Yesterday we saw the
transition of power in the
form of a ritual known as
Inauguration Day. It was a
moving day for a moving
moment. For many of us, it
was a moment to breathe a
huge sigh of relief.
Before emails bombard you
asking you to prepare for
the next fight ahead, we
want to send you an email
encouraging you to take
another exhale. It's okay
to exhale. It's okay to
not stay reactive, to not
be always on edge, and to
not lose sleep over the
latest political
maneuvers. To be human in
this moment is to
recalibrate and detoxify.
Yes, there's much work to
be done to address the
roots of last week's
attack, to advance
democracy, and to combat
the underbelly of
misinformation and
violence. But that work
isn't best done when we're
stuck in a reactionary,
hypervigilant, reptilian
brain. So do all of us a
favor and allow yourself
the space to detoxify.
We've promised we
would close shop on
January 21st and so this
is our last email.
We wanted to take a moment
to explain that decision
and leave with a few
parting thoughts.
•••
We're well aware
that Democracy has not
been unequivocally
Chosen — so we can't
exactly say "mission
accomplished."
But Choose Democracy was
born to alert people about
the very real possibility
of a coup (check), to
prepare thousands how to
stop an active coup
(check), to use levers
available to us to help
deter a coup (partial
check), and to prepare a
national response to stop
a coup if warranted
(check).
We've trained over 10,000
people, reached millions
of people with our
articles, and built
ready-to-run plans for
coordinated strikes if an
active coup situation
unfolded. We can't predict
the future — and while we
will officially close down
we're leaving a shell of
an organization in case it
needs to arise again.
We transitioned our
website to include
the story of the past year
and curated resources in
the event we need to stop
a coup in the future (in
the U.S. or elsewhere).
History has shown us that
organizations who hang on
after completing their
mission too often turn
into vampire organizations
— they linger without a
clear purpose. The field
of nonprofits is littered
with organizations who did
something good once, but
are now adrift. They stick
around to keep
fundraising, sucking
attention, rewriting
strategy plans, and following
the times rather than leading
on the times.
Letting
organizations die is a
gift for the future —
just like a crowded
forest needs the space
for old trees to clear
out so the new can
arise.
PEOPLE MAKE A DEMOCRACY
FUNCTION
Our democracy rests on
much more than the act of
voting. We saw this over
and over again the last
several months. There were
so many key moments by
citizens that kept history
from turning even more
sour:
- Election officials
carried out a clean
election and then
defended their work at
holding a largely free
and fair election;
- Grassroots groups shot
down haywire attempts to
undermine electoral
process (like in
Michigan), expanded
voter access, and fought
for people's rights to
get to polls without
intimidation;
- Governors and state
elected officials
enforced and approved
the democratic processes
even in the midst of a
raging pandemic;
- Organizers and regular
folks pressured elected
officials to honor
election results and
forced Republican
leaders in Pennsylvania
and elsewhere to send
electorates who
represented those
results; and
- Judges shot down
unhinged theories of
scary-sounding but
fact-deficient claims
and held strong against
overt political
pressure.
You can probably keep
adding to this list.
If any of those pillars
had completely buckled, we
would be in a very
different situation. We
might still be engaged in
prolonged consumer and
labor strikes to try to
wrestle control back from
a successful coup. (Don't
believe us? Read Stephen
Zunes' analysis in Yes
Magazine.)
Instead, the coup attempt
flopped within hours.
As we look to the
future, let's look to
the past and honor all
the work, the
contributions, the
sacrifice, the risks,
and the courage.
MANAGING
OUR FEAR OF VIOLENCE
January 6th left many
terrified, terrorized, and
traumatized. This
engenders a normal and
healthy internal response.
Our hearts beat faster and
the fight-flight response
pumps adrenaline into our
system.
If we'd managed to live a
life protected from this
country's violence, this
was a wake-up call. For
others, it was just a
reminder of the strong
thread of violence woven
in this country's history.
Many of the symbols at the
Capitol insurrection
harken directly to those
violent lineages of racism
and anti-Semitism:
Confederate flags, nooses,
"Camp Auschwitz" shirts.
