Reclaiming Our Hope

How
do we
counter political demoralization among those who had such high hopes for
the
American political process just over a year ago? It helped to finally
pass the
healthcare reform bill--Democratic Party donations have surged since the
vote.
But we're still facing dashed hopes (including those due to the bill's
more
mixed aspects); exhaustion from eight years of Bush; the dispiriting
legacy of
the Massachusetts, New
Jersey and Virginia
elections; and the disastrous Supreme Court campaign finance decision.
Even
before all these last, too many long-time activists spent much of the
past year
withdrawing from the fray. Too many newer ones quit before they barely
began.
We need to reverse this process of withdrawal.

The 1994 midterm elections offer a cautionary
tale. Long-time activist
friends seemed strangely detached, so disgusted with the Party-driven
political
sphere--particularly after the passage of NAFTA--that they wanted
nothing to do
with it. Other labor, environmental, and social justice activists
responded
similarly. Instead of volunteering, as they'd done to elect Bill
Clinton, they
watched as disgruntled spectators while the Gingrich Republicans
prevailed.
According to national surveys, the 45 percent of registered voters who
stayed
home would have reversed the electoral outcome had they only gone to the
polls.
But no one reached out to them directly, just as far too few approached
their
counterparts after recent Democratic defeats.

If
we
want to prevent a similar dynamic from happening this fall, we might
remember
how demoralization and withdrawal create self-reinforcing cycles. We
decide
that little we do will matter, so withdraw our energy, time and money.
Though
we may still sign the occasional online petition, we stop reaching out
to the
unconverted, stop rallying publicly to voice our stands, detach
ourselves from
situations in which we actually engage our fellow citizens. No wonder we
then
feel helpless.

Face-to-face
community
can be an antidote. If we just hunker down behind our computers,
reading the daily bad news, it's easy to feel isolated. When we work
directly
with others, even if the challenges are great, we're supported by their
imagination and energy, their living, breathing presence, the
possibilities of
common action. We can start to create this sense of a community in
pursuit of a
common goal online, but once we meet offline, our connections become far
stronger. Even successful virtual activism often builds on more personal
connections. In 2006, 100,000 MoveOn volunteers called voters in key
swing
states. Follow-ups suggested these efforts made a significant
difference, but
only three percent of the organization's three million members
participated.
Two years later, MoveOn got a fifth of its list involved through a
massive
phone bank where members invited other members to participate.

It
also
helps to find concrete tasks. People feel bleakest when they feel
there's
nothing they can do, but that's never actually the case. Even in when
imprisoned in Robben
Island, Nelson Mandela
and his compatriots retrieved forbidden letters and notes wrapped in
plastic at
the bottom of their food drums. They then copied the inspiring stories
on
scraps of toilet paper and taped them inside the rim of their toilet
bowls.
Republican obstructionism and Democratic compromises may be infuriating,
but
they hardly equal living under a dictatorship. If we can reach out to
the now
more dispirited legions who carried Obama to victory and give them ways
to act
between now and November, we have a chance to shift America's political
dynamics, and build on the victories we've begin to win: covering 30
million
people with health care, making college far more affordable, a recent
EPA
ruling that may well put an end to the coal companies' hideously
destructive
mountain top removal. But further progress won't happen by simply
lamenting the
bad news, wishing Congress had passed something better, or being
satisfied with
what we've gained so far.

The
more
we can cross expected political boundaries, the stronger the impact of
our
actions. In the spring of 2006, net neutrality--the principle that all
Internet
traffic should be treated equally--seemed doomed. The House passed a
bill that
would have effectively ended it. The Senate was expected to follow suit.
Then
the cofounder of MoveOn met the Christian Coalition's communications
director
at a retreat aimed at bridging political lines. They became friends,
then
joined to help save net neutrality with a joint New York Times ad and joint press
conference at which they
presented over a million signatures in support of net neutrality. They
played a
critical role in keeping the Internet as a commons open to all. We might
build
similarly unexpected coalitions with some of the more populist elements
of the
Tea Party movement, particularly around curtailing Wall Street.

We
can
take heart from remembering that when we do get people involved, or keep
them
involved, we never know where they'll end up. Nobel Peace prize winner
Wangari
Maathai recalled the pivotal role of social justice conversations at the
small
Catholic college she attended in Kansas,
and how they helped set her on her path. Similarly, while canvassing a
white
working class Chicago
neighborhood, a friend of mine once knocked on the door of a local woman
who
complained how a nearby body shop was always blocking the alley with
junked-up
cars. He helped get her to take her first stand, and she went on to
become one
of the city's most influential neighborhood voices. Who knows what the
young
(and not so young) Obama activists might go on to accomplish, if we just
can
get them reengaged.

We
need
to avoid the trap of purism. It may leave us feeling righteous, but it
ducks
the key question: how to create change within our actual historical
context
while working to shift the horizon of what's deemed politically
possible. Think
of how Kennedy and Johnson worked to put brakes on the civil rights
movement
for fear of shattering the Democratic coalition, with LBJ twisting the
arms of
Martin Luther King and Walter Reuther to oppose seating the integrated
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegation at the 1964 Atlantic
City
Convention. Only after the movement continued to push did Johnson muster
all
his political capital and skill to help to pass the Civil Rights and
Voting
Rights acts--a model on how we might continue to push to build on the
partial
changes we've won. The activists who created this shift didn't demonize
Johnson. They just continued to speak out for their most compelling
vision of justice,
until America's
political culture shifted and Johnson took the risk of embracing their
cause.
We need to create equivalent public pressure in our time, and dismissing
Obama
as The Great Betrayer doesn't help.

Finally,
it
helps to recognize the unpredictability of our common future. There's
no
inevitable historical pendulum, but when people take the risks needed to
create
what Mandela has called "the multiplication of courage," we never
know what new possibilities will open up. Not all moments of promise are
realized, but we'd do well to view the future as at least partly
contingent on
our actions, as it has been so often in the past.

It's
been
a frustrating time since November 2008, but our challenge is to spend
less time
bemoaning our disappointments and more energy engaging with ordinary
citizens
the way so many of us did a year and a half ago. If we give people
enough ways
to act on our present crises, we never know how history might turn.

This was originally posted
on
TheNation.com