, grueling work. But that’s not to say we must give up hope. I believe our best chance of making significant strides over the next four years is to choose a candidate willing to take bold steps and capable of rallying the American people behind values of freedom, justice, and empowerment. Our goal must be to transform this country, and that task is made easier when we vote for transformational leaders.
