And here’s how to do it.
The Freedom statue model stands on a pedestal in Mateavan, West Virginia.
(Robert Nickelsberg / Hetti Image)
It was April 2012 when I was dragged to the parking lot in the Restaurant in the tiny city of Lebanon, Virginia. Recently, I started my company in the ninth Congress county, and the people at the restaurant were there to see what I was.
I recognized a comrade who met me when I got out of the car – a pensioner from coal, who conducted other events we held. He was a union guy: united mines of America.
“What do you think about this bomb, Obama fell on us?” he asked. Feeling that I wasn’t sure what he implied, he made it clear. “You know, gay -stub.” Then I remembered that President Obama had just gone on legalization of same -sex marriage.
“What to do you Think about that? “” I asked.
“It’s an abomination, the Bible says so. The marriage between a man and a woman. Everything else is unnatural, it’s wrong!” He, as we say, was condemned in these parts in his words.
“I hear you,” I replied. “I know the idea for some people seems a little strange. But the main thing I get from the Bible is what we need to love each other, especially people who are different from us, it’s hard to love.” That’s all I said. He chewed this for a moment, and then replied, “I suppose you are right.” And then, after a little more,: “Well, I suppose they were just born this way.”
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This pensioner of the coal miner, under the influence of a very conservative church and community, moved from “homosexuality is the misery” to “are just those who are, and we must love them” in the interval for a hundred yards.
Why? Partly because I listened to him and did not try to scold him. But what is more important because he trusted me. He trusted me because I knew that I was on pickets with miners during a coal strike in Pitston 1989-90 that I fought for improving the miners’ rules and worked on creating new jobs in my community. He trusted me because he thought my back and this trust allowed him to reconsider a deeply involved look.
This is what we have lost on the left: the trust of millions of rural and working people. Some of them come from a tireless and dishonest story on the right media. Some of them are our damn wine. But in any case, a huge number of people we need not only for voting for us, but also to join us in the return of this country to Trump and billionaires deeply distrustful to us. The decline in what is distrust is important for everything that seek to make progressive.
There are a lot to applaud in a number of efforts to ease civilian dialogue and build empathy. However, we took another approach that puts the action before words.
Two years ago, an initiative of a rural city bridge I founded with Eric Etelson launched The community is workingOr “Cworks” in four rural, deep red counties in Virginia. A year later, we initiated it in rural Georgia.
Our process was simple. We have identified the district democratic committees that fought but are interested in trying something else. We then worked with them to spend a regular, specific, non -political community of work, next to civilian groups, churches, veterans and groups of elderly citizens, local non -profit organizations and, in the end, local elected officials. Local Cworks executives, which are connected with the Democratic Committee, make at least three events in a month, being tens (or more) volunteers to solve local problems in cooperation with neighbors.
Our goal? To check the idea that when people worked nearby to resolve local needs, the trust will be restored. Democrats and liberals, working with independent and conservatives to pack food for low -income, pick up garbage in the creeks, correct the neighbor’s roof, install a smoke signal in the trailer and organize activities for children. And much more. No proselyticization, no beliefs, no buttons.
We are almost two years old, but it clearly works. Six Cworks sections in Virginia and Georgia held more than 500 local events, which participated at least 200 cooperation with a wide range of civil and public organizations. According to the Cworks National Director, Merded Dean, “things are being made, the community is igniting, and people are hopeful. We have also seen a very positive impact on local democratic committees, many of which were previously impeded. With the addition of Cworks, they felt a sharp rise in energy, enthusiasm and volunteers.”
Efforts to solve problems of the joint community, such as public works, are of interest to people in many places. Cworks itself expanded quickly, new sections in Minnesota, Alabama, Maryland, California and other places are recently added. For many left, especially young people, there is a hunger to do something specific and constructive, not just fighting bad things that seem to never stop. Can collective local actions taken jointly and intentionally with people “on the other hand” save us from Donald Trump? We do not yet know the answer. But it is clear that when we stop trying to convince people that they are mistaken and we start working together to fix things, we build trust.
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Trust is a prerequisite for persuasion. We can also find enthusiasm and activity generator.
Kenya Adams’s involvement in the Jenkins County, Georgia CW, helped her “become much more experienced about needs in our region. Many young people are” IDK, IDC “(I don’t know, I don’t care), completely canceled.
We saw how non -political work leads people to political participation. Shenel Car, also in Georgia, describes himself as “one of those people sitting on the couch and complained.” But after the experience of the local community’s work, “I changed everything for me. I started attending our school council and a meeting of the City Council.” The community, “she said,” Pour me to become more busy and active in my community. “
This strategy helps to revive local democratic committees in rural and red areas. But does it help to overcome mostly the negative views of the Democrats? At least anecdotal evidence of this is strong and growing. Hiser Won, headed by Cworks leader for Scott, Virginia Democrats says their events are increasingly “in response to other groups or persons who ask us for help.
In the county where less than 20 percent of people voted for a democratic ticket in 2024, it is important.
The head of the Cworks Demorts Demorts Cworks was one of the most active and successful so far. With their dazzling record of doing all that community-forth, it is mostly red-came to see them in a completely different light, spreading even to the district-controlled district executives. They moved from the skepticism of this democratic initiative to actively work on support and partnership with Cworks leader.
As one of the volunteers of the county, Bob Richie said, said, “the community works overcome the political gap that I didn’t think it was.”
At this point, the crisis we need the only, progressive opposition to Donald Trump.
We begin to see how we start to develop on the streets and ballots all over the country: from the Candide company in Mary’s New York Mammani, focused on accessibility, community that protect their neighbors from ice, to senators who oppose weapons.
The Democratic Party has an urgent choice: will it accept a policy that is fundamental and popular, or will continue to insist on the loss of elections with the elites and consultants who brought us here?
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Thank you for helping us take Trump and create a fair society we know.
With respect
Bhaskar Sunkara
President, Nation
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