Dumbfounded......
Jan. 6th, 2021 04:10 pm<sigh>
I spent more time this year working for political change than since I was in my 20s. In January & February I canvassed door to door for Warren. don’t wanna think how many miles I walked going door to door. I just remember my ankles telling me, “this had better be worth it.” After lockdown, there was phone banking. I’ve always been a believer that politics is local and that my action needs to be local. I no longer hold to that. Not since my rights were stepped on during Prop 8, when forces from outside California funded the most vicious ads on our airwaves to deny not only the rights of my community to marry, but to undo my own already existent marriage. How dare you tell lies about me.
In September & October, I journeyed virtually to Pennsylvania, spending day after day phone banking in the get out the vote effort there. Vote Save America sponsored an adopt a state program and I opted for Pennsylvania. The adage tgat the state is Philadelphia in the East, Pittsburgh in the West, with Alabama in between isn’t all that far off. Remember the Mason Dixon line is the boarder between Pennsylvania with Maryland & W, Virginia. All this month, I moved my efforts to virtual, near daily travel to Georgia, in the get out the vote effort there for the Senate runoffs, jointing NextGen, Fair Fight & the New Georgia Project.
Personally, while I was unsurprised of the outcome in November in Pennsylvania given all the positive conversations I had in the 7 weeks prior to Election Day, I still feel the effort I put in, along with volunteers from all over the country, helped the cause significantly. Similarly, the last month in Georgia, the determination I heard from the Metro areas of Altanta, Macon, Savannah, & Columbus, kept me calling. I felt good about making sure folks knew, where and how to register, when to get their votes posted by mail or dropped off, and how to find their polling place. I cannot tell you how any times I got told, “we have to get this done!” At times I was unsure who was bolstering who I this effort. Yes, there were plenty of “please stop calling me”, but almost as many offered their thanks for what I was doing.
Went to bed last night relieved, Warnock having been declared the winner by the AP, and Ossoff holding a 3,600 vote lead with the majority of the outstanding ballots predominantly from Democratic urban bastions. Again I was unshocked, but deeply grateful. In September, I had felt confident the Senate would flip; I thought a minimum of 4 seats would change. I was dashed after the election, certain that although Biden wound take the White House, that McConnell would prevent and significant change in the new Senate and quash any attempt for progress in DC. Early on, I had serious doubts Georgia would flip the Senate. I went to sleep with incredible relief.
Today started with great hope, thinking last night’s Georgia news would be the main news story of the day. The staged drama in the House & Senate of objections to the acceptance of the ballots cast in the Electoral College might come in a close second. Instead, the news story of the day was a riot incited by the President. I’m incredulous. Protesters breeched the Capital, while both the House & Senate were in session no less. Someone died in the course of the protests, a woman shot inside the Capital. They smashed windows and there are photos of them closing in on and chasing solitary capital policemen. I was struck that many of the police were people of color; I saw no protestors they were not white. Not one. I was also struck the difference in the police response to white conservative protesters, in comparison to say how the protesters were treated the day the President decided to hold up a Bible in front of a church near the White House.