A Note From David Domke 7/19
In February 2007, I went to Springfield IL to see the launch of a campaign for the US presidency by Senator Barack Obama. The thermometer outside was at zero but the sun was bright. With his wife and daughters, Obama stepped onto the stage set up outside the Old State Capitol building, where Abraham Lincoln delivered his famous “House Divided” speech in 1858.
Canvassing in Kentucky, October 2023
Standing there with thousands, it felt like the dawn of a new era. A New American chapter. And indeed it was, but a chapter that has been far more painful than expected.
That day launched AND unleashed both the best and the worst of the United States. Obama became our first African American president, the kind of small-d democratic mountaintop for which Common Power today fights every day. Obama’s ascendancy, however, was a trumpet call for anti-democracy forces – particularly ones imbued with racism and xenophobia – to rise up. Today, the MAGA Movement headed by Donald Trump is opposed to freedoms and democracy on all fronts: reproductive freedom, the freedom to vote, racial justice, immigration opportunity, LGBTQ+ identities and safety, health care for all, and the struggle to save the planet. When Trump lost in 2020, he led an insurrection. And yet last night, the Republican Party nominated Trump as their presidential nominee for 2024.
In 2007, imagine if some supernatural entity tapped each of us on a shoulder and offered this deal: “If you want Obama for president for 8 years, you will get Trump as president for at least 4 years but you, the people, will get a chance to work to stop Trump from winning a second 4 years.”
That’s exactly the deal that we have right here, right now.
American history makes clear that a progressive advance like Obama’s presidency would be met by the kind of cultural backlash that Dr. Carol Anderson of Emory University has called “white rage.”
We are now, in July 2024, engaged in an unguaranteed, brutally uphill climb to win the Presidency, hold the US Senate, and win the US House. If we do these, the Democrats will start 2025 by passing laws to guarantee reproductive and voting freedoms. We have a chance to sustain this imperfect experiment in American democracy, and it’s our time to work. Please devote as much of your time, by doing voter fieldwork, and treasure, by donating to support our work and our volunteers, as you possibly can. It’s our time and our turn to step up.
— David Domke, Associate Director, Org Development