We’ve all be seeing the non-stop lawsuits challenging the results of our free and legal election. These lawsuits are the result of a demagogue who was fairly (if not foolishly) elected as leader of our country four years ago. He has been claiming that our elections are corrupt since 2015 when he lost the popular vote, despite winning the office.
If someone repeats a big enough lie for long enough, even the most competent and sane of us will start to ask if maybe we’re missing something. I think this is because fundamentally, we all think that others have life figured out and we don’t. Here’s the truth, none of us have it figured out, even those who are elected to be our leaders. Once we realize that, we can start to better identify those individuals who are morally corrupt and who are seeking “leadership” positions simply to wield personal power.
American elections are not corrupt or fraudulent in any widespread fashion. There are too many people involved in the process from elected officials to poll volunteers to vote counters. Across the country there are thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of people involved. Due to human nature, it is completely impossible for large scale fraud to occur without someone wanting to blow the whistle. That’s not to say that once in a while an individual might try to vote twice, there will always be the individually corrupt person. This number is probably less than a couple hundred across fifty different states. For the record, there were about 150 million people who voted this year. A couple hundred illegal votes will not change the outcome of a national election.
I was proud of the fact that so many people this year exercised our most precious freedom, voting. I’m proud that so many Americans at the state and national level have sounded the alarm that our democracy is under internal attack and have stood up and spoken out in preservation of our election process. But I’m dismayed that thousands, if not millions, of Americans support this attempted government takeover. If we, as American INDIVIDUALS, don’t start to take action to turn this around, we will lose our country, our dreams, and our real personal freedoms.
We have been looking to loudmouth elected officials at local, state and national levels to take care of us because we didn’t care ourselves. In discussions with people, many say “I don’t care about politics” which to me is the equivalent of saying “I don’t care about our country’s laws” because that’s what politicians do. They set policy for our communities, large and small, local and national. But they can’t, and shouldn’t, set those policies without citizen input. This is why people have the ability and opportunity to testify at city councils and state legislative committees. We need to be involved.
That involvement can feel overwhelming though. I think it’s largely due to the fact that we’re all not that certain about what we can do and how to go about it. I’ve came up with a few ideas that I want to share. I believe that we need people to be more involved at larger levels as well as (and perhaps more importantly) small levels.
First, this is the easy one to figure out. Run for office. It’s become incredibly clear that across this country we’ve elected a large group of people who are easily bullied and swayed by tyrants and money. We need people who have enough self-confidence to be able to stand alone for the right thing. It can be hard to determine who that person is though. Sometimes people like to stand alone simply to be contrarians and they don’t really know how to think about the greater good of the larger community. Those people are already in office – I call them loudmouth idiots. Hey, if the shoe fits….
Running for office isn’t for everyone. But interacting with those in office could be a next step. Our elected officials all have addresses and email addresses and phone numbers. Please use them and reach out to express thanks or displeasure about what they are doing. It can be very easy to work in a capital building (state or national) and end up being a bit cut off from the rest of the world. We are their connection to that real world.
Contacting officials is easy but it does require something in addition and that would be the fact that we need to pay attention to legislative bills being debated. This isn’t all that hard because there are various news outlets of every type which report on what’s happening in our legislatures. Yes, there are “news” outlets that lean to the extremes of liberal or conservative, which is why I’m a proponent of tuning into ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS including the local stations of each of those networks as well as reaching out to long-standing magazines and newspapers like The Washington Post, Newsweek, and Time. Local print, radio and television media is crucial in hearing a different perspective as well. In short here’s my analogy. If a person is to read one beauty magazine, they may read a story that says thick brows are “in” and here’s how to achieve them. A second beauty magazine at the same time may say that the arched thin eyebrows of Old Hollywood are “in” and here’s how to achieve them. News is no different. To get balanced information, we must consult with multiple sources, none of which should be our Cousin Eddie spouting off on Facebook.
If getting involved in the law-making process directly doesn’t sound like a good fit, I make the next suggestion. We need to reinstate and/or strengthen our local social clubs. When I was growing up, we had a local Elks club, which of course, was only open to men to join. Let’s leave the sexism out of the discussion today in order to focus on the bigger picture. I can think of many organizations like the Elks that all had community involvement as part of their organizational missions. There are the Elks, Freemasons, The Rebekahs along with The Odd Fellows, there are VFW clubs, The Shriners (as a kid, I loved the tiny cars they drove in the county fair parade), Knights of Columbus, and Loyal Order of Moose and probably many more I’m not aware of or can’t think of at this time. Where I grew up, we also had The Grange and our state offered local home extension clubs.
