How do I hate thee, electoral organizing? Let me count the ways. First, such work requires that political activists like me go wide, but almost never deep. It forces us to treat voters like so many items to be checked off a list, not as political actors in their own right. Under intense time pressure, your job is to try to reach as many people as possible, immediately discarding those who clearly aren’t on your side and, in some cases, even actively discouraging them from voting. In the long run, treating elections this way can weaken the connection between citizens and their government by reducing all the forms of democratic participation to a single action, a vote. Such political work rarely builds organized power that lasts beyond Election Day. ...
But a well designed campaign can have compensations -- and nobody is better at making the work of encouraging our voters to turn out more fruitful than the hospitality union. Members leave their jobs and knock on doors six days a week, talking with potential supporters, learning to listen, and forming enough of a bond to get discouraged citizens off their butts. It's the most basic work of organizing and it changes people who learn to practice it, as well as the voters.
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