In the spring of 2017 I began a practice of committing and recording 15 acts of resistance a week. After three months of the Trump presidency and complicity of the Republican Congress, I needed a concrete and disciplined way to push back against the rise in overt expressions of greed, misogyny, racism and corruption that were becoming guiding principles for governing.
I’d been to the Women’s March in Washington, D.C. I’d called Congress to protest the Muslim travel ban and sent money to the ACLU. Every day I got a text alert for a daily action and I did most of them – phone calls, emails, tweets, and texts to elected officials and federal agencies.
People expressed their opposition to the changes in our government in different ways. For me, it was with a strategy to sustain my resistance. I was afraid my outrage would turn to weariness and despair. So I set a goal and I kept track. My practice lasted a year, resulting in 28 slips of paper, each with a week or more of actions listed, and a total count for each week. Reaching my goal of 15 acts per week wasn’t always possible, but I did average 12 per week.
I called both federal and state legislators about pending bills. The American Health Care Act – ACHA, remember that, the Republican plan to strip millions of Americans of health care – took up weeks of calls. Twice I supported adding transgender people to New Hampshire’s antidiscrimination statute, with victory coming on the second try. I emailed Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell regularly to remind them the majority of voters in the last election didn’t choose the dangerous and hateful path the president was thrashing through our democracy. I called Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan and Rep. Annie Kuster weekly to thank them, mostly, for holding positions I supported.
Acts didn’t have to be political to count as resistance. Community building made it on the lists, too. I participated in the Endowment for Health’s Race & Equity symposium and joined the board of Bear-Paw Regional Greenways, my local land trust. Writing columns for the Concord Monitor was a favorite action, as was printing broadsides of political poems and posting them in public restrooms across the state. I attended more marches and rallies and invited others to come. I testified twice to support abolition of the death penalty and contacted officials to oppose Northern Pass.
Did my acts of resistance make a difference? They did for me and I believe they did for the world at large. Any act motivated by kindness, consciousness, thoughtfulness and generosity makes a difference. What each of us puts into our communities is what is in the world. Letting elected officials know that I agree with policies to protect vulnerable people and disagree with statements and laws that endanger marginalized people means I’m one more person calling for justice.
Those of us working to counter the destructive policies of the current administration had a bad week in June. The Supreme Court let Trump have his Muslim travel ban and ruled against the precedent of allowing public unions to collect dues from nonmembers. Then Justice Kennedy resigned, which reminded the progressive community of McConnell’s theft of the seat Merrick Garland would have filled. My social media feeds filled with despair and then as a counter, many reminders that we can’t give up. Yes, the exhaustion from 18 months of resistance was real, but giving up is what those dragging us toward authoritarian rule want us to do.
So I changed my focus to a very direct form of resistance – electoral politics. If those in charge of our government are doing almost everything wrong, than what could be more effective than voting those people out of office? I’m registered as an independent and vote for candidates who best represent my beliefs. There were years when that was a Republican. Not any more. The behavior of Republican legislators in the last year has convinced me that electing Democrats is the most effective way to say “Enough!”
In the last month of keeping track of my actions I generated a lot of calls and emails to recruit Democrats to run for state offices that represent Northwood, where I live. Democrats don’t have all the answers to the country’s problems, but electing Democrats in the current political climate sends the message that most people in this country believe in fairness and dignity for everyone, whether an immigrant, fourth generation dairy farmer, opioid victim, transgender woman or wealthy white man. We all matter and we can all make a difference.
My recruitment efforts, along with those of my neighbors, were successful and now voters in my town, and across the state, have good choices for fair representation in the upcoming election. More Democrats are running for state office than ever before. We need to elect them. We need to vote to make that happen.
The 2018 midterm election is the most important in our lifetimes to date. Prominent Republicans and Democrats, including hundreds of senior officials from the past five administrations, believe the current administration has lost its bearings. They underscore the coming election as a turning point we cannot ignore.
Electing Democrats is the most important thing you can do to resist a Republican Party that cares less about honor, honesty and common decency than about giving the rich and powerful more control. Let’s wake up on Nov. 7 to blue dots big and small across the country.
On Nov. 6, make a difference that matters and vote.
(Grace Mattern is a poet and writer who lives in Northwood. She blogs at gracemattern.com.)