Learning from Georgia
Politics is not an activity for those who want instant gratification. Not if you want to win where before you were losing; not if you want to take power in places where before you had none; not if you want to upend long held practices rooted in popular opinion.
The two Senate victories in Georgia this past week were not won this past month, or this past year. The seeds of victory were sown more than a decade ago. The plant that eventually bore fruit was nurtured and watered by countless hours of work motivated by a vision of what could be accomplished and the plan for getting there.
There are many organizations and leaders across the state who made success possible. Some became active almost 20 years ago. Stacey Abrams, who lost narrowly for Governor in 2018, is the most well-known.
Democratic fortunes in Georgia were at a low point in 2011, when Abrams was elected House Minority Leader. In the 2010 election, the Party had lost all the statewide races. Republicans increased their majority in the House and elected a super majority in the Senate allowing them to lock in their power by drawing a reapportionment map giving themselves 124 of 180 districts.
It was then that Abrams decided Democrats could win in Georgia, sketched a path to accomplishing that goal, and started gathering support and resources. She believed there were enough people in Georgia of like mind who needed to be turned into voters. They first had to be registered; laws making that difficult had to be changed. People had to be convinced that voting was both possible and a way to change their lives.
The court approval of the Republican gerrymandered map “meant the only salvation we had coming was to crawl our way back,” Abrams said in an interview with the New York Times. “There would be no new map. There would be no litigation. We were going to have to do this by finding every voter we could and that was going to take a lot longer than I’d hoped, but not longer than I’d imagined.”
Successful organizing follows basic principles. Motivation and leadership come from within the community itself. The vision taps into the desires people have to change their lives and their communities. There is a clear path leading from today’s action to tomorrow’s goal.
There are specific lessons we can learn from Georgia.
Don’t wait for someone from outside to rescue you. The national committee and the Obama and Clinton campaigns declined to be involved in Georgia because they didn’t see a path to victory.
Focus on the vote. The vote is the unit of power in a democracy. If you have the votes you have the power.
Embrace all those who are willing to join. Share leadership. Accommodate differences. “This is a coalition that we’ve been building together for the last decade through groups like Asian-American advocacy funds, Black Lives Matter, Coalition for People’s Agenda, Mi Gente, Southerners on New Ground. So this is a group that didn’t just come together out of convenience,” Abrams told the New York Times. “It proves the model of building this tapestry of leaders across racial and geographic lines.”
Leave it up to local people to decide what is effective and how to reach their own. “I think it is not helpful to try to force every single person into the same mold,” Abrams said.
Pay attention to the details of the process. Everything matters. From registering voters, to location of polling places, requesting ballots, filling in all of the spaces, and getting the count correct. If the law needs to be changed, work on changing the law.
Embody the effort in a credible candidate. You organize for a cause. But you are asking for a vote for a candidate. The candidate carries the cause, personifies the cause. When there is synergy, the sum is greater than the parts.
Victory is empowering. “Seeing the power of their vote in real time is way more effective than the nine months of message research that we’ve done,” Nsé Ufot, the chief executive of the New Georgia Project, told the New York Times.
Keep working, keep building. It is a long journey. “We’ve got this done, but it was narrowly achieved, which means more work remains to be done,” Abrams said. “Every cycle is an opportunity. You build the muscle memory of voting; you build the capacity to engage.”
The few who began organizing in obscurity 20 years ago, this month saw the results. They elected two United States Senators. They changed political power in Washington.
Today, Georgia. Tomorrow, perhaps, Alabama.
Anton DiSclafani, a woman who lives in Alabama, wrote this, last October. “Sometimes I ask myself why I spend so much time organizing sign deliveries for a candidate who will need a miracle to win. Then I think, ‘Maybe we are that miracle.’
“A couple of Saturdays ago, on Auburn’s first game day, I drove around delivering signs, my 5-year-old son in the back seat. … I drove by so many crowded parties, spotted so many people spilling out of houses. I saw so many Tuberville signs. They made me want to cry. And then I went home and organized another delivery.”
Douglas Kane is the author of "Our Politics: Reflections on Political Life" published in 2019 by Southern Illinois University Press
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