Something to remember, as the election approaches:
The work is never wasted.
Even if the Republicans keep control of Congress–yes, that would be terrible, yes, I would be furious and frustrated and sad and it would hurt like hell–EVEN SO: the work we have done to get here was not wasted.
I was part of the previous “biggest worldwide protest ever,” the global protests against the Iraq War in February 2003.
We lost. The war happened. Is still happening.
But some of the people who got involved then worked for Obama’s campaigns, a lot of them are part of the resistance now, and all of us learned something. The work was not wasted.
Even if we lose. There were Democratic primary debates in my hometown for the first time I can remember. Even if our terrible Republican Congresswoman gets re-elected, there’s still a broader and stronger Democratic Party organization in Mike Fucking Pence’s home state.
The election can’t be an end. It will only be an end if we win and get complacent, or if we lose and give in to hopelessness. We cannot afford either. We do the job that is in front of us. No matter what.
The work is never wasted.
The stories our world tells us are about Great Heroic Struggles With Triumphant Climaxes In Which Good Vanquishes Evil And They All Live Happily Ever After. It’s all about the one extreme emergency during which people rise to the occasion. Problem is, that’s not how the world actually … works. That’s not how change happens. That’s not how societies are reshaped. We hear about MLK and the bus boycott and the protests, but not the DECADES OF WORK that came before, the organizing and the education and the legal challenges and the hundreds of thousands of people, from great heroes to ordinary people, who put in the grinding every-day work to make the world a better place, step by step, bit by bit. The big things–the speeches, the marches–were the tip of the iceberg. Nothing would have happened without the rest of the iceberg. The 2018 midterms are the tip of the iceberg. They are incredibly important, yes. But without the rest of the iceberg, they mean nothing. Without ordinary people across America organizing and talking to their friends and coworkers and paying attention to politics and getting involved and volunteering (not just politically, but for all the nonprofits out there working to make the world a better, fairer, more just, more merciful place) the election is useless. This is not a sprint. It is a relay marathon. If you can run a major leg, awesome. If you can help organize the marathon, awesome. If you can coordinate the people running, awesome. If you can hand out bottled water along the route, awesome. If you can cheer along the way, awesome. If you can remind people that the marathon is happening, awesome. It’s not about great heroes or one person doing it all or one climactic battle in which everything magically gets fixed. It’s about ordinary people doing what they can. What you can do right now is vote. What you do on November 7 and the months and years following (no matter who wins the election) is stay involved and stay working. Take care of yourself. Take care of others. Don’t hyperfixate and burn out. Be the tortoise, not the hare. Vote. And then keep moving on.
