You marched. Now what?
On Saturday, more than half a million people descended on Washington to protest the inauguration of Donald Trump, and all that he stands for. About that many also demonstrated in a slew of other cities nationwide.
A week earlier, in The Jourmudgeon’s small community, about 600 marched for the first time in a show of solidarity against the racism and tribalism represented by yet another march, this one an annual affair of Confederate sympathizers sporting uniforms and flags.
The gathering in Washington reminded The Jourmudgeon of how tenuous President Trump’s hold on power will be for the next four years. There were fissures, revealed before the day of the protest, among some of its organizers. But their differences were erased, for a day anyway, by their shared outrage over Trump’s election, his announced agenda, and who he has picked to carry out that agenda.
Both our local march and the juggernaut that hit Washington and other cities were deeply moving at a visceral level. The Jourmudgeon has witnessed and participated in numerous similar efforts across six decades. But, along with many others (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/22/us/after-success-of-womens-march-a-question-remains-whats-next.html?emc=edit_th_20170123&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=27174500&_r=0), he was left wondering: What next?
The odds are that most of those who were moved to march are not moved to vote, at least not when it counts. The Jourmudgeon is sure that most of the people who consider both the Confederate flag and Donald Trump an abomination were at the polls on November 8th. After all, Hillary Clinton earned almost three million more votes than Trump. And they can, like the Democratic Party, trumpet their success in commanding the popular vote in six of the last seven Presidential elections. So why did they feel the need to show up in Washington, and on the streets of cities across the nation?
Because they see their agenda in flames, the recently enfranchised being disenfranchised, the poorest and sickest about to be thrown into the night again. If their candidates keep winning the presidential popularity contest, how come their agenda isn’t?
Because most of what affects us most directly happens at the local and state level, and most of us ignore that. We don’t vote often enough. In 2014, the last Congressional election when there wasn’t a presidential race at the top of the ballot, the turnout nationwide was 34 percent, the lowest since 1942. A year later, in legislative elections in The Jourmudgeon’s state, Virginia, it was 29 percent of registered voters. (The percentage measured against eligible voters was even smaller.)
And what happened in the eight years that the man the Trump haters love – Barack Obama – occupied the White House? When they couldn’t vote for Obama, most of them stayed home.
As a result, Republicans now control all branches of government in 25 states, Democrats in only five. Since 2009, Democrats have lost 10 percent of their seats in the U.S. Senate, 19 percent in the House of Representatives, 20 percent in state legislatures, and 35 percent of governorships. On President Obama’s watch Democrats lost 919 state legislative seats nationwide.
How does power work at the local and state level? State legislatures are empowered to redraw their own and Congressional district boundaries after every Census. The party in power uses the opportunity to stack the deck for themselves. While Democrats congratulated themselves for their record in winning the popular vote in presidential contests, Republicans focused locally. They found and groomed candidates. They appealed to the party faithful, the hard core and the single-issue voters who show up for legislative and congressional elections. They gradually gained control of the states.
They also retook the House in 2010 in a staggering 63-seat turnover. By 2012 the sleight-of-hand of redistricting was revealed: In Congressional elections that year, Democrats won 1.4 million more votes than Republicans nationwide. But they still wound up in the minority, by more than 30 seats. Two years later, the Democrats lost the Senate.
The new majorities listened to the small number of voters who put them there. President Obama’s agenda languished. And so did a Supreme Court nominee who would have shifted the balance of power on the Court for a quarter century. Instead, Americans are faced with the prospect of President Trump appointing up to four justices, and a Republican Senate approving them.
Supporters of Hillary Clinton, bitter that Trump is president even though he lost the popular vote, point out that if just 77,000 votes in four Midwest states had gone the other way, Trump would not be president, and nobody would have had to knit pink pussy hats and head to Washington. (To be sure, there was also something fundamentally wrong with the Democrats’ message. Some 215 counties in the Midwest alone that voted for Obama in 2012 voted for Trump in 2016. Obama carried Iowa by 10 points in 2012; in 2016, Trump carried it by 15. And a lot of those Trump voters told exit pollsters they had held their noses when they voted. Trump was an unconventional candidate, but not a strong one. Unfortunately, a much stronger candidate was part of a party that has a tin ear when it comes to listening to voters, especially disaffected white voters.)
But if 77,000 votes out of 129 million cast could have swung the election nationwide, imagine how few voters in each district in state legislative and Congressional races could have changed today’s national complexion. No gerrymandering to allow wingnuts to achieve dominance. No threat to the rights of women, minorities, LGBT people, Obamacare, the environment, national security. A vastly different Supreme Court.
Local turnout is the reason there is now one-party rule nationally and in most states. It is also the reason fewer people are going to be able to vote. People who vote give power to our leaders. So do people who don’t. By not voting, they gave power to those who, for the first time since the 18th century, are trying to narrow the franchise instead of keeping it as it is or expanding it.
If you want to matter, voting is your first job. If you don’t vote as hard as you can, every time you can, nothing else will matter. If you don’t vote for everyone who will represent you, nothing else you do will count, including your vote for president. Voting itself is not always sufficient, but it’s necessary. Without it, no other combination of efforts will succeed.
What else can you do to make your leaders responsive? The Jourmudgeon offers a checklist, no matter which ideology you adhere to or whom you support:
Every day:
- Stay informed. Read, watch, listen: To PBS, or NPR, or The New York Times, or The Washington Post, or the Wall Street Journal, or your local news outlet. Facebook and Twitter aren’t news, they’re echo chambers for what you already wish was the case. Fox and MSNBC aren’t news, either; they’re commentary. And CNN is mostly click bait. (Pay for your news media or donate to them, by the way, or they won’t be around much longer to inform you.)
- Fact check. Fight fake news. Haunt Snopes.com and Politifact.com.
- Listen to people whom you suspect voted differently from you. What are they thinking that hasn’t occurred to you? What can you tell them that hasn’t occurred to them?
Every chance you get:
4. Volunteer.
5. Donate.
But if you don’t vote, don’t bother with the rest of these. They won’t make any difference.
Makes sense to me, but then I have always thought you were pretty special and bright.