Grassroots Politics in the Information Age
How grassroots organizations remain impactful today and can a push a progressive agenda
BETWEEN TWO ERAS
One can’t help but be transported to a different world seeing Senator John F. Kennedy making his case on the dilapidated doorstep of a rural family in West Virginia. Running in the Democratic primaries at the time, Kennedy faced a staggering deficit in the state. His pathway to nomination would require a victory here among a population whose fierce protestant roots and worsening way of life stood in stark contrast to this young catholic man raised in posh Massachusetts. So, he tore through the state vigorously campaigning on foot meeting West Virginians at their homes, speaking directly to coal miners in their mines, and delivering speeches on top of boxes stacked in the middle of dusty forgotten towns. He won the state, then nomination and then presidency. Anthologies have been written about the charisma of JFK and I have nothing new to add in this department. But the pictures from his West Virginian campaign harken to an idea of politics that seems so foreign today. A deeply personal, and local vision of campaigning that takes back burner today in an age of industrialized mass media.
In tandem with this classic grassroots campaigning, JFK took part in a great experiment that forever changed the American political landscape. On stage in Charleston, West Virginia JFK brought the issues most affecting The Mountain State to a national audience by facing his opponent Hubert Humphry in the first televised presidential primary debate. The genesis of a new era; it is impossible to overstate the massive spectacle presidential election and national campaigns have become since then. 2020 is the most expensive election in American History and it's not even close. The total campaign costs topped $13 billion. The cost of congressional races, which amounted to over $7 billion dollars spent, was on its own more expensive than the total spending of both presidential and congressional races combined any year prior. It’s no surprise where a substantial amount of this money was spent. Television ad campaigns in multiple individual swing states topped $1 billion. A total that would have paid for the entire presidential campaign two decades ago. Alongside this, internet ad buys were at an all time high with the campaigns spending over $2 Billion.
Grassroots in 2020
Set up against the full might of modern industrialized mass media exist prosperous and impactful grassroots organizations; enclaves of personal politics that retain political landscape of yesterday. 2020 has shown just how important these efforts are. No place is this more true than Georgia after the state swung blue this election cycle. Fair Fight and The New Georgia Project are receiving praise in their efforts to register voters in the state. While initial efforts during Stacy Abram’s gubernatorial campaign in 2018 fell short then, the organizations reports to have registered over 800,000 voters in the state played a major role delivering the historic result. And now with two run-off elections set to determine the makeup of the senate, these organizations are tasked with convincing voters to come out once more after an already grueling election cycle. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortes has been vocal in praising grassroots organizations, of whom she gives credit to her own campaign victories, now throwing her own weight behind Georgian grