Yes. He handed me a spine.
I’ll say that again.
Yes. A spinal cord. A protester once handed me a spinal cord. There I was, offering a friendly smile, and the guy hands me a model spinal cord – thinking he was about to embarrass me into agreeing with him on an issue.
You have questions right now, I’m sure. Let me back up.
It was 2017, and Congress was in the middle of a major national debate over healthcare reform. Citizen groups were mobilized trying to influence decision-makers on both sides of the issue. In-person protests, letter-writing campaigns, phone banks – you name the grassroots tactic, they were all doing it all. Some went as far as physically occupying offices of members of Congress in a variation of the classic sit-ins of the civil rights movement.
I don’t blame them. For activists along the entire spectrum of this one issue, there was a narrow opportunity to impact national policy, and everyone felt the urgency.
As a congressional staffer at the time, I was right in the middle of this at the local district office. We were the team closest to those local advocacy groups – and that made us the focal point of much of their activity. Which brings us to one activist in particular – let’s call him John – who thought he’d try to embarrass us with a bit of gotcha activism.
You see, John thought it would be effective to hit me with a zinger. Just days before the vote, he joined a rather large group in our office. And he brought a model spinal cord.
“I brought this as a gift for the Congressman because it seems he doesn’t have a spine of his own.”
Activist “John”
John was well-intentioned. And certainly memorable. But he also made the mistake activists often do: he forgot the real world isn’t Twitter.
Too many activists fall into this trap. When we disagree with someone, we’re too eager to score quick points by embarrassing them. It can take a lot of forms. We try to trip them up in their words so we can make them look ill-informed. We even go so far as to call their character into question. Because we are so focused on winning the argument, we forget that the business of advocacy isn’t about the argument – it’s about people.
In that moment with John I was certainly taken aback (see what I did there?). Not because anything that John had said was compelling, rather because this guy had taken time out of his day to participate in the process just to throw all of that effort away with a single, bizarre joke. In a moment with someone he was aiming to influence, he chose this?!
As I look back on it, I think that’s the moment I realized I needed to help people understand this work better.
You see, John was simply playing an extreme variation on a theme I’ve seen far too many times. He was so focused on demonstrating how he disagreed with a stance on an issue, he forgot to try to bring me to his side of the issue. He became memorable not for the story he could tell about the issue, but for perpetuating the use of crazy antics.
In the real world of politics, our goal cannot simply be to get under the skin of the other side. Our goal must be the pursuit of real connection that allows us to win champions to our cause.
After the group of protesters left that day, I made sure to reach back out to John. Legally I had to – the value of the spinal cord model exceeded the financial limitations of the US House of Representatives gift rule. But more importantly, I wanted to give him a chance to come in and really share his story.
Real people deserve to be heard by their representatives. Too often, advocacy organizations spin their volunteers into a frenzy and cheer when they see moments like this one occur. I don’t like that. I don’t like them using people.
John had some serious concerns. He had some issues that needed real, immediate help. Help we could provide outside of the legislative process. Help making sure his insurance company was held accountable. Help with benefits claims. And a lot of help in simply being a place he could finally be heard above the cacophony of all that “activism.”
I sat down with John for more than an hour. I told him up front that it wasn’t likely to change how my boss was going to vote – because he deserved to know that. But I also wanted to hear the rest of his story when he didn’t feel the pressure of the group so maybe we could find some common ground to work together. Oh and I returned the spine.
Too many people out there are being pushed to participate in our system in the wrong way. John – from my point of view – was a prime example. When we spoke one-on-one he was a deeply thoughtful advocate for his cause. He raised some personal perspectives on the issue I hadn’t heard before. With time, we could have maybe made some real progress on that common ground. But I never saw John again.
For whatever reason, he opted out of the process. I hope he felt heard – but I doubt I’ll ever really know that. If I saw him now, I’d tell him he only made one catastrophic mistake – and it wasn’t handing me a spinal cord (that certainly got him noticed).
No, John’s only critical mistake is what came later – he never showed back up. He didn’t buy into the idea of cumulative and iterative advocacy. Despite having a personal connection at that point, he chose not to dive in further. That’s fine. It’s his call. But when that door is open to you, I hope you’ll show some real backbone and keep showing up.
Part of the Possible 