Building deep political soil

We tend to think of politics as something to be gotten through so we can get back to our life. But that’s how we arrived here, with wealthy autocrat wannabees hungry to take our rights and offering the pen, ready to sign the deal. Politics IS life, it’s core community health, and an engaged demographic is best at resisting autocratic control like in Russia, Hungary and China. If we exercise our spectator privilege and opt out once again, we will learn what Russian citizens know too well: life under an oppressive regime. This threat is very real, and we need to wake up and face it.

If, like me, you are hazy on the details of an American dictatorship, come to the Durango Public Library this Sat., Sept 7, at 11 a.m. Experts Rob Rogers and Melissa Hendrix will speak about Project 2025 and the rise of Christian Nationalism. If you can’t come, watch the event on my Facebook page at “Town Hall Fight Project 2025 Facebook Live.” Share that info too, please.

Given that the American political Right is full-speed toward dictatorship (and will not suddenly give up), the best strategy is old-school organizing – creating long-term purposeful relationships and alliances, as we did before the computer. Organizing fosters personal engagement – participatory democracy, what Michelle Obama was talking about at the DNC – because it’s based on genuine personal connections. It’s inherently useful and necessary to win elections, which we must do now. But it’s also a way to prepare each of us for a different future and protect those of us not members of today’s supremacist autocracy cult, especially vulnerable groups already under attack.

Shifting our culture toward participatory democracy will require inspiring those already awake to the threat of autocracy to step up, learn about and actively promote the cure. Such people are hard to find in a culture that conditions us to focus only on personal lifestyle and comfort. I’m a prime example – I was not planning on doing this work in retirement! But I cannot UNsee the danger we face, the dire threat to my grandkids. I recognize the need to build America’s “political soil” and the huge benefits we can “harvest” for ourselves and our children by planting proactive engagement.

First, we weed our mental garden by challenging and rejecting the false narratives used to constrain our political voices. These include “my friends will reject me if I talk about what matters to me; politics is nasty, rude and divisive; politics is bad for my health; I can’t save the world, gotta look out for me,” etc. All of these are demonstrably false. Friends want to hear what we think and feel, especially our personal stories, meanings, and concerns. Making politics nasty is the agenda of those wanting to disempower us and destroy our civic space, but we can take back ownership of it by caring, listening and speaking gently from personal experience. Engaged politics is vital for the health of all of us because policy impacts every aspect of our lives. And we look out for ourselves best when we create a mutually caring, informed society.

Relational organizing is the basis for a healthy political culture in America. We introduce ourselves to our personal power by using our ears, voice and heart. How we use our tiny, gentle megaphone is up to us, but every time we use it, we build America’s political soil, plant permissions for others to speak out and foster better harvests of informed, empowered communities. This Sunday at 5:30 p.m. join us for an informational zoom. Learn more on Facebook under my page “Friend-to-Friend Network Info Session.” Thank you!

–Kirby MacLaurin, Durango