187 Votes

We Do Make a Difference. Onwards.

Onwards. That’s the hardest direction to go these days. It seems as though all that hard work we did to get out the vote was completely useless. Or was it?

Way back last summer (seems like a few centuries ago) as I was trying to find the most effective ways of getting out the vote, I happened upon an organization called Activate America. They had a very user-friendly website that made it easy to write postcards with text targeted to specific audiences. (God, seems like so long ago, although it was only a few weeks, I was optimistically writing postcards…)

And after the giant letdown of November 6, it seems laughable now. All that work and effort gone for nothing. I’m still grieving, and finding it hard to envision getting politically active again. What does it even matter?

But turns out some of it did matter, after all.

It took an insanely long time to count all the votes, but long after the shock of Trump’s win, a little bit of good news trickled in. Hardly anyone noticed. Adam Gray and Derek Tran are hardly household words, after all. But Derek Tran unseated a Republican in a razor-thin Congressional race in Orange County, CA. (For West Wing buffs, Tran did what Sam Seaborn failed to do, beat the Republican in that historically mega-conservative district.)

And here’s Activate America, trying to perk us up a bit:

“Democrat Adam Gray has been declared the victor in the country’s last undecided House race, unseating freshman Republican John Duarte in California’s 13th District.

The margin: 187 votes.

In a state that both presidential campaigns ignored, this is a reminder that our work of direct volunteer-to-voter contact really does matter.

With this victory, Republicans will hold a narrow 219-215 majority in the U.S. House (the narrowest since the 1930s), and it will become even narrower in the months ahead as Trump elevates several GOP House members to his Administration.”

One hundred and eighty-seven votes. Such a tiny number. Especially when you consider that CA-13 has a population of 784,322. It was 105,554 for the Democrat, 105,367 for the Republican.

What persuaded each of those 187 voters to get up off the couch and vote our way? Was it a postcard? A text? A phone call? An ad partly paid for with my $15 donation? We’ll never know.

The director of Activate America always ends his hopeful missives (usually accompanied by a broad hint for donations) with an encouraging message: Onwards!

Onwards. Really? In this dark season, it’s so nice to just curl up with a good book, or a cat, or a miniseries, or a giant plate of brownies, or all of the above, and just forget the whole thing. And we’re entitled to. We worked hard. We deserve a break.

But in January, we’ll have to go onwards, indeed. Not sure where the road will lead, but onwards is the only direction to go.

Dear Friends,

Are you worried about the state of the world and wondering what to do about it? I hope you’ll continue to check out The Optimistic Activist.

Every now and then I post some ideas for doing something. How to get out the vote, spread the word, and support progressive candidates. Ideas for simple but effective activism. As easy, as practical, as do-able as I can make them.

Together, I think, we could really make a difference.

“Optimism is a strategy for making a better future.”

--Noam Chomsky