I’m settling in to write this just a little under eight hours before polls open on Election Day 2024. Like so many before it, this year’s general election is being hailed as the “most consequential” election of our lives. And I won’t deny suffering at least a little bit of trepidation over the outcome myself. Yet, as I’ve sat with advocates over the past few weeks and months, I’ve felt more calm than during any of those many consequential elections before.
In the last five years, I’ve transitioned from a partisan political operative to a non-partisan professional advocate. It’s not about the tallies at the end of Election Day for me anymore. That’s not the end of a political sprint like it used to be. Now, for me at least, it’s a beginning.
Whether you vote for the red team or the blue team this time around, you’ve got about a 50/50 chance of being elated or devastated come midnight. This may be the one election you engage with every four years, and that’s OK. It’s OK to invest yourself in the outcome. I’d rather you care even just that little bit, and show up even intermittently. I’ll never begrudge your choice to focus on the other pressing parts of your life. That’s your business.
But there is also a more rewarding way to experience American politics – and that’s to engage with it even more deeply. I know it seems counterintuitive – especially after the bombardment of negative ads this year – but hear me out.
In the five years since I stopped working for individual officeholders or candidates, I’ve faced an incredible new opportunity to work across the partisan borderlines. I work on issues now that have me engaging with anyone and everyone who will give me the time of day. I get to be in the system in a way that forces me to think about something other than the win-loss column in November. And it’s such a relief!
Today, the millions of people who head to the polls are doing their part, for sure. But they are robbing themselves of a rare treat if that’s where their engagement stops. Because our system affords us an unfathomable level of access and influence – if we reach up and claim it.
It’s a fallacy to believe that the system will get better if we just elect the right type of people. People are people. There will be ego. There will be mistakes. There will be gamesmanship and brinkmanship in equal measure. All of that will happen because people are people. Those in elected office are just in the spotlight. What could spur change for the better is if we turn off the spotlight, and turn on the house lights.
Throughout 2025, I’ll train a few hundred (or more I hope) advocates. And I’ll teach them about the system. I’ll take them beyond their high school civics course. I’ll introduce them to complexities in government that they don’t hear about on cable news. But my goal, the desired end state, is to leave them with a mixed sense of confidence and curiosity. Confidence that they can assume their role in the grander scheme, and curiosity about how they can keep making gains.
I’ll do that without ever once asking them who they voted for in 2024. Because it won’t matter.
We have no control over the end results of this year’s election. Se only have our choice to participate in it. We have no control over the majority/minority conflicts in the House and Senate that are sure to launch come January. we only have our choice to build bridges that can win new champions to our cause.
We also have one other critical choice to make now that the polls are behind us. Who will be as friends, neighbors, and colleagues?
There’s this curious little habit I’ve picked up over the past few months. Inspired by one of my favorite authors, I’ve started picking up hazardous garbage while on walks with my kids. The miles I put on the stroller now have the added bonus of training my eye to seek out the loathsome nails and screws that seem almost destined for my own rear driver’s side tire. But when I’m on the hunt for these suburban landmines, there’s a much bigger group of people positively impacted by the moments when I act on the impulse to stoop down and scoop them up.
This curious little habit is now a metaphor I keep tucked in the back of my mind while I’m working with aspiring advocates. Because this little habit is a tangible representation we can all understand. We can wrap our heads around it. When we pick up the detritus plaguing our local roads, we can imagine the very real headache we’ve saved ourselves and our neighbors. We know we’ve prevented a bad thing from happening to the people in our physical sphere of influence.
Why don’t we look at our political processes in the same way? Why is it good enough for litter but not for legislation?
I know you’re exhausted from this election. How could you not be? I know you’re ready for it to be over. You should be! But now that we’ve voted, I have to ask: what’s next?
Take a beat. But come tomorrow, the break’s over.
In the coming weeks, I’m going to be focusing on pieces that I hope will prepare you for the next round. Because we aren’t at the end. We’re at the beginning of a new, grand opportunity to show back up and do our part to pick up the bad bits along the way. We have a chance to speak, to act, and to serve in a way that is envied the world over. It’s great that we’ve availed ourselves of the civic duty to vote. Now let’s discipline ourselves in the right to be involved.
Because it matters. And it’s rewarding as hell.
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