Five years after the Women's March and a few days after the final collapse of Democratic voting rights efforts, it's time to start anew and organize with people where they are hurting now.
Why March when one can vent with two thumbs from the comfort of a recliner? Short answer:. You'll never know what you're missing.
My wife and I were each married to someone else when protesting Vietnam war on the streets if Chicago. She needed to find a restroom but her husband wouldn't take her. I did.
Then there was the Occupiers trek from Zucotti Park to city hall when I glanced to my side to find myself in lockstep with a topless woman.
From my pov, the reason why the big rallies aren't happening is that the organizations that could run them don't want to. I think it's primary a function of the belief that they don't do anything to move the needle politically. If organizations aren't going to see any strategic benefits, they won't invest the time or money over other things they see as more strategic.
Now, I think many organizations are limited in their politcal imagination and don't operate in ways where they benefit from large mobilizations. I think this is kinda a problem. But with action in congress being dictated by federal elections, groups are very electorally focused right now. I can't exactly blame them, although I too have issues with how that strategy plays out.
Is there existing analysis/attempts on the left that combines Lara Putnam's connections-capacity-impact framework with Ziad Munson's 3 things needed for people to get involved with a movement? With Lara's angle from the volunteer trying to find meaningful opportunities/their political homes and Ziad's perspective that seems useful for the org/effort recruiting volunteers, there could be a generative/holistic viewpoint of the what/where/when/why/how for volunteer to opportunity matching.
Sidebar, it's mildly humorous (of course not surprising) to click on democrats[dot]org's events page and see it continue to be phone banks 7 months later as we're headed into such a high stakes election.
You hit on the key phrase: "political homes." Our mutual friend Mario Lugay often talks about that. Maybe I'll do an issue of the Connector asking people for their political home(s).
I don't know of something that specifically addresses your question the way you are asking it, though I'd start with Hahrie Hahn et al's book Prisms of the People for starters.
This is giving pretty short shrift to the impressive organizing that took place on this campaign. Educating and activating volunteers, small businesses, faith leaders, environmental groups -- new coalitions (like Declaration for American Democracy), power building in Arizona, West Virginia (but also Alaska, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania). Nightly phonebanks with 100+ activists making thousands of dials and hundreds of patch through calls to senator's offices. This wasn't some entirely inside game play orchestrated by Fred (who never "took over" this campaign, but played a critical role and shared intel, access and resources). We didn't win, but as Ezra Klein points out, progressives made major gains on the filibuster (https://twitter.com/ezraklein/status/1484017944703082499). It is a 50/50 Senate with "51 presidents." There is no evidence a skinny bill would have gotten 60 votes. That said, we have plans for the power we've built: 2022 state leg sessions will be major threats to democracy with election sabotage laws on the state level. And in some places we'll organize to pass democracy legislation. The democracy movement isn't just one or two federal bills, it is hundreds on the state level. I agree there are fundamental challenges in mobilizing and organizing around "democracy" and new ideas are needed, but I think you are perilously close to gloating over the failure of the bill (as you predicted, congrats) but missing the power that was built.
Jesse, I respect Common Cause but this was mission impossible. If the goal was power building at the state level then say so from the start. There's a disconnect here between the groups in DC managing this work and the folks on the ground being asked to pour endless hours into largely futile pushes against recalcitrant legislators. I'd still like to know who decided that a fat bill (HR1) that passed the House with almost no public engagement, and which even local election administrators didn't address their actual needs and concerns, and then went to sit at the Senate for months to idle was a smart organizing strategy. If you told me that as a result of all this work the number of local Common Cause chapters had doubled, tripled, whatever that would be great.
In Mission Impossible don't the good guys win in the end? :)
I honestly believe you can still "win" and build power even if you lose the vote. That rests on the assumption that organizations are integral social movement success (that's debatable!) That's hard to quantify from the outside but is pretty important. And, to be very frank, not every campaign or every organization in a campaign thinks about organizational building or does it right. You can certainly lose while losing!
One thing that I've learned is that state and local politics is less of a motivation than national politics when it comes to mobilizing the politically-engaged class (which is not the only audience, but a key one). In the modern media environment, it is a winning strategy to recruit based off national campaigns (from 2016-2020 it was Trump-resistance; in 2021 it was Federal legislative opportunities) and then redirect to state and local campaigns. This is surprisingly effective. You harness the passion and desire to be part of something big and national. Running national Zoom-based phonebanks, text banks, postcard and letter to the editor writing parties, we engaged over 10,000 volunteers in 2021 (a new high water mark for us) -- but if you weave in the story about state and local campaigns, you end up with far more people engaged on a state issue this way. This is not what I expected five years ago and turns "all politics is local" on its head.
