Saving Democracy is Still up to Us
The bad news is: nobody's coming to save us but us. The good news is, we're far more powerful than we think
I hate being proven right so quickly. In my article last week, I cautioned against putting our faith in elected Democrats and reminded folks that “the power of the people is greater than the people in power.” I had hoped a decent interval might have passed between the victory for people power that we witnessed on Tuesday, November 4th, and eight elected Democrats betraying it on Sunday, November 9th. As things stand, we got five good days of optimism.
So be it. As you may or may not recall, I’m not a fan of short-term optimism during times of existential crisis. Short-term pessimism, paired with long-term optimism gets us through much better. Short term optimism whispers to us in soothing ASMR tones that we got this: salvation is just around the corner, a green valley awaits just over the next hill. And what happens when neither promised salvation nor green valley appears? That’s when term optimism curdles into bitterness and dejection.
“Good Vibes Only” is not only an annoying slogan, it’s a crap resistance strategy. Paradoxically, it’s far healthier to acknowledge that when things turn rotten, we hate it, it feels bad, and there’s every possibility it may persist for a while. But, having fully tasted the loss and disappointment, it’s wise to set a time limit—say, hours or days, and use that time to rage and grieve out as much as you can. Then return to the work at hand.
Likewise, when news breaks of abuses like the ones in the Epstein emails, we find still more evidence of our opponents’ depravity, but then we find the next right thing to do and carry on doing it. There is much to do, and precisely none of it entails waiting for some big, external event to topple this criminal regime. Regardless of what else comes out in the files, our vulnerable neighbors will continue to need our help. So let’s feel what we feel, and react as we need to react, then get back to work.
Much of that work will be internal, and entails rethinking our working assumptions. Job one: we need to stop confusing ends and means. A Democratic majority congress and president is not an end, it’s a means to an end. We may admire progressive candidates and work hard to elect them, but that work, and the candidate we strive to elect, is a means to an end, not an end in themselves. Remember when John Fetterman beat Dr. Oz for the Pennsylvania senate race? A lot of us cheered his victory and saw it as a desired end that might pave the way for many more plain-spoken progressives to rise to power. But the same hoodie-clad Fetterman in whom we placed so many hopes once upon a time, was first in line to bring about this shameful, insulting ‘deal.’
So instead of wondering which event or person will produce the change we seek, it’s worth asking ourselves (again) what does success look like for our movement? I know that there’s no final, ultimate answer to this, but in the medium to long term, what specific, concrete types of change do we hope to create in America by means of government? More importantly, what non-negotiable values do they serve?
We liberals can all think of a few big policy initiatives we want: universal taxpayer-funded healthcare, ironclad voter protection laws, livable minimum wage… The list goes on. But on its own, it’s just a list. If your mind rebels at that statement, it’s because you feel what lies behind the list: our most cherished and immutable values. Our strategies and policies are open to discussion; our values aren’t.
Strategies and policies are open to discussion; values aren’t.
Once we uncover for ourselves the sort values we want America to embody, and the outcomes we’d like it to produce, here are three things we know we need to know about any candidate:
Do they support, or can we push them to support, the changes that bring us closer to an America that upholds our values?
Do they walk the walk? If they talk in glowing terms about the rights of working people, but get big chunks of their campaign funding from PACs and corporations that work against those rights, how likely are they to oppose their cash source?
Are they either:
Personally appealing, relatable people who know how to communicate their goals to ordinary humans in clear, simple, and authentic words?
Lacking charm, but good at moving the levers of politics in the direction we want them to go?
Last, (and most gallingly,) if the candidate demonstrates values that are very different from ours, would supporting them provide a measure of short-term damage control?
Regardless of how many of a politician’s positions we agree with, and how well they stand up for them, we lose the rose-colored glasses and start looking at them as vehicles for the kinds of change we want to see, period. That means we stop seeing any elected official or candidate as a potential savior. A politician is not a magic carpet, they’re a taxi. We evaluate them based on how well they get where we want to go, and at what price. If they share the broad outlines of our vision and have the eloquence, charisma, and strategic smarts to move government in a transformational direction, that’s awesome. It’s also rare. FDR had it; so did Lincoln, but they don’t have a lot of company.
We like Mamdani and revel in his victory, but must realize it’s unlikely he’ll meet all our high expectations. Of course his future performance matters, but what matters just as much is that he didn’t nod towards the vague, presumably white, presumably middle class, “working families” so beloved of corporate Democrats who can’t order coffee without convening a focus group. He named forgotten, neglected people in forgotten, neglected places:
“Thank you to those so often forgotten by the politics of our city who made this movement their own. I speak of Yemeni bodega owners and Mexican abuelas, Senegalese taxi drivers and Uzbek nurses, Trinidadian line cooks and Ethiopian aunties. Yes, aunties. To every New Yorker in Kensington and Midwood and Hunts Point, know this. This city is your city and this democracy is yours too.”
Mandami’s not just sharing his campaign message with a larger audience here; he’s reframing the whole discussion by centering the people who are most likely to tune out politics. This reframing of political focus and messaging, isn’t just his, it’s available to anyone who wants to pick it up, adapt it to local conditions, and run with it.
That’s what our candidates and elected officials can do. But they’re few in number. And if there’s one thing millions of us have learned over the past year, it’s this: we are agents of political change, not passive recipients of the status quo. The release of the Epstein files is not going to save our democracy. We are going to save our democracy. We hope Democratic politicians will follow our lead, but we’re not just waiting and hoping. We’re taking action. And we will keep doing that, no matter what.