A Few Quick Actions for a Better Country
One morning, a friend and I were walking our dogs in the park. On the path up ahead, there was a woman holding a tangle of something in her hands. As she got closer, I saw it was a bunch of bittersweet, a super invasive that strangles trees to death and is such a speedy grower, it could take pole position at the Monaco Grand Prix.
So terrific! I called out to her, pointing at the chopped up bittersweet.
Just doing a little bit every day, she said, snapping her clippers with a grin.
When studying awe, researcher Dacher Keltner made an interesting discovery. People could feel awe from their faith, being in nature, seeing great art. But what most commonly generated awe in people around the world was “other people’s courage, kindness, strength, or overcoming,” he wrote in his book named - wait for it - Awe.
One warm October evening, I was down in Cambridge moderating a City Council candidate forum, when one of the candidates said something I’d like plastered on every billboard:
Very few people vote in non-presidential elections.
Take New York City. Turnout in the 2024 presidential election was 54%; turnout in the 2021 mayoral election was 23% (though I suspect it will get a Mamdani/Cuomo bump this year because of the race’s high visibility).
It’s not just the Big Apple. In Houston, turnout for the 2024 presidential election was 58%; it was a blink-and-you-miss-it 17% for the 2023 mayoral election. In LA, turnout was so low in the 2017 election, the City Council offered cash prizes to vote.
So who is this rare and elusive off-year election voter?
They tend to be white, more affluent, and north of 65. Which is not necessarily representative of their town or state. But simply by voting, they get outsized say in the future of their town or state.
Voter turnout is one mark of a healthy democracy. And we’ve got an unwell patient. But there’s a lot we can do, without too much effort, to get the blood circulating.
Step One
We’ve all got an election this Tuesday, November 4th. If you don’t already know, find out what’s cooking on your ballot here.
Step Two
Invite 3-5 friends to vote with you on November 4.
Step Three
If you’ve already voted, 1,000 points to your scoreboard! You could send a short, friendly email or text to 3-5 folks in your town with three bits of info:
- What’s on the ballot
- Where/when they can vote
- If you want, how you voted and why
If email/text doesn’t sing to you, post on your social platform of choice. I collaborated on a get out the vote social media campaign and folks posted the most awe-inspiring snaps/clips of them singing as they walked to their polling place, dancing as they dropped their ballots in the mailbox, talking with their kiddos about the power of voting.
Step Four - If you want to kick it up to the 201 level!
Find out what percentage of people in your town voted in the last off-year election; this is usually housed in the clerk's section of your city’s website or the Secretary of State’s website.
Then challenge folks to jack that percentage up. I did this for my town’s super off-year school budget election, and we helped bump up voter turnout from 2% to nearly 4%.
It’s small movement, but the bow’s pointed in the right direction.
We are rich in cynicism right now. And cynicism rarely births good change. Cynicism is one of the status quo’s best defenders.
But awe is a top notch antidote to cynicism. “He just blows all of our imaginations out of the water,” Mookie Betts said of teammate Shohei Ohtani’s awesome performance at Dodgers Stadium on October 18th. (Great read on that here.)
Lucky for the rest of us, imaginations need not be rocked solely by putting up Ohtani-esque stats. A woman in the park hacking away at bittersweet each day jumpstarted my awe. Or a friendly note inviting people to reinvigorate the health of our democracy by voting could do it, too.
So many people are looking for guidance on what to do in this moment. You could offer that.
It might feel like the odds are stacked against us these days. But I’ll give wild-man poet Charles Bukowski the last word on that: "We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us."
Here’s another way to be impactful: forward this newsletter to one or two friends you know are looking to make difference. That simple act of yours could inspire them to get out a few more votes in their communities, which all helps get our democracy off the sickbed and into a healthier place.