Elections are over; our job as citizens is not over

These days after the midterm elections are full of emotion. Some are riding a high, elated that the candidate they supported won. Others are deflated, discouraged that despite knocking on doors, donating, or encouraging friends to vote, their candidate lost. First-time voters — the young or the newly inspired — thought they would make a difference and may feel like they didn’t. Wherever one is, the conversations we are having all include some element of Monday morning quarterbacking.

But the game isn’t over; it has just begun. We aren’t spectators in the stands of our democracy—we’re players as much as our legislators are, just with different positions on the field.

And so the real question is: What do citizens do who are players and work as a team for our democracy? They get in the game! The day after President Trump’s election in 2016, the new and fledgling House Climate Solutions Caucus dropped from 10 Republicans and 10 Democrats to 6 and 6, as four Republicans either retired or lost their seat. Beginning the day after the election, volunteers with Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL) got to work, bucked the partisanship, and grew the Caucus to 45 and 45. What will CCL volunteers do now that the Caucus has lost some 18 of those Republican members? They’ll get back in the game. Despite the loss, I predict that two years from now the Caucus will grow to 50 or 60 members on each side of the aisle and the commitment and actions of those members will be much deeper and more effective.

A year into President Trump’s term, when many were deep in despair, the Quaker lobby FCNL asked volunteers to complete this sentence: “One way I’ve grown in the past year in my Advocacy Team work is….” One volunteer responded, “My heart is more tender, loving and hopeful than it has been in many years, not just the last.”

A woman experiencing what she described as “climate trauma”–weeping at home and at work after reading Bill McKibben’s book Eaarth — joined CCL and 18 months later visited 20 Congressional offices.

“I met with many folks whose view of the world was very different than mine,” she said after the meetings. “Going into their offices was hard. I had to let go of a lot of emotional baggage. I could no longer judge them or hold hostility in my heart towards them. I had to let go of my fear of climate change and my fear that they wouldn’t listen to me. I had to center myself in love. Releasing fear and centering in love… this is sacred and profound work….”

These volunteers have found organizations that are committed to dissolving the powerlessness and getting them into the democracy game, groups like CCL, FCNL, the anti-poverty lobby RESULTS, and American Promise, which works to get money out of politics. These groups know that having teammates matters, and so they form chapters that meet monthly. They know that coaching makes a difference and so they offer their members training and inspiration year-round, not just once or twice a year. They practice to get good at democracy — learning how to speak powerfully, how to conduct an effective Congressional meeting. They train their members how to reach across the aisle and how to get in the game.

After Congress rejected President Trump’s call for an 8 percent cut to the global maternal and child health program in 2018 -- a program that has contributed to reducing global child death from 41,000 a day in the early 1980s to 15,300 a day today -- RESULTS called on House Republicans Reichert (WA), McCaul (TX), Ross (FL) and Donovan (NY) to lead with Democrats McCollum (MN), Bera (CA) and Lee (CA) in a letter to the heads of the Appropriations Committee urging them to reject the President’s call for a 25 percent cut in 2019. They were joined in signing the letter by 146 of their House colleagues and the committee obliged. Now that two of the Republicans are retiring and a third lost his seat, what will RESULTS volunteers do? They’ll stay in the game, working with their replacements and those across the aisle! Because even when the legislators leave the field, we, as players in this democracy, stay in the game.

Why don’t you join us?