Today I’m very thankful for black people in Alabama, who turned out as a higher percentage of the electorate than they did for Obama, and overwhelmingly voted for Doug Jones for Senate.
I’m also very thankful for all of the Alabama Republicans who said “enough is enough” and did not vote for Roy Moore for Senate.
In a close election, like this one proved to be—the actions of both of those groups are the reason for the result. With 20,000 votes as the margin of victory—if either of those groups hadn’t turned up (or stayed home) to the extent they did and if they hadn’t voted the way they did, we would see Roy Moore in the Senate.
Thank you for making sure that didn’t happen.
Apart from particular groups, I’m thankful for the actions of each individual that went into this victory-- each person who donated, each person who criticized Moore or held up Jones, each person who knocked doors.
Each person who made GOTV calls from other states, bought pizza for people in line at the polls, did GOTV leading up to the election, drove someone to the polls, drove multiple people to the polls, reached out to people they have influence over and convinced someone to vote for Jones or not to vote for Moore, got people registered to vote, came forward with stories of abuse, said “enough is enough” one or one hundred times, monitored or worked at polls, fought changes in Alabama voting laws over the last decade and did what they could to counter them, etc. is a reason this victory happened.
Showing up matters. Participating matters. Having the audacity to hope (#thanksobama) (and fight) for change matters. Thank you for doing your part. Thank you for demonstrating these things for all of us, for being living reminders of (i) the importance of action and (ii) the power that is still present for us within our democratic structures.
Republicans should be grateful too. Now they won’t have the albatross of Roy Moore hanging around their necks. Still, there is a great deal that Republicans have to reckon with. President Trump endorsed Roy Moore and told people to show up and vote for him, the RNC funneled money into trying to get Roy Moore elected (after having pulled out at an earlier point, which feels even worse), very few Republicans put their money where their mouths were and did anything beyond offering weak platitudes and condemnations as their party drove towards putting a uniquely unqualified and disqualified person into the U.S. Senate. This mirrors what happened with Trump. Republicans of principle need to do better. They need to carefully consider how they are going to act to reclaim their party from moral rot and then they need to do more. They need to act.
White people have something to reckon with too, as a group. Why is it that white people supported President Trump and Roy Moore, in spite of blatant racism, blatant sexism, and even pedophilia and sexual assault allegations? White people need to, as a group, care more about racism and sexism, do more to prioritize fighting them, and do more to counter them. We need to view them as disqualifying. We (white people) need to do more to have conversations with white people who don’t view them as disqualifying, who don’t understand them, who don’t prioritize fighting them, or who don’t recognize or care about the very real costs they impose on our country. White people need to do more. They need to act.
And, our country has something to reckon with. This was a low bar to clear, and we barely cleared it.
Our democracy is at a critical point and it is not healthy right now.
There are reasons to be hopeful though. Last night, we cleared the low bar. People showed up and claimed their place in our democracy. In Doug Jones’ campaign and in some of the actions taken by Republicans, we see glimmers of bi-partisan norms and cooperation that have felt MIA lately. Millennials showed up and voted against Roy Moore. Black people demonstrated, again, that they are a critical and valuable part of this country, that they cannot and should not be ignored.
The upsides of this past year, generally—more people are aware of how our government works and that we actually do have power to exercise and the ability to shape our government, sexism is being challenged in a new way, and people are starting to imagine a world that is different than the status quo of the last few decades.
Small things matter. Small things matter both ways. Terrible things and wonderful things, often came to be by a slim margin, they are usually the result of decades of work and choices by thousands of individuals—for the negative, for the positive, countering the negative, fighting back against the positive… small things, small moments culminating in change. Brick by brick we build our country. Stone by stone—we make mountains, for better or for worse.
Small things matter. What you do (and don’t do) matters and influences the arch of history. The interests that the current power structure benefits would love for you to be complacent. They would love for you to think that, when it comes to the government, you don’t have power and big change is impossible. They’re wrong. And I think Americans are waking up to that.
One of my favorite quotes is:
“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”
Thoreau was right. Let’s build some air castles, then let’s put the foundations under them.