Whether this was a wake-up
call or a stark reminder,
it's a chance to work on
our fears. How we
handle fear determines a
lot whether we're useful
to the movement for
liberation or whether we
contribute to the cycles
of hate.
This seems unlikely to be
the last act of violence.
And so it makes sense for
us to learn from this
moment about our own
reactions — and practice
being more present and
able to react wisely.
Meditative practices, like
breathing, help us more
quickly ground our
heartbeats and move from
our reptilian brain.
Accepting — rather than
pushing away — reality is
part of that. So is
getting a good sense of
U.S. history. And having a
community to lean on — so
you don't feel alone in
these moments. We
strongly recommend the
practices over at
FindingSteadyGround.com.
WATCH
FOR THE CRASH
After a big spurt of
adrenaline in our system,
there's a natural next
step: the crash. It's an
up-and-down cycle:
violence, the body rapidly
mobilizes, and then the
body crashes...
We've been braced as we
had been counting down to
Inauguration Day.
Movement therapists remind
us of the importance of
getting that adrenaline
out of our bodies: walk,
run, exercise, have sex,
do whatever makes you
sweat and helps get those
toxins out of your body.
Spend time laughing and
crying, recounting what
scared you with people who
can listen. And if you do
crash, be gentle with
yourself and seek
community support.
If 2020 was a
sprint to survive, we
think 2021 is about
finding our pace for a
marathon ahead.
THIS
IS NOT THE FIRST COUP
Many of us watched the
insurrection and felt the
terror and pain of an
attempted coup in the
United States. Most
haven't seen a dramatic
insurrection or coup quite
like this.
But many people have
experienced coups. One
person who has lived
through 6 coups (several
backed by the United
States) wrote to us, "I
send my love to all of the
Choose Democracy family
and your country. Watching
the images was shocking.
And as I pray for your
country, I also pray that
it changes how your
country moves in the
world. With less arrogance
and more humility."
We hope this may
be a teaching moment for
us to grow in empathy
towards countries whose
people experienced coups
— especially the many
countries whose coups
were backed by the
United States, such as
Iran (1953), Guatemala
(1954), Congo (1960),
Brazil (1964), Bolivia
(1971), and Chile
(1973).
If you were angry
at Trump for his coup
maneuvers, imagine the
coup plotters being a
foreign country on the
other side of the
planet.
ADDRESS
UNDERLYING CONDITIONS,
LIKE ECONOMIC
POLARIZATION
The whole possibility of a
coup-attempt came from the
brokenness called
political polarization.
Political scientists have
discovered that one of the
biggest drivers of
political polarization is
economic inequality. The
more inequality, the
more polarization.
During the Great
Depression in the 1930s we
had enormous political
polarization, with old
school Nazis filling
Madison Square Garden for
a rally and frequent
bombings and KKK
lynchings. President
Franklin D. Roosevelt was
trying to do some
progressive things and
several figures in the
elite began to plan a
coup. The plan was dropped
because they saw it
couldn't work —
democracy-loving
progressives were too
well-organized.
We can expect more
political polarization
because the economic
inequality has been
accelerating; some
economists say it is the
most extreme in U.S.
history. This takes us
back to the work of
building mass movement
organizations that can
achieve positive goals
with accountable,
anti-racist, and
pro-democratic policies.
There is a severe
breakdown of our country
afoot. It's not going to
get better without
effort. We
certainly can't fix it by
staying in reaction mode
to each act of violence —
which may grow
dramatically. We have to
handle our fear and our
internal state so we can
keep working on the big
issues — the positive
visions.
We didn't avoid a
successful coup by
focusing on the negative —
we did it by shoring up
systems of democracy:
registering to vote,
voting, organizing,
pressuring officials to
act right, counting votes,
debunking myths, preparing
if things got worse, and
being strategic about when
we act.
That's our parting
hope: to lead with
eyes open, feet on the
ground, and hearts
wide. To be led by
love and strategy.
We love and thank you all
for journeying with us.
Mic drop.
The Choose Democracy Team
PS: If you want to keep
journeying with our
co-director Daniel Hunter,
who has been the primary
writer of our emails, he
writes occasionally and
you can sign
up to his list here.
