Putting "what I will do" into action.

I want to #ConserveNotConvert, and I did it with at least one voter!

Two weeks ago I wrote this:

The point of my last newsletter was to say that I have complete control over whether I vote and how I vote. I also control what kinds of actions I take to get out the vote. I control the conversations I engage in. Perhaps most importantly, I control what kind of news and information and opinion rabbit holes I get pulled into.

I have decided to be a broken record that focuses on just these things:

1. Nothing will stop me from voting

2. I will vote blue up and down the ballot. Blue no matter who, IOW.

3. When asked or when appropriate I will offer three reasons I think the current Dem Administration has been a progressive and consequential one, achieving things I really care about and three reasons I am absolutely opposed to electing a GOP administration.

That’s it.

Last week I had the chance to put this promise into action.

Someone I know (not very well at all…first time we met in person) expressed dissatisfaction with their choices in the upcoming election. They may have even said they didn’t know who was worse, and although they intended to vote for the Dem, they did not feel good about it. Now, I tend to find it triggering when people talk about the two options being basically the same. To me there are so many clear differences. Do both sides operate within a system that needs to change (notably the money required to run races of any significance)? Yes. But when it comes to policy goals and effort, the difference is pretty stark.

But it would not have served my goals to spin out on that fact. It behooved me to remember what I tell people all the time: The fact that I pay so much attention to politics every single day makes me a total outlier.

The vast majority of voters do not. They don’t watch the debates. They don’t watch the conventions. They don’t know who their own Representatives are, often. they certainly don’t know about legislation passed or Executive Orders made or SCOTUS decisions handed down unless they’re really really big deals. Sure, most people know Roe was overturned. Most people have no idea the meaning or impact of the recent Chevron decision.

So I followed my own advice from the post above. I shared why I admired the current Administration so much and cited three specific things they had done that I thought were great. I also shared why I was so opposed to a GOP administration…all things that are not abstract or existential risks (TBH I think the threat to Democracy itself is too abstract for many people) , but actual laws they have repeatedly proposed or have succeeded in passing at the state level…laws that will have impact on just about everyone except people far wealthier than either this friend or me.

I also said that I personally was very mindful about not over-consuming opinion masking as news or analysis. And that it did not serve me to take polls as truth. At the end of the day…it is P45* who must win more votes than he’s ever won before in order to triumph. Meanwhile Biden/Harris need to conserve the votes they already got.

I am not looking to convert a single dedicated red voter. I am looking to conserve all the blue voters. And yes, pull some folks from unreliable to reliable blue voters.

I can be most effective doing this in day to day conversation with people in my direct sphere. I can also contribute to GOtV efforts in other states (e.g. via online conversation, text banking, or postcards).

That’s it. That’s my ministry.

I’m here to be helpful, not argue with strangers on the Internet. Not work myself into a panic or the kind of #voterdepression that doesn’t help and probably hurts. Not consume every opinion or conspiracy theory as thought it’s fact or give into the fallacy that it’s the pundits or politicians who decide who’s President, not We the People.

So, how’d that work out for me in this case?

With this one voter, the outcome was that they went from feeling bad to feeling pretty good about their vote. They did not know some of the things I shared that I like about a Dem Administration and would not like about a GOP one. I am pretty sure they were going to vote no matter what, but now I feel like they might pass along their vote and why they’re casting it that way a little more freely to their own sphere of influence.

That’s what it looks like, in action, to do what you can do.

Just do it.

So I ask again, what are you doing? And not doing?

That’s it for today. Until next time, please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts on any or all of the above. This is basically my blog now! And as always, I appreciate a share of Optionality and this newsletter.

Thanks for reading!

-E