A Short Ode to Vote Save America

A bonus post since I missed a couple weeks, but really I’m asking for a favor

The election of Donald Trump truly rocked my foundation. I had a rather naive and privileged belief in the triumph of good over evil, of the inevitability of progress after eight years of President Obama. I spent election night 2016 at a friend’s house, watching the polls get worse and worse. Someone ordered depression mozzarella sticks, and by the time they arrived I couldn’t eat. One by one we drifted out of the living room, away from the bad news, and into my sister’s bedroom to watch the West Wing. 

In the morning, the subject line of The Skimm’s daily news email said “It’s over.” - period, not exclamation point. That’s how I knew. 

The next few months were, of course, awash in chaos and anxiety. I started reading a lot more nonfiction, started paying more attention to politics, standing guard over that open barn door watching the horses run away. It was hard to figure out where to put my energy, what was important and useful and what was just going to make me feel better and what was neither. 

Vote Save America helped change all that. The program and the community have grown a ton since they first launched in 2018. In those early days for me, it was a sweatshirt I wore to canvas in the 2018 midterms, and the knowledge that there were other folks out there who wanted to take all this newfound (or long standing) political knowledge and translate it into action. By 2020 it grew into a place to find volunteer opportunities and candidates to donate to, and in the years since then it has become my favorite place on the internet. 

I don’t think this newsletter would exist without the experience and empowerment I got from VSA. I wouldn’t feel as comfortable canvassing and phone banking and calling my Senators and Representative. It’s not just that Vote Save America makes volunteering and donating easier and more accessible, it’s that for me they make caring about politics easier. In the past couple of years I’ve gotten to do training and Q&As and have long interesting discussions about people with all kinds of (liberal and left leaning) different perspectives. I’ve had the resources to devote to odd year campaigns and to dig into the most seemingly random but super impactful races all over the country. I’ve had a community of people to go to when horrifying things happen and people to celebrate with when we win. 

There’s nothing like community to make it so much easier to be a person who cares in a world that makes that feel impossible sometimes. And since that’s what this newsletter is all about I wanted to make sure that you all know that you can sign up at www.votesaveamerica.com/2024 and get access to a really fun Welcome Call, VSA office hours, and a whole community of people to celebrate and mourn with, to inspire and be inspired by, to fight for and who will fight for you. 

Vote Save America has a goal of getting 75,000 people signed up for their 2024 Organize or Else program by National Voter Registration Day, or September 17. If you haven’t signed up yet, please do! You can do so here: www.votesaveamerica.com/2024 

It’s a little hard to explain the difference that this program has made in my life, or the opportunities it’s given me. On the surface it doesn’t seem like much has changed - I still live in the same metro area I did when Trump was elected, still work at the same publishing company. But since Trump was elected, I think my foundation has gotten a lot stronger. I have more confidence in navigating the vagaries of our politics, its pitfalls and terrors as much as its capacity for change and the space we make for possibility. I know my voice matters, and I want to make sure that you know your voice matters too. And while I know that this comes from me, from what I learned and what I built, I don’t know how I would have done without VSA.

At the bare minimum, signing up (and following through, that’s a key step) will make you more ready and confident in volunteering in this election. You’ll feel more ready to fight for things you care about, for people in your community, for abortion rights and queer rights, an economy where we can all thrive, and a planet we can all live on. But you might find a lot more than that too.