I flew to Philadelphia last Friday to walk precincts in that key city in an important swing state. It was necessary to urge people to get out and vote in the then-pending, now-completed, national election.
Many addresses had broken doorbells, and front windows with cracked or missing panes. A number of them fronted micro-porches littered with the detritus of lives gone awry, broken objects strewn about, long uncollected mail overflowing from cardboard boxes, and the like.
In canvass training, we were advised to use a golf ball to knock, lest our knuckles bleed by day’s end, but I forgot to nab one even though, from the course near my own comparatively verdant neighborhood, I could have nabbed one.
No one was home at half the addresses I was assigned. Over three days of pavement pounding, I wondered frequently where had all the people gone. Sometimes, a resident would talk to me only through closed doors, or via a slightly-open window.
My blood began to boil, but I noticed it and drew a breath.
At one point, a wiry male confronted me with scarcely contained rage, charging that my candidate’s advocacy of reproductive freedom rendered her a vicious murderer, so that I was damned by implication. Admittedly, he used different words. My blood began to boil, but I noticed it and drew a breath, determined to meet him with equanimity. “I hear you, and regret that we so strongly disagree,” I mustered. On reflection, I wished I’d have said more, but it was all I could do in the moment.
On reflection, now, I wish I’d have said more, but in the moment, it was all I could muster.
At another point a large character, likely in his fifties, emerged with a scowl, and yet with a reasonable demand: Who was I to be walking through his neighborhood, knocking at his front door? I tried to explain myself, emphasizing that I was a volunteer, one concerned for our common future including, especially, respect for our Constitution and the Rule of Law.
Then I pivoted to ask what were his major concerns. Softening, he averred that he too was concerned for the fate of our democracy: “What the hell are we going to do, when they strip away our rights?” he said. And then, he emphasized that the streets in the neighborhood were too frequently unsafe for children and families, due to gun violence. “Something’s got to give,” he quietly advised.
There is something about trying to do precisely what you can. . . even where the doing is difficult and inconvenient.
In the light of its outcome, was it worth it? By which I mean, all of the efforts nationwide by tens of thousands of volunteers, well beyond what I was able to do, to try to forge an imperfect but preferred outcome in this election? I think so, largely because the obligations of citizenry do not get relieved by the approach of difficult times. Indeed perhaps our fundamental duty then gets heightened. Similarly there is something about trying to do what you can where the doing is fit for the moment, even where the action required is difficult and inconvenient. Maybe especially then.
The road ahead is long, and now more uncertain; regardless, CPR Initiative will continue to push forward to protect and restore our climate system through engagement with and enforcement of bedrock federal law, utilizing the relevant science.
We will have occasion again soon to seek your considered thoughts on what more the US can and should do on climate, as we have done with our series of Public Hearings and community events. There is much to do that can still be done even in light of the pending changes at the federal level. Through it all, we must hold on to our shared humanity, in order to best fulfill our obligations to one another – and to the natural world.