Last week, I called a friend of mine from Texas to make sure he had a plan to vote. I expected our conversation to follow my cookie-cutter “get-out-the-vote” template: Are you planning to vote? Have you heard about these down-ballot races? Will you take action with me if the election becomes contentious?
Question one was easy; he was already on his way home to Austin to vote when I called. As a follow-up, I semi-jokingly said, “Do you mind me asking who you’re voting for?”
“I honestly don’t know,” he replied.
I was taken aback. Was my friend from high school, someone I used to hang out with, considering voting for Trump? I am no stranger to Trump apologism, but hearing it from him hit differently. This is someone who went to the same liberal bubble of a private high school that I went to, someone who I thought shared enough experiences with me to perceive the world through at least a somewhat similar lens.
Collecting myself, I asked him what was affecting his decision.
“Well, I clearly see a need to get Trump out,” he said as if it were mutually understood, “but I don’t really see any good reason to vote for Biden either. I might look into a third party candidate, but I’m really just not sure yet.”
The thing is, I shared his hesitations about voting for Joe Biden. As a young person, there are very few compelling reasons to vote for a senile white man who, despite branding himself as a champion of racial and environmental justice, has said he supports increasing police fundingand surrounds himself with pro-industry fossil fuel executives, among other things. Therefore, to try to convince my friend how awesome Biden is would be both an insult to his intelligence and a flat-out lie.
Thankfully, I did not have to do any of that. Instead, I borrowed a framework from my housemate (inspired by the words of abolitionist organizer Angela Davis) to talk about the election in a way that is more genuine and, in my view, empowering.
In this framework, we see any elected official as our enemy. Any. Elected. Official.
Even if you drove up to New Hampshire to canvass your heart out for them, even if you changed your Facebook profile picture to show all your friends that you were voting for them, even if you have worked alongside them as a fellow organizer — I am calling myself out on all three of these things — and even if that candidate signed all the pledges and got all the endorsements, once they are in office, they are there to do a job, and that job is to unapologetically advocate for your interests. They are there to do everything in their power to create conditions in which all of us — that means ALL of us — can live a happy and fulfilled life.
Therefore, when we vote, we neither choose a champion nor someone to speak on our behalf; we choose the enemy we would rather organize against. If they are allied to our cause or movement, great — then it is strategic for us to ensure that they get into office. If not, then we must ask ourselves: Are they the most likely (of the candidates who have a winning chance) to be pushed by grassroots organizing? Might they sway with the political wind, just as prominent Democrats did after decades of organization by the LGBTQ+ rights movement made support for same-sex marriage mainstream? If so, then it is in our best interest to vote them into office.
In this year’s presidential election, the enemy I would rather organize against is Joe Biden. I am not saying it will be easy; in fact, it will most likely be insanely difficult, exhausting and even demoralizing to get him to advocate for anything beyond the little he and Obama did during their “glory days” together.
But, if we can get this old geezer in the White House, we will at least have the opportunity to walk this journey. We have the chance to build from centuries of anti-colonial struggle and advocate for things like police and prison abolition, a Green New Deal and Medicare for All, without having to continually fight off increasingly constant and deepening attacks on our fundamental rights. It is important to note that though these ideas have recently entered the mainstream, none of them are new, and all of them have their origins in a long tradition of organizing and movements that originated before us.
That said, for any of this to be possible, we have to first shift our thinking about the role of elections in creating change. We have to see voting as one step of a much longer process in which we all have a role to play. We have to see ourselves in the context of all those who came before us, those on the front lines now and those who will carry the torch after us.
So, to share a line from Angela Davis herself, "The election will ask us not so much to vote for the best candidate, but to vote for or against ourselves. And to vote for ourselves I think means that we will have to campaign for and vote for Biden."
Great, I’ll get my friends to grudgingly vote for Biden. But what next? What do we do in the likely scenario that the results of the election are still a toss-up when we go to bed tonight, and team Trump tries to invalidate any results that favor Biden?
Thankfully, a group called the Transition Integrity Project has done some thinking about what may happen. The main two takeaways from their report are that we likely will not know the results of the election on Nov. 3, and that there will be a battle over who has legitimate claim to the White House in January 2021.
While the details of how we as everyday folks can respond will depend on outcomes we can’t predict, there are things we can do to prepare ourselves to take action. First, we must ask ourselves where we are best positioned to act. Are we in a place to lead? To follow? To be on the streets, putting our bodies on the line? To support remotely, giving our time and resources to mutual aid or legal support for those taking direct action?
Second, we must also ask ourselves: Where do we go when it is time to act? Who will know how to help?
This will look different depending on where you are. There are some national coalitions forming, but I recommend looking local. Below is a short list of some groups in Boston to look into, many of which will be in communication and solidarity with one another. It is by no means comprehensive; it is only a sample of groups that are doing work around the election. They all do great work — the most important thing is to find one that feels most like home to you.
Freedom Fighters Coalition
Protect the Results Coalition Boston
Sunrise Movement Boston
