Until, of course, now.
I was willing to go about my business--which was busy enough as it was--until the "establishment" wing of the Democratic Party quite clearly pushed Biden out of the race. I did not want that to happen, in large part because people had been signalling since late 2021 that *of course* Vice President Kamala Harris couldn't possibly succeed him. My position: if Biden was going to bow out, then they needed to replace him with Harris immediately. An actual convention fight would have been suicide.
Oh hey--looks like tens of millions of people were just as irate as I was, and Harris easily locked up her delegates and raised eye-watering amounts of money very, very quickly.
A few weeks before that, I had raised my hand and said I'd volunteer to help organize lobbying our senators for the Jewish Earth Alliance. Organizing is always a little running around, but it would be over as of August 8. So fine.
A few days before Biden's announcement, I had been asked to help organize non-partisan phone banking. That is also more than a bit of running around, but that also had an end date--and it was for a good cause. I agreed, and we started planning.
And then the announcement came, and I was emailing like a crazy person. When democracy is on the line, it's not the time to whine about how much work I have ahead of me. Relax after I'm sure we've pushed back a fascist.
It's coming along--there's more work to be done, but we've got time. It's one of the few times in my life I'm not worried about annoying people--again, democracy vs. fascism. And even if some people are giving me a side eye, or just straight up glaring at me, I *know* a number of them are going to come running later. (How do I know this? Oh, I don't know, maybe because I lived through November 2016 through January 6, 2021.) I don't see my job as dragging everyone into something they don't want to do; I see myself as making things available for them when they are.
I still have a lot going on in my messy personal life, but I'm kind of grateful for that. Isn't that a big part of what we're hoping to preserve?
Deb in the City
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