As people who believe in democracy, which means we believe in one another, we will be called on to make hard choices in coming months. I wish there was an easy answer.
“Hang in there girls, we’re going to be okay.” That’s what I told my three daughters on our last family call. Then we all stayed silent for a minute because deep down, we all know things may get a lot worse before they get better.
My girls and I hold these family calls every week by video. That’s the only way we can be together most days, since I spend a lot of time on the road in my work for People’s Action, meeting with grassroots organizers and organizations.
We’ve come a long way since I first came to this country on foot in the 1980s. Back then, I was twelve and was fleeing a US-funded civil war in El Salvador which had torn my family, like many families, apart. My hope and determination was to be reunited with my own sisters and rebuild our lives, together, in peace.
We did build new lives, in Kansas, where all three of my daughters were born. I’ve now watched them all grow up and flourish, go to college, and start families on their own. That’s why in the midst of all our frustrations - rising prices and rents, and how hard it is to get ahead, no matter how hard you try - every one of these calls is filled with big and little joys, which fill my heart to the brim.
Yet now when we speak, there’s a growing sense that things are not ok. We’ve seen masked men take friends and neighbors - who follow all the rules and have never committed a single crime - away from their families, with no explanation or excuse. Our government is silencing the press, and threatening anyone who dares disagree with them.
This is not normal. This is not the American dream, or the democracy we deserve. This is the kind of cruelty we thought we’d left behind when we came to this country, with its laws, schools and institutions. Yet every day feels like drinking from a fire hose of bad news, and just when you think it can’t get any worse than the day before, it does.
Since this administration took over, we have seen:
- Tax cuts of more than $3 trillion for the ultra-rich
- Cuts of more than $1 trillion to lifesaving health care, food and housing
- The illegal and indefinite detention of both citizens and immigrants
- The military occupation of major cities
- Threats to the media and journalists
- Threats to foundations and other nonprofit organizations
According to experts who study authoritarianism, democracy in the United States has declined at an unprecedented pace. According to author M. Gessen, who lived in Moscow for many years, it took Vladimir Putin a decade to do as much harm to democracy as Trump has done in the last nine months.
Now Trump has set his sights on overturning the midterm elections before a single vote is cast. He is ordering officials to redraw voting maps to ensure permanent majorities for Republicans, firing election watchdogs, appointing loyalists to oversee vote-counting, and issuing executive orders to suppress voting.
In a normal democracy, people have the power to elect and unelect those who can govern us. But these are not normal times, and the pillars and norms we have counted on to make the will of the people prevail are quickly being dismantled right in front of our very own eyes. Our ability to exercise our right vote is under attack.
“What more can we do?” my girls ask. I know many of us are asking the same question.
We cannot ignore the terrible things we increasingly see around us everyday, it’s hard not to feel scared and powerless. And yet, I have hope.
I have hope for, and because, of my daughters. I believe in people. I believe that the same resilience which brought this country through a civil war to end slavery and has, over the years, expanded rights and freedoms, will ultimately prevail.
I also believe the resilience I see in my own family - which has made us stronger against all odds, as we have overcome struggles to achieve our own portion of freedom, exists in many hearts and many families. We can prevail, if we stand together.
The coming months will test us as never before. As people who believe in democracy, which means we believe in one other, we will be called on to make hard choices.
I wish there was an easy answer. I wish protesting in the streets was enough, I wish cancelling our favorite subscription, or ceasing to shop in our favorite retail store, was enough to shake us out of this madness and back into our senses. The truth is, it will take all of that and more.
For organizers, it will mean we must write a new playbook for how we organize, if we are going to have any chance at stopping the full consolidation of power. What has worked in the past may not work in the future. So we have to admit that the old rules no longer apply, and find the creativity to create new alliances with the strength to overcome this dark moment.
We will all need to leave our comfort zones to do things we’ve never done before. We must talk with people who may not think or look like us, even when it is not easy, comfortable or without consequences.
We must remember that the majority of people aren’t waiting for a politician to save them - they’ve lost faith in institutions and most days don’t even know who to trust. The way we win people back is to listen, to build from the bottom up and we stop pretending we have all the answers. Because people are more than talking points or an empty set of tactics. Organizers who listen with their hearts and trust their instincts will get this.
We are waiting for one another. We can do this. Last month, I shared a story about a rider and a horse (link) - that no matter how powerful a rider may feel when he’s holding a whip, it’s always the horse who decides how long he stays in the saddle.
I do think we will, ultimately, be ok. In the meantime, I fight like hell every day with the hope that it will be okay. I find encouragement in the company of all those who realize that to get there, it will take the best in all of us. And until then, as historian Heather Cox Richardson reminds us, “When it’s all over, the good guys win. And if they still haven’t won, it means that it’s still not over.”
