The change that’s coming is that much harder to ignore with Ayanna Pressley’s primary win over longtime Rep. Mike Capuano. Pressley’s refrain during the campaign was that “The people closest to the pain should be closest to the power,” and while Donald Trump’s aggrieved base may believe that means them, primary wins from Pressley and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Stacey Abrams and so many more in this astonishing year are what bring us closer to that ideal. We’re in a movement moment, as Pressley observed in her victory speech:
“People who feel seen and heard for the first time in their lives, a stakehold in democracy and a promise for our future,” she said. “That is the real victory, that is bigger than any electoral victory. And I want to thank you all for being foot soldiers in this movement and for ushering in this change.”
That was some of the promise of the Obama presidency—marginalized people, young people, getting involved and rising up and claiming power. That promise saw a fierce backlash in Trump (even as his election was a result of voter suppression and Russian interference and the dangerously outdated Electoral College system), but now we’re in the backlash to the backlash and it’s not about a single charismatic leader but about Pressley and Ocasio-Cortez and Abrams and Andrew Gillum and Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib and Jahana Hayes and so many others. This is a promise for our future spread across the country, people feeling seen and heard for the first time in their lives at the local level, where they can imagine their own efforts having an immediate impact.
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One of the key images of Pressley’s victory is a powerful photo of Pressley’s young stepdaughter at Tuesday night’s victory party—tears of joy and inspiration and a look of pride shining out.
She wasn’t the only child inspired by this win, though—that I can guarantee. Tuesday, I walked out of Rep. Katherine Clark’s district and into the 7th, and at the edge of the district, by the polling place, there was a boy holding an Ayanna Pressley sign. Among a handful of people holding signs for their candidates and issues, he stood out not only because of his age but because he wasn’t standing lazily at the corner, but pacing back and forth, angling for visibility, his eyes lit up.
He was old enough to be there alone, because he wanted to be, and young enough to be excited to hold a sign on a street corner. Even if I hadn’t been rooting for Pressley to begin with, the intent hope in his eyes would have made it painful to think of her losing—I so wanted that boy to feel that his efforts were part of a historic win. This was a black boy, in the most diverse district in Massachusetts, represented by a white man, and working—even though he himself was too young to vote—to elect a black woman, the first from our state to head to Congress (and, since there’s no Republican on the ballot, Pressley is headed to Congress).
Here’s hoping that kid, and many more, come out of Ayanna Pressley’s primary win with an abiding sense that their efforts can make a difference, that politics matters, that it’s worth fighting for the candidates and causes you believe in.