What To Do Now

A common scene:

Between work meetings, an unassuming chap takes a quick scan of the headlines. His brow furrows. His shoulders slump. His heart is now sinking like the Titanic.

And this mere mortal, so dismayed that today's headlines are in fact worse than yesterday's, does exactly what the powerful want: Nothing.

No, no. That's not quite true.

He does talk about the headlines in his next meetings. The people in the meetings respond with the terrible headlines they've read, which the unassuming chap hasn't yet seen.

Now everyone is very, very demoralized.

And that's really what the powerful want. As I heard someone once say, Demoralization is demobilization. My actions don't matter, why bother, no point, guess I'll go eat worms.

Enough of all that. Let the worms be. Democracy needs us.

Here's one highly impactful, highly overlooked action we (and that unassuming chap) can take.

Flex Thy Local Muscle
American democracy is a three-layer cake made up of federal, state, and local government. Just because the federal layer gets all the icing and attention doesn't mean the state and local levels are less important. In fact, we ignore them at our peril.

Today, let's zoom in on state legislators. Congress passed 1% of bills last session, so a wide wedge of policy impacting our lives gets made at the statehouse: gun control, reproductive rights, marriage equality, who's eligible for Medicaid, and so very much more.

Yet fewer than 20% of folks can even name their state legislator, and a lot of folks don't even vote in these state races. State Senators in Maine represent about 39,000 people, and in the last election - 2024, which was a Presidential election year, so the highest voter turnout elections typically get - only about 23,000 people voted in my state Senator's race.

In other Senate districts, it was 21,000 people, 20,000 people. And the numbers drop even lower during non-Presidential election years. So that means a little work on one of these state-level races can go a long way towards getting good folks elected.

And now - right now! - is a prime time to help state politicians who have tough elections coming up, whether this year or next.


How to Get Started

• Find out who your state House Rep or Senator are by clicking here; if you already know who they are, 1,000 points to you!
  
• See if you're politically aligned with either or both.
  
• Reach out to one you're aligned with and ask if there are politicians in their caucus with tough re-elections that you could start helping now. It could even be your own state legislators!
  

When emailing about campaign stuff, don't use politicians' government email, i.e. ends with .gov. Root around to find their campaign emails, since most policymakers can't use government email to talk about election-y stuff.

• If you aren't aligned with either your state Rep or Senator, reach out to the state party you are aligned with and ask for names of politicians who have tough re-elects.

How to Help

I always ask the politician what help would be most useful, and help can look like a few things.

• Post about their good work on social media (the politician can tell you about particular bills/votes/actions they want highlighted).
  
• Write a letter to the editor in the politician's local paper highlighting how they're serving their constituents. If you don't live in their district, recruit a friend who does and help them write the letter.
  
• Register voters in their district.
  
• Invite a creative crew over to start making some fun yard signs or flyers.

Much local campaigning happens on a shoestring budget at the 11th hour. This kind of early work can go a long way towards increasing a politician's name recognition (a decisive factor in local races) and building a politician's base of support, which can give them a real edge in a competitive race.

Let's return to our unassuming chap checking the headlines between meetings. But now, he's gotten plugged into a competitive state race, he's got pals coming over for beers and making yard signs this Sunday afternoon.

Between meetings, he checks his phone and sees a group text filled with demoralized folks. Instead of adding other headlines to bring the mood down even more, he invites them to join him for beers and yard signs. Or to host their own beers and yard signs event for another vulnerable candidate.

And rather than the powerful getting demoralized and demobilized people, we people build our own power by becoming re-moralized and re-mobilized.