Sheer hard work.
I get it. It hurts Clinton supporters to see a repeat of ‘08, and so it comes out in bitterness and recriminations about Berners on here. But what have you been doing to get Hillary elected?
So here’s me. A GenX woman who hasn’t really been too involved in politics before. I pretty much live on reddit, and I pay attention, so when Bernie Sanders declared, I went to the reddit and read stuff, and watched stuff, and got my boyfriend interested and then spread a little Bernie love on Facebook.
So in July, I helped organize a little reddit meet-up. About 7 people showed up, all interested in Bernie. We decided on a name (Blue Ridge for Bernie) and started a bit of social media. And we organized another small meet-up, and different people came this time.
And then the first big organizational meeting happened on 31Jul, and everyone who had been at the beginning of Blue Ridge for Bernie was out of town that day, but someone in our small city had gone ahead and created an event. We hadn’t met him yet, but we would! And over 120 people showed up, and he had to rent a hotel ballroom instead of having it in his house.
And Dr. Fergie Reid got ahold of this person — and while the event coordinator was unable to continue being a major force locally because of prior commitments, he passed the info on to me, and I was able to speak with the sharp as a tack former State Senator, who created 90for90.org, and we became involved with that. (Dr. Reid does not endorse candidates in the Primaries, but he can see an honest to God revolution when it comes along.)
Meanwhile, my boyfriend and I were in Indianapolis for GenCon, and we were part of hosting a small get-together of Gamers for Bernie, which was super cool, and we had TShirts made that said “I Roll With Bernie 2016” with two twenty-sided die, one showing a 20, one showing a 16, which we are inordinately proud of — we sent one to Jeff Weaver, and Wil Wheaton said he wanted one, but I never got his address. Whatever. WIL WHEATON tweeted back at me! ;P
And our Facebook group kept growing. We started collecting signatures to get Bernie on the Virginia ballot, we went to the DPVA meetings (where some DPVA members literally would not say his name, and some walked past us using their hands as blinders.) We went to the Greensboro Rally, we went to Liberty University, and arranged rideshares. We have had BBQ for Bernie, phone banks for Bernie. I drove 4 hours to help set up a group in Danville, VA — which really was turn about fair play, since we had high school kids drive to Roanoke — their first time in town! to help us collect signatures a few months earlier.
We have hosted debate watch parties, we joined our local Democratic City Committee as a group, and 7 of us are now voting members. We helped set up a Community College group, and another group in Martinsville, and there is this amazing coalition of local groups throughout Virginia that have put egos aside to work together.
I have hosted 4 phone bank parties now, and I’ve got another one coming up.
Bernie Sanders amazing trajectory didn’t come out of nowhere. There are THOUSANDS of people like me. We are working hard to see Bernie take that Oath of Office, and we will continue to work for him.
If you want a different person elected, then put in the time.
Meanwhile, I am going to be throwing up all day on Monday. Oh God, Iowans. Go out and vote.