AFTER THE NOVEMBER 2024 elections, I felt called to local community action. As I voiced despair to my therapist over the demise of democracy on a national level, she asked, “What is within your circle of control?” A friend had just decided to run for mayor of our town. This was one area where I could do something.
As a journalist, I typically don’t support specific candidates publicly. This time, I left my neutral observer role to get in the local political trenches as a volunteer campaign team member. Even at this level, it gets nasty — mudslinging, blatant lies, threats, bribes, and all those things that give regular folks a bellyache.
Long story short, my friend and our slate of city council candidates won. I’m still amazed by the fact that ordinary people who wanted change unseated five incumbents bent on preserving the status quo.
Reflecting back on how we did it, and how we might do it again, one strategy rises to the surface: We activated our social networks.
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