So yes, our state offices have more staff, larger budgets and more activists (trained ones! ones that led phonebanks of 100+ other activists!) and stronger relationships with community leaders, elected officials, community groups and the media. And we have a grassroots pressure engine that can drive patch-through calls from voters in any state or district (thanks Movement Cooperative!)
This isn't the right plan for every group, but I think there's such a rich and interesting story about organizational building that happens behind the scenes even in a losing campaign. Hahrie Hahn’s work about organizations building activists is particularly relevant to me.
I completely agree that the momentum is entirely with the right and there's a lot more to unpack. But if the analysis is "never try to do the impossible" (and scold the organizational leaders when you get to within two votes of the impossible!) then when will we ever have the political courage to do the big bold campaigns? How goes the Green New Deal? Strengthening unions, minimum wage increase, etc.?
I have a lot more analysis about this particular campaign, but we can't dismiss campaigns that lose as fool's errands without unpacking the benefits that come along with large mobilizations. New organizations are in interesting metric (and Kristin is major inspiration, former colleague and a friend) but I’m not convinced it is the only metric that matters. We have more activists working on state campaigns Jan 25, 2021 than we did Jan 25, 2020 (and Jan 25, 2019, etc.) -- and I intend to harness the power we've built on federal issues and apply it on state campaigns.
Gotta go, we’re hosting a webinar with hundreds of activists focused on state democracy campaigns!
If you are truly turning the funnel back toward the state offices then this is promising. Here in NY we have a valiant state CC chapter that does a lot of local work on very little (Susan Lerner, its longtime ED, is incredibly hard working) so I'm curious to hear if she is seeing the results you are seeing. All that said, I still worry that the national groups have managed to drive a dispiriting message ("democracy is dying" and we didn't manage to stop its death) and as I noted most Americans don't understand how "democracy" matters to them.
Looks they have all gone to sleep. Excellent piece that underlines the estrangement of “activists” from their purported constituents. I agree that the greatest weakness of Prog America is the striking absence of local community sites, centers etc. Look at history of Germany and u see that up to WWI millions of families lived most of their lives INSIDE the cultural and community orgs of the SDP.
Why March when one can vent with two thumbs from the comfort of a recliner? Short answer:. You'll never know what you're missing.
My wife and I were each married to someone else when protesting Vietnam war on the streets if Chicago. She needed to find a restroom but her husband wouldn't take her. I did.
Then there was the Occupiers trek from Zucotti Park to city hall when I glanced to my side to find myself in lockstep with a topless woman.
There must be a moral to these memories.
From my pov, the reason why the big rallies aren't happening is that the organizations that could run them don't want to. I think it's primary a function of the belief that they don't do anything to move the needle politically. If organizations aren't going to see any strategic benefits, they won't invest the time or money over other things they see as more strategic.
Now, I think many organizations are limited in their politcal imagination and don't operate in ways where they benefit from large mobilizations. I think this is kinda a problem. But with action in congress being dictated by federal elections, groups are very electorally focused right now. I can't exactly blame them, although I too have issues with how that strategy plays out.
Is there existing analysis/attempts on the left that combines Lara Putnam's connections-capacity-impact framework with Ziad Munson's 3 things needed for people to get involved with a movement? With Lara's angle from the volunteer trying to find meaningful opportunities/their political homes and Ziad's perspective that seems useful for the org/effort recruiting volunteers, there could be a generative/holistic viewpoint of the what/where/when/why/how for volunteer to opportunity matching.
Sidebar, it's mildly humorous (of course not surprising) to click on democrats[dot]org's events page and see it continue to be phone banks 7 months later as we're headed into such a high stakes election.
You hit on the key phrase: "political homes." Our mutual friend Mario Lugay often talks about that. Maybe I'll do an issue of the Connector asking people for their political home(s).
I don't know of something that specifically addresses your question the way you are asking it, though I'd start with Hahrie Hahn et al's book Prisms of the People for starters.
This is giving pretty short shrift to the impressive organizing that took place on this campaign. Educating and activating volunteers, small businesses, faith leaders, environmental groups -- new coalitions (like Declaration for American Democracy), power building in Arizona, West Virginia (but also Alaska, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania). Nightly phonebanks with 100+ activists making thousands of dials and hundreds of patch through calls to senator's offices. This wasn't some entirely inside game play orchestrated by Fred (who never "took over" this campaign, but played a critical role and shared intel, access and resources). We didn't win, but as Ezra Klein points out, progressives made major gains on the filibuster (https://twitter.com/ezraklein/status/1484017944703082499). It is a 50/50 Senate with "51 presidents." There is no evidence a skinny bill would have gotten 60 votes. That said, we have plans for the power we've built: 2022 state leg sessions will be major threats to democracy with election sabotage laws on the state level. And in some places we'll organize to pass democracy legislation. The democracy movement isn't just one or two federal bills, it is hundreds on the state level. I agree there are fundamental challenges in mobilizing and organizing around "democracy" and new ideas are needed, but I think you are perilously close to gloating over the failure of the bill (as you predicted, congrats) but missing the power that was built.
