Well we only listen by listening. So neither of us are in a position to say what a community wants until there’s been enough listening and cooperation for trust to form and the community then asks us to speak for them on an issue.
The first practical issue that concerns a group of community members and which they entrust to you to help address will not be a national issue.
And even assuming for the sake of discussion, the consensus goal matched that ambitious platform, that’s not really different than the histories of the welfare rights movement or civil rights movement or suffrage or abolition or other movements.
Those movements generally started small and local, realigned with other groups, issues and programs and eventually, over time, produced comprehensive political programs, including national legislative and policy change.
It’s basically how people everywhere have always identified which tasks they want done. It’s not bad to start small with whoever shows up ready to work.
In my experience, it’s more likely that a small group of say, parents, who are out of money and time, might choose a bulk purchase of diapers. Or a farm share. Or a child care co-op. Or an after-school program. Or an art and music festival. Or a tutoring group.
All of those sorts of projects can also support alternative political cultures — far more powerfully than another ActBlue or national branding campaign.
Too many of us — democratic socialists — have forgotten how to help organize and support those projects.
We sometimes don’t like not winning everything. Or relying on other people that we want to think are not as “smart” as we think we are.
And organizing nonviolently and cooperatively and kindly in the middle of an oppressive fascist regime is hard. It’s inherently shared work.
It’s easier to vow we won’t vote “this time” for a compromise candidate and then cocoon for two to four years.
