Find a political home

The one step you must take before January 20, 2025

We lost. Devastated is a word that feels sharp, coarse, and apt. Many in our community are reeling and adrift. We can and should assume that the Trump redux will include everything he has promised, and then some.

Yes, his efforts will be more organized and efficient, and more resilient than last time. Yes, it will be bad — you should Google Viktor Orban, Patrick Deneen, and illiberal democracy. Yes, the most vulnerable among us are now hyper-exposed, and the most powerful titans of industry are set to become true American oligarchs.

Trump will not be a king. But a day will come, probably very soon, when he behaves like one — when he and the people around him do something so outrageous that you almost can’t bear it. More likely is that several of these abuses will happen in a very condensed period of time, with the intention to disorient and to exhaust, and to rapidly move the goalposts of what Americans consider normal and tolerable.

I don’t know what it will look like. What I do know, with absolute certainty, is that when that day comes, you will want to have a political home.

Come the mass deportations, come the assault on civil society, the persecution of the press, the shuttered healthcare clinics, the elimination of all anti-pollution efforts — each a campaign promise — you will not want to start from scratch.

You will thank yourself for having spent time investing in political community, in building the muscles and learning the language and mastering the tools of political power and political pain.

I know that you might not see yourself as a political person. I am not asking you to alter your identity or your self-conception. But I am urging you, beginning today, to seek and to find a political home.

Let me share what this means in practical terms:

Remember when you first moved to your city — what it was like to “shop” for the right gym, or the right spiritual community? Do that, for your political community. 

Just as you have a synagogue or church or mosque, or a group of camp friends, or a regular workout class, or a therapist, or a fixed date night with your partner, in this world — a decade into our hard-right lurch — you need to have a political practice.

You don’t have to know what exactly you’re going to do in your political home. Indeed, we rarely seek or build any community for one instrumental purpose. We build it as an essential component of living.

Think about it like this:

We go to the gym, eat well, see the doctor regularly because health scares happen — a new diagnosis, a heart attack, an illness you didn’t see coming. 

Personal crises happen, too — the death of a loved one, the end of a relationship, the loss of a job, a bout with depression. But we do our best to be ready, to be resilient to those moments, with spiritual community to ground us, and other personal practices to protect and promote our mental health. To make us stronger in crisis.

We are in a period of profound and prolonged political crisis.

Please understand that it is going to get very, very rough, and it will feel unending and relentless. You cannot be expected to absorb personally the coming waves of illiberalism, the autocratic power grabs, the corruption. You are not asked to respond on your own.

But you are expected to respond, and to take part in building the new vision, the compelling alternative, the America to come.

We are prone right now to scrolling, obsessing, and searching. Fine; but if you are going to become obsessive, obsess over where you’re going to live politically. If you are going to enter a period of searching, search for people who are already organizing, already building power, and who share your vision of the future.

Your vision, or your gut feeling. It is a lie that one must have a unified theory of policy to step into politics. My brother Ezra is an autistic young adult who assumes the best in all living beings. I am seeking a nation built for, and not in spite of, Ezra. I organize with those who feel certain that this is not that nation.

I was moved by the number of people in my life who reached out, stepped up, organized for the first time these last months — and it brought me joy to act as a sort of political concierge, a travel agent for those who were ready to journey in politics.

But on Wednesday the line mostly went dead. The texts and the calls stopped. That's okay for a few days. For any longer, it is surrender.

Right-wing extremists are seeking to capture our nation’s culture, media, industry, and government. They are building power and institutions every hour of every day. They are succeeding. If we opt into the project of revitalizing, recalibrating, and renewing liberal democracy only every two or four years, and only when we know someone proximate to a political candidate, we will lose again.

You must now take your political life into your own hands. Pick up the phone. Before Trump is sworn in, seek a fixed place where you can build power and exercise it. Not politics as a seasonal sport; politics as a part of your weekly routine.

I want to be careful and clear: I am not offering an anodyne message about the importance of civic engagement.

I am making a very concrete, very specific recommendation and I’m asking you to act on it right now.

Start where you are.

Show up, this week, to a meeting of the union you’re technically a member of but have never participated in.

Take the WhatsApp group you were part of for door knocking or phone banking, and invite everyone to your place to talk, to have a meal, to establish a shared political home. Rotate to someone else’s place each week.

If there’s an issue which is drawing you in — healthcare, climate, abortion, economic development, civil rights, the Middle East, homelessness, food insecurity, local races — start there.

Call someone you know who seems to be connected to the issue and say — listen, I don’t totally get what it is you do but I'd like to learn. Where should I go?

If you are the one who has been organizing, invite people in, one-on-one. Call the friend who phone banked for the first time. Ask new people to come to the post-election planning meeting.

Text someone you canvassed with and ask them to join you in your seeking — do it as a pair. I will stay present, too; let's find you a place to organize. My heart is still open.

Enter a period of trial and error. Make it your homework. Make some calls. Schedule some coffees. Show up for a meeting. Do all of it with urgency.

Understand that these places become hubs, they are somewhere to go and somewhere to act. Try them now. Join them now. Start them now. Find a political home.

Do this for yourself, and for your country. Do it by January 20th. Do not wait.

Start right now.

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