Last week, I shared the three traits that really matter most if you’re going to have staying power and be effective in American politics: compassion, credibility, and consistency. Those three qualities, balanced between each other will help you stand out from the masses when you’re trying to be heard. They’ll increase your access, and keep you focused on what matters most to you.
They’re qualities we don’t talk about much in politics, though. So often, we approach our political engagement like a finite game that only has one objective: to beat your opponent. But that’s a fundamentally flawed paradigm. It confuses campaign politics with governing politics, and does nothing more than drive the division so many of us are quick to bemoan and slow to battle. But bitchin’ ain’t enough, and it’s time we get on with making the system better through our own work. So where do we start?
As I train advocates around the country, I almost always share a story about an octogenarian Navy widow named Sue. Sue taught me a lot of lessons about real politics, even though she’d never held political office. Sue was a tenacious, celtic rebel who didn’t care how big the system was. She was going to fight like hell for a good cause.
And she was no amateur.
What separated Sue from so many individual advocates is that she was absolutely brilliant in one regard – she never stopped showing up. She built a plan that allowed her to fight the federal bureaucracy for more than 30 years(!) before finally winning her private, just war. For me, it meant that I heard from Sue about her issue every two weeks for nearly two years. She was bold, and she was disciplined.
Even when there wasn’t a substantial update. Even when I didn’t have good news to help her feel better. Even when she was sick. Especially when she was down. Every other week, I knew I was going to hear from Sue, or her granddaughter, or her team of third party experts. There was a plan in place that she would seek out new information or provide new evidence in her favor. Every. Two. Weeks.
Does that seem excessive to you?
You may be right. Maybe for your particular cause, your particular challenge with a government agency, that’s not the right battle rhythm. But Sue’s calculus still holds a lesson for you: the task of creating space for your issue belongs to exactly one person: you. And discipline is how you prevail.
The dirty secret here is that once they’re elected, there’s no reason for an elected official to care, one way or another, whether you decide to get involved. They have an agenda. They have goals in mind. Their plans don’t have to take you into account.
Your opposition doesn’t care whether or not you choose to show up. They will.
The bureaucrat denying your veteran disability compensation claim doesn’t have to care about your willingness to participate in the system. They’re already in the system.
The opposition gets a vote, and I can guarantee they’re using it.
Opting out of our responsibility to show up only ever hurts our cause. Because it diminishes the space and attention available to bring light to injustice. Just like in sales, reps matter in politics. The more touch points you have with the public decision-makers affecting your cause, the greater the opportunity you have to bring about the change you’re seeking. Failing to show up only cedes territory to the opposition.
Sue didn’t need a structure to help her participate in the system. She built a reserve of discipline that kept her going. But that may not be you. That’s why advocacy organizations exist – to serve as a support structure to keep you involved.
Advocacy-centric organizations remove the guesswork. They help you understand what kind of advocacy matters, when it makes the biggest impact, how to do it, who needs to be targeted, and why those targets respond to different tactics. They give you structural support, and social prodding to break away from your daily life and jump back into public work.
Sometimes, that will look as simple as clicking on a text message alerting you that an important bill is coming up for a vote – and they need you to take 2-3 minutes to send a preformed message to your representatives. Seriously. 2-3 minutes. That’s all it could be. But if accomplished in concert with that organization’s other advocates, your voice is amplified. Your issue is spotlighted. You’re creating space to bring others into your way of thinking.
Other times, the ask may hurt just a little more. Maybe it’s a donation at a time when you’re already feeling strapped. At other times, you may be called upon to do the truly uncomfortable work of going and speaking with a real person. But when you’ve joined in with an advocacy organization, you’re doing that with structure around you. You’ve given yourself a force-multiplier.
We have a duty to be there. We have a responsibility to be in community with one another. Whether we like it or not, government is where we determine what we will accomplish together. But you only really have a voice if you get up and get into the room. That’s why I lean on would-be advocates to become joiners. Left to our own devices, the stakes are pretty low if we don’t take action. But when we build accountability into our lives? That’s where discipline makes us stronger, even bolder.
And let’s face the facts: we aren’t all Sue. We don’t all have the fortitude to fight like she did for as long as she did. But we do share the same responsibility as Sue. So, where we fall short, let’s be inspired by people like her but bolstered by professionals who can coach us on the field.
P.s.
Landing on Eisenhower quotes doesn’t seem to have been an accident for this post. Sue came into my sphere when I was a brand new congressional staffer. At the time, she was already in her eighties, struggling against a bad decision by the Department of Veterans Affairs. She was looking to ensure her late-husband’s service in the Navy was honored as it should have been. She was a Truman fan. But she was an Ike fan, too. The times I enjoyed the most on the phone with Sue were when she would tell me what it was like “back in the day.” You could just hear the smile on her face. She spoke like she lived among giants. She did. Who will be the giants that inspire the next great generation?
Part of the Possible 