We cannot sit back and refuse to vote, as though our votes do not matter. That is what the enemy most wants. We can vote as never before, and make our votes matter as never before. And in doing so, we can teach ourselves never to give in again. Then, of course, we have work to do. Six years ago, I wrote
Grokking Republicans: Learned Helplessness vs. Personal Control
GOTV (Get Out The Vote) is the greatest nightmare for Republicans today. Democrats of all sorts, cowed in a multitude of different ways over the last 50 years, will learn to believe in themselves, and to vote regularly, in both Presidential and off years, up and down the ticket, and even run for office. When we vote, we win. We have the numbers to flip all of the seemingly Red states of the former Confederacy, even Alabama, in the next few cycles.
Our book for today, which I will use to explain much of this, is Learned Helplessness: A Theory for the Age of Personal Control, by Peterson, Maier, and Seligman. It explains how helplessness arises in many different situations, how it operates, how it can be created and enforced, and also what can be done about it. Like using GOTV to get people out of the helplessness of "My vote doesn't matter."
The biggest Republican lie of all is of course that Demoncrats [sic] are no better than they are, and to their fearful and deluded way of thinking a whole lot worse.
This, this, THIS is our message.
There are those in power who are doing their darndest to discourage people from voting.
But don't you believe it! We are not helpless before this iniquity.
That quotation is from President Obama's eulogy for John Lewis at his funeral in Atlanta, at Ebenezer Baptist Church.
President Obama's text for this, yes, sermon was
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.
Epistle of James 1:2-4
Amen, Brother.
In Buddhism, this is called the Perfection of Patience, khanti-parami (Pali)/kshanti-paramita (Sanskrit). Others have noticed its importance, whether we call it patience, endurance, perseverance, or steadfastness.
After Selma, President Obama noted, the White Supremacists thought they had won. But this time, the nation saw and was sickened by that violence, while the movement was
Hard-pressed on every side but not crushed. Perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted, but not abandoned. Struck down but not destroyed.
2 Corinthians 4:8-9
They returned to Brown Chapel. A battered prophet. Bandages around his head. And he said more marchers will come now. And the people came. And the troopers parted. And the marchers reached Montgomery. And their words reached the White House. And Lyndon Johnson, son of the South, said "We shall overcome." And the Voting Rights Act was signed into law.
He believed that in all of us there exists the capacity for great courage. That in all of us, there’s a longing to do what’s right. That in all of us there’s a willingness to love all people and extend to them God-given rights to dignity and respect.
So many of us lose that sense. It’s taught out of us.
Here is the full Obama eulogy for Rep. John Lewis
After talking about Republicans trying to discourage us, to make us feel helpless, he then listed all of the familiar forms of voter suppression, plus the new Trump attacks on the Postal Service and Vote By Mail, so that people have to risk getting sick in order to vote.
Too many of our citizens believe their vote won’t make a difference, or they buy into the cynicism that, by the way, is the central strategy of voter suppression, to make you discouraged, to stop believing in your own power.
And he had a lot more to say. Go listen.
He did not point out how Trump has made the entire Republican Party helpless before his petty, ignorant vindictiveness. He did not talk about how White segregationists and other haters used to make their children helpless against the hate. But we know.
In particular, you have to know that this is the story of the Trump family up North. Fred Trump was arrested at a KKK rally. He and Donald were sued twice by the Nixon administration for refusing to rent to non-Whites. Trump ferociously demanded for years that the Central Park Five be judicially lynched, even after their innocence was proven. He hates Blacks, although he reportedly hates Puerto Ricans even more. He considers White Supremacists to be his core supporters, and does everything can think of to appeal to them. Also the Creationists who deny that they are descended from Black Africans just like the rest of us, and have viciously messed-up ideas about women's health. His children are also famously racist, as well as greedy and entitled and crooked.
But now we see millions of those children turning their backs on racism and the rest of their inherited fears and hatreds, leaving their parents shaking their fists in impotent fury. Here is a particularly prominent case.
News Corp: Rupert Murdoch's son James quits company
John Lewis was never helpless. He passed the test, enduring all, and persevering to the last moment, when he left a message for all of us.
Together, you can redeem the soul of the nation
We showed in 2018 that together we are not helpless. But there are some more of us that need to get that lesson. We need to flip the rest of the Confederacy and the Bible belt. We are ready with the Dread Nancy Pelosi Et Al. Agenda, and after that we have a few more things to discuss. I have mentioned some, like the Unbalanced Budget Amendment and the Universal Basic Income.
Republicans have pretended to shift the Overton Window their way for the last fifty years, with gerrymanders, voter suppression, and other electoral dirty tricks, and with a vicious propaganda machine. No more. It has gotten away from them. After this election, the Overton Window is going to snap back our way, and it will be the terminally fearful, hate-mongering grifters who will be helpless for real.
The best for everybody. Progressive measures that the real and vocal majority of Americans want on every issue. Even gun safety and women’s medical choices.
As I have said,