Adults Put in the Work
by Don Hall
Let's be amazingly reductionist for a moment.
There are 100 people.
25 of them voted for Trump and the existing Republican Party.
27 voted for Hillary (but only 18 of them wanted her as the candidate...)
2 voted for candidates outside of the two-party system.
10 couldn't vote (mostly through voter obstruction.)
36 simply didn't vote at all.
What are the potential strategies to moving in a direction perhaps less poised for complete and utter disaster under a continued regime of GOP controlled governance?
A) Spend approximately 75% of the time castigating the 25 people for being stupid and morally bankrupt because being right is ultimately more important than being on the winning side of history.
B) Piss and moan endlessly about how awful we feel about Trump, the anxiety it causes us, the injustice of it all, the inconceivable ignorance of our moral compass by those 25 people, and spend the few brain cells we have left after working our jobs, going to shows, Facebook surfing, sleeping, drinking, paying bills, watching Netflix and navigating our relationships to figure out ways we can get him impeached.
C) Double down on our own tragedy porn victimization, bemoan our fate as marginalized people in an unjust society, and ostracize anyone not in complete and goose-stepping allegiance to our ideology.
D) Work to find ways to do away with the obstruction of at least 8 of the 10 to add to the 27, construct persuasive arguments to convince maybe 20 of the 38 to vote in the first place, do the slow, hard work of presenting a more inclusive vision of what America can be and doing the slow, thankless work of getting that vision achieved.
We seem to want the people who disagree with our perspective to believe as we do.
Personally, I don't give a shit if you believe in man-made climate change. I just don't want your belief to infringe on my right to breathe. If breathing is as important as I think it is, your belief means fuckall to me. It means nothing to me if you ignore the science; hell, I ignore the mandates of the first whole book of your religion.
With that in mind, given the current state of our democracy, it is up to me to come up with a compelling argument for you that does two things: convinces you that the actions that retard climate change are in your interests and avoids the condescension of the self righteous. It is also completely my duty to do whatever I can to flip the balance of the democracy to reflect my hope for a better future. If those 36 people who chose to sit out the election are in my camp and then I need to convince the balance of them to vote my way in the next set of elections - not merely the big national ones but the smaller state and municipal elections as well.
Yeah - that kind of effort isn't sexy and certainly doesn't feel as good as throwing tantrums and calling names but I'm a fucking adult and adults put in the work necessary.
