Thread by @thebestsophist

Thinking a lot about something @blackamazon says: If there is work to do, there is hope.

And there is so much work to do.

I am tired. I am angry. 2017 was my worst year ever. Much of which, I only told a select few.

But I still have hope. May I tell you why?

In the darkness of 2017, I have seen things that will reshape progressive organizing forever.

In North Carolina, the heart of where the right has been testing many of their legislative tactics, I met with grassroots progressives doing something I’d never seen before: they were starting their own PACs and building their own election forecasting models.

Two groups. They were building forecasting models to target seats in the state legislature to defeat the supermajority in 2018 so they could stage a retake in 2020—in time to fight gerrymandering after the next census.

That was their 4 year plan. *THEY BUILT THEIR OWN DAMN MODELS* And then they tested and shared them with each other. They were recruiting local candidates, canvassing more than a year out because that’s how you organize for the long term.

Also in North Carolina, I saw groups of white progressives seriously organize around not doing everything themselves, but around what other groups—especially Black and POC organizations.

I have seen groups like Indivisible and resistance guide rise out of google docs to produce real and substantive organizing power. At scale.

I have seen the projects @ragtag_team work on start from mere ideas to delivered projects.

In Far Rockaway, @Blackamazon took about a dozen of us to her home and showed us an amazing group of youth of color who—when they saw that nobody was covering their community, started their own monthly newspaper. facebook.com/RockawayYouth

In writing, they were tackling problems like the school-to-prison pipeline, immigration, and all while considering with the same problems of reporting in endless newscycles that journalists in bigger newsrooms were. With just as much poise.

And that’s just a small taste of what I’ve seen. But that’s not what gives me hope. New projects start as old projects die all the time.
What gives me hope is that every new project is built from coalitions. Folks working together rather than jealously guarding their territories.

For the first time, I see a lot of folks in the mainstream—not everyone, but many—centering voices from marginalized communities. Folks who have been leading the work because its their lives that are most impacted.

For the first time, I see workers and doers leading, not thought leaders. I see people who lead by raising one another up rather than being the loudest voice.

*That* is what gives me hope.

I wrote this line right after the election “we must do everything all at once. And we must do it everywhere.” In 2017, we started figuring out what that looks like in practice. tinyletter.com/thebestsophist…

It means calling your reps. It means writing letters. It means building your community groups and keep each other on task. It means grassroots PACs. But it also means community journalism, gofundmes, giving money to Black and trans folk.

It means sending mesh network hardware to Puerto Rico, it means believing and supporting assault survivors, it means protecting the undocumented, it means backing up government data, calling friends in, paying for someone’s rent.

It means keeping your eye on 2018 while preparing for the census in 2020. It means protecting refugees and defending journalists in crisis zones. It means all that and more all at the same time.

Because the other side? Their power and victories this year are *entirely* due to what they won in 2016. They haven’t built up any new social power, it’s all been about spending or protecting what they have. Mind you, they have *a lot* rn. But it’s gonna come back to bite them.

So I believe we can do it. Because I’ve seen it happen. Because I see it *happening*. 321 days until the midterm. Back to work, y’all.