The Grassroots Connector. . .

To Be Continued

From sea to shining sea, millions of us are asking the same questions.  How did it happen?  Is this America?  What the. . .?  And when our answers only pose more questions, we ask each other, “How are you holding up?”

Here at The Grassroots Connector, we’re holding up, sort of.  But after a week of shock, grief, and outrage, we are already making plans to move forward.  Following a period of intermittent posting, we will return to Substack in mid-December to expand our coverage of the grassroots.  We will also broaden our definition of “grassroots” itself.

Throughout the campaign, the grassroots were found on doorsteps, on phones, writing postcards, posting signs, spreading hope.  Now that the worst has happened, we expect our efforts — and yours — to find new venues.

The 2024 Harris/Walz campaign saw the greatest Get Out the Vote effort in history.  One hundred million postcards.  Five million front porch conversations in Pennsylvania alone.  Phone banks filled to capacity, calling, calling. . .  Rallies, concerts, registration drives. . .  “Do something!” Michelle Obama urged us, and we did.

Yet when the worst happened, salt was rubbed in the wound by an alarming fact — 2024 drew seven million fewer voters than 2020.  What to do?  Rethink, revise, and recognize that the grassroots must do more.  Not more of the same, but more experimentation, more innovation, more attention to the right-wing “Destruction Machine.”

Despite the ambient confusion, our task is clear.  The resistance to MAGA and the preservation of democracy must find new theaters, new activists.  Those dedicated to democracy will come from many places. Take the civics teacher helping students learn what too many adults lack — a basic knowledge of our government.  She is also a grassroots activist, and we will write about civics education.

Union organizers?  Grassroots to the core.  The media literacy educator, teaching young people to sort truth from lies, is another activist. The stockholder speaking truth to a powerful corporate board?  One of us.  The list goes on and we will welcome suggestions on the topics and leaders of democracy’s resistance.

If you were part of the grassroots during this campaign, take a break.  You worked your ass off.  You kept the faith.  And then. . .   So enjoy your break and keep “holding up.”  When you return to this expanding front, you’ll find that democracy is not preserved solely by voting or getting others to vote.  Every act a citizen takes in the name of tolerance, pluralism, and the future is a form of activism, even if there are no elections on the docket.

As William James noted, with each nurturing action “we are voting for what sort of a universe this shall intimately be.”  So the “voting” continues, the activists remain active, the grassroots grow.  And we’ll be here to tell you about it.

P.S.  If you would like to be a part of The Grassroots Connector, fill out our contributor form. We are looking for fresh voices, compelling writers, and new ideas.