Aside from most of these being male-oriented clubs, they have some other good things in common. First, they are social groups allowing people to get together and just have real in-person conversations. Yes, many people in these groups think alike, but there’s enough difference that those conversations would have some differing viewpoints which is necessary in a healthy democracy. Second, at least in my community, these organizations always had community fundraisers and community items they focused on. The Elks were usually sponsors of some event, perhaps a ball tournament or ice cream social. The Shriners’ main purpose is to help children with medical disabilities. The Knights of Columbus had their name on many civic items. This means that people within the organization have to work together within the community to achieve a common goal and this means they are involved. Allowing people to have some personal stake in the game is key to success. This is true in business, this is true in communities.
As is the case with anything generational, my parents’ generation (born in the 50s) really seemed to be the last group to join these clubs. The evidence of this is the disappearance of the buildings these clubs once owned. I believe my local Elks club building may now be a restaurant. My generation and those behind me consider them to be old fashioned and sexist and exclusionary. I think that WAS true, but as is the case with anything, I think many have changed and that may not be the case now. For example, a quick search revealed that the Rebekahs, organized in 1851 as the women’s arm of the Odd Fellows, now has both male and female members.
I think we should make a push to once again get people involved in these types of clubs, even if that means waiting until after the pandemic of course. If we could have people of all faiths, races, political parties and careers join together with a common purpose of something as simple as raising funds to restore a playground in a city park, then we all end up with something in common and something to share and that’s a bridge to understanding.
But if that type of club, which all have membership dues associated with them, is not the right fit, then I suggest joining other clubs. None of which should be groups with the purpose of suppressing any other person – I’m looking at you KKK. I’m talking about common interest clubs that might be associated with a hobby. I have joined a photography club and wound up with a small group of odd people many years older than myself who I would NEVER have considered friends otherwise, but after two years I found myself really enjoying their weird and genuine company. By the way, they go out for pie after club meetings and just chat. Everyone under the age of 50 should do that with people over the age of 70 that you are not related to, not just once, but several times to give it a chance. It sneaked into my world and I found it wonderful, so much that when I moved away, I missed that misfit group.
I have a relative who meets on Saturdays in a grocery store parking lot for Cars and Coffee. A bunch of car people who love to discuss and share their common interest in cars. They are older people who meet in a parking lot like teenage vandals with their pricey sports cars and I think it’s great.
There are choirs to join, model train or model rocket groups, I gotta think there are drone clubs these days. I also like the idea of woodworkers finding a common garage once a month in which they can work on projects together. I think it’s critical that these types of groups be ones that are not just a group of friends. I love the idea of Book Club, but only if that club is organized through the local bookstore so that it attracts a variety of people, not the kind that’s four friends getting together for a glass of wine – although I concede those are important too. The crux of this being successful is to step just a smidge outside of a comfort zone and take a chance on interacting with someone who we might only have that one thing in common with. It will provide an opportunity to get to widen our world and see different human viewpoints.
This is what we can do as individuals. We can get involved in something, no matter how small, just something. And I think that’s honestly what we’re all looking for and we just don’t realize it.
I’ve been negligent in this myself. Aside from the photo club, I’ve not reached out much either. It can be hard when it ends up not being a good fit, but I would encourage each of us to keep trying til we find that fit. I know we must balance self-care, work and family which is often the touted combination, but I’d like to add that we’ve been missing a part of that equation. We must balance self-care, work, family AND COMMUNITY. I challenge any reader to think about what you might be able to devote in time to a real, in-person (after we all get vaccinated) community group. Maybe it’s only two hours each month, but that’s something.
I’m going to challenge myself too. This weekend, I promise I will join the League of Women Voters like I had planned to do last Spring. Democracy is absolutely fragile and we the people have become too complacent in our involvement, or lack of involvement, with it. It cannot survive if we treat it like a spectator sport, we must participate on some level. I hope you will find your way to do so.
