The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Voters know things didn’t have to be this way
Thomasina Levy has always paid attention to politics, but like a lot of people, she got active in 2008, when Barack Obama entered the arena. That year, Levy, the former state troubadour, and a friend began to dip their toes into activism by calling voters to encourage them to go to the polls.
When Obama won, Levy and friend Joan Spear wrote “Out of Many We are One,” the English translation of our de facto motto, “E Pluribus Unum.” It’s a soaring ballad in which they gathered musical friends to sing about the bright city on the hill where we all seemed to be walking, arm in arm.
The song, which included the efforts of, among other musicians, the late Native flutist Joseph FireCrow, won the 2011 Native American Music Awards Song/Single of the Year.
The song has legs. We are days from ending the worst presidential administration ever. That city we were marching to in 2008 is in flames, wracked by an unseen virus that knows no boundaries, and racial and socioeconomic inequalities that scar our foundation with fissures.
The city’s inhabitants are scared. COVID-19 cases are rising here and elsewhere.
They’re angry. Things didn’t have to be this way. A national mask plan — any plan — could have saved tens of thousands of lives.
They’re sick. In part to prepare for spiking cases this winter, Hartford HealthCare is moving its testing site to the downtown Connecticut Convention Center.
Many are out of work. The state unemployment rate hovers around 8 percent.
Some are disappointed to have put their faith in a bloviating straw god. Drive around Connecticut and count the Republican candidate signs not accompanied by a sign touting their party leader. Tellingly, Ridgefield Republicans’ downtown office has no Trump sign in the window. Connecticut Republicans may continue to support Trump, but they’re being quiet about it while Trump rails, calls names, and throws whatever he can against the cosmic wall of social media. Hillary! Emails! Hunter! Magic medication that ends the virus!
Beyond pathology, there may be a strategy to Trump’s negative nonsense. Negative messages — even false ones — tend to stick with voters more than do positive ones. And negative campaigns can be a turnoff, and encourage voters of all stripes to stay home. In 2016, nearly 100 million eligible voters did not bother. Any campaign strategist worth her salt knows that the less people vote, the greater the likelihood we’ll get four more years of Trump.
But we’ve had enough. More than enough.
Since Trump stomped into office, Levy became a grandmother, which of course changes everything. Grandmas don’t sit on the sideline, because sending their beloved grandbabies into a future that looks anything like the present is not acceptable. Grandmas bring perspective and fire. We’ve lived long enough to know that although things are pretty bad, they are heading somewhere worse. We won’t have our grandsons grow up thinking bullying, woman-hating behavior is acceptable. We won’t raise granddaughters to be victims. We want grandchildren who take responsibility for their mistakes, and learn from them. Enough. More than enough.
During the 2018 midterms, Levy began sending Postcards To Voters, a volunteer organization that was started in 2017 to encourage voters to vote for Democrat Jon Ossoff, now running for U.S. Senate against Georgia’s Sen. David Purdue. The service has since grown to more than
75,000 volunteers who’ve sent nearly 8 million postcards to voters in key elections around the country. This election, Levy added writing letters to her activist repertoire, with her dining room table serving as command central. In February, she released “We
Are Thunder, We Are Lightning,” a rallying cry for activism.
We did what we could, the grandmothers. We wrote postcards and letters and made phone calls and sent texts. We went outside our comfort zones and had tough conversations that sometimes seemed to go nowhere, but we had them, anyway. Enough. More than enough.
And look at what we helped fuel, a record voter turnout, aided by herculean get-out-the-vote efforts from groups such as NAACP, League of Women Voters, and a host of others focused on tepid voters. By midweek last week, 20 percent of the state’s voters — 455,000 people — had already voted. As far back as August, Pew Research Center was predicting a record turnout. Six days before Election Day, the Washington Post reported that 71.5 million citizens already voted, with Democrats outnumbering Republicans — though Republicans were predicting more in-person voters on Tuesday.
This, then, is that turnout.
President Barack Obama’s election (and reelection) didn’t usher in a new era, though it cracked the door open to the possibilities. The election of Joe Biden won’t usher in a new era, either, but at least it will end this one, and kick the door open a little bit wider. The real work begins Nov. 4.
So as Levy and friends said in their songs: Extend your hand. Unclench your fist. Out of many, we are one. Together, we can make a change.
It’s enough. It’s more than enough.