It’s been a year – Plus a little …
Hello Dillos –
It’s been a little over a year since my political “re-birth” that led to the re-birth of the Dead Armadillo blog.
I’ve done a lot of things I have never done before. I served as an election clerk. I went to a convention for a political party. I watched legislative hearings and floor debates on my computer. I knocked on a bunch of doors (well, I had done a little of that before, but not this much).
I’ve written blog posts, and op-eds, and letters, and longish and shortish Facebook posts.
I still don’t have an especially clear idea of where this path is leading, or the best way to use the Dead Armadillo blog, or the best way to use whatever talents I may have to help build the world I would like to live in through politics.
I do have kind of a jumbled list of decisions and thoughts:
- I joined the party. – My goal with The Dead Armadillo Party has always been to try to understand both – or however many – sides of political issues. I don’t think that has changed. What has changed is that I have had to recognize my “middle of the road-ness” as a subtle form of chickening out for me. Both parties need moderate voices and people who are willing to listen to what others have to say, but in the end, we do have to make decisions about what to do. If all the moderate people stay out of party politics, that leaves the parties to people who have a tough time listening to each other, and in the worst cases, to people who don’t even believe we should be listening to each other at all.
I decided to throw my lot in with the Democrats. Our two-party system has lots of problems. I don’t agree with every Democrat on everything – which would be impossible because Democrats don’t seem to agree with each other on everything, or even anything, sometimes. But, I do feel like my values basically lean in the same direction as the Democratic party, and I don’t feel like much gets done outside of one of the parties. Being a part of a party is not a natural fit for me. It can be frustrating for sure, but I have gotten to know some wonderful people, and it feels better to be inside working than outside griping.
Being a part of the party makes me feel like I have moved from the calm, well-organized, logical, but ultimately fruitless world of thinking about problems into the aggravating, noisy, people-y, messy world of actually trying to do some little something to get something done. I have to keep telling myself over and over, “The tiniest thing you actually do is better than the biggest thing you just think about doing.”
- I am trying to learn to take action before I have “all” the information. – That last sentence feels almost like heresy to me as I write it. My tendency is to always want to collect more information – but at some point that is not helpful. There is an unlimited amount of information that can be collected, but no matter how much information I collect, there is never going to be a perfect answer to the kinds of challenges we are facing. Information is important – but at some point trying to collect more and more is just a way of avoiding action for me. I’m trying to get a better sense of when enough is enough. Sometimes you can’t get the information you need until you try something.
- I am prioritizing talking with people. – It’s hard to figure out what to actually do. The days go by so quickly and I feel an urgent need to figure out the best way to spend my time. But it’s hard to figure out what that would be. Would it be better to knock on a few more doors? Set up a meeting to get to know some new folks and get them involved? Write another op-ed? Dig into the voter role spreadsheet? Read up on an issue? My tendency is to do things I can do on my own (the writing, the reading and the spreadsheets), but I learn so much more when I get out and talk to people. I am trying to push myself to do more of that. The people who are willing to do things with you are the people who know you – it’s very difficult to convince people to do something just with your words. You have to get to know people a little bit to stir any kind of action. I’m trying to lean more toward the “with people” things instead of the “on my own” things.
- I’m trying to normalize talking politics. – The hardest thing about this work to me so far is overcoming the hesitancy to talk about political issues with people we know. I think we are afraid that if we broach politics with our friends, they won’t be our friends anymore.
I can have a great meeting with people who I know care passionately about the issues I care about, but when it comes time to actually contact someone else and invite them into the conversation…it’s hard for me to do that and it’s hard to get other people to do that.
This “quiet game” is a problem, especially for us Democrats and Democrat-ish folks in McLennan County. If we just keep talking to people who are already involved and who we already know agree with us, we will never win any more races than we are winning right now. We’ve got to grow the team. The only way I know to do that is to talk to people. I have discovered there are lots of people out there who feel the same way I do about things, but they haven’t really been involved because it’s not that easy to figure out how to get involved or what to do. We need to talk about that.
It feels like there is a little bit of an “ick” factor when it comes to talking politics. Honestly, though, there doesn’t have to be. It’s OK for us to disagree about things. None of us knows perfectly what we should do about every issue – we are just doing our best based on what we know and what we value and believe. As long as we give each other the benefit of the doubt, there’s no real reason to shy away from talking about politics. Talking to each other is the only way we can understand each other. The worst thing we can do is to quit talking to each other. We need to learn to do it better, not stop doing it.
Thank you so much to all of you who have stuck with me and the Dead Dillo this far. These next few months could be humdingers as we head into the November elections. I’m trying to figure out how to be respectful without being silent and how to be kind even when I am talking about things I feel are wrong. I may not always succeed, but I won’t get any better at it if I don’t work at it. I am trying to do a better job of balancing doing with thinking. That means I will make more mistakes, I am sure. Hopefully that will help me stay humble and to think twice before I get riled up about someone else’s mistakes.
Down the road we go! Yee Haw! — ABT