Jesse, I respect Common Cause but this was mission impossible. If the goal was power building at the state level then say so from the start. There's a disconnect here between the groups in DC managing this work and the folks on the ground being asked to pour endless hours into largely futile pushes against recalcitrant legislators. I'd still like to know who decided that a fat bill (HR1) that passed the House with almost no public engagement, and which even local election administrators didn't address their actual needs and concerns, and then went to sit at the Senate for months to idle was a smart organizing strategy. If you told me that as a result of all this work the number of local Common Cause chapters had doubled, tripled, whatever that would be great.
In Mission Impossible don't the good guys win in the end? :)
I honestly believe you can still "win" and build power even if you lose the vote. That rests on the assumption that organizations are integral social movement success (that's debatable!) That's hard to quantify from the outside but is pretty important. And, to be very frank, not every campaign or every organization in a campaign thinks about organizational building or does it right. You can certainly lose while losing!
One thing that I've learned is that state and local politics is less of a motivation than national politics when it comes to mobilizing the politically-engaged class (which is not the only audience, but a key one). In the modern media environment, it is a winning strategy to recruit based off national campaigns (from 2016-2020 it was Trump-resistance; in 2021 it was Federal legislative opportunities) and then redirect to state and local campaigns. This is surprisingly effective. You harness the passion and desire to be part of something big and national. Running national Zoom-based phonebanks, text banks, postcard and letter to the editor writing parties, we engaged over 10,000 volunteers in 2021 (a new high water mark for us) -- but if you weave in the story about state and local campaigns, you end up with far more people engaged on a state issue this way. This is not what I expected five years ago and turns "all politics is local" on its head.
So yes, our state offices have more staff, larger budgets and more activists (trained ones! ones that led phonebanks of 100+ other activists!) and stronger relationships with community leaders, elected officials, community groups and the media. And we have a grassroots pressure engine that can drive patch-through calls from voters in any state or district (thanks Movement Cooperative!)
This isn't the right plan for every group, but I think there's such a rich and interesting story about organizational building that happens behind the scenes even in a losing campaign. Hahrie Hahn’s work about organizations building activists is particularly relevant to me.
I completely agree that the momentum is entirely with the right and there's a lot more to unpack. But if the analysis is "never try to do the impossible" (and scold the organizational leaders when you get to within two votes of the impossible!) then when will we ever have the political courage to do the big bold campaigns? How goes the Green New Deal? Strengthening unions, minimum wage increase, etc.?
I have a lot more analysis about this particular campaign, but we can't dismiss campaigns that lose as fool's errands without unpacking the benefits that come along with large mobilizations. New organizations are in interesting metric (and Kristin is major inspiration, former colleague and a friend) but I’m not convinced it is the only metric that matters. We have more activists working on state campaigns Jan 25, 2021 than we did Jan 25, 2020 (and Jan 25, 2019, etc.) -- and I intend to harness the power we've built on federal issues and apply it on state campaigns.
Gotta go, we’re hosting a webinar with hundreds of activists focused on state democracy campaigns!
If you are truly turning the funnel back toward the state offices then this is promising. Here in NY we have a valiant state CC chapter that does a lot of local work on very little (Susan Lerner, its longtime ED, is incredibly hard working) so I'm curious to hear if she is seeing the results you are seeing. All that said, I still worry that the national groups have managed to drive a dispiriting message ("democracy is dying" and we didn't manage to stop its death) and as I noted most Americans don't understand how "democracy" matters to them.
Looks they have all gone to sleep. Excellent piece that underlines the estrangement of “activists” from their purported constituents. I agree that the greatest weakness of Prog America is the striking absence of local community sites, centers etc. Look at history of Germany and u see that up to WWI millions of families lived most of their lives INSIDE the cultural and community orgs of the SDP.
We agree though I think the example of the SDP in Germany isn't all that reassuring!
Just because 25 yrs later all those orgs became NSDAP?? No sense or irony Micah! A more relevant example is Italy. Or Spain. Oh well.
Seriously, Marc, not sure which point you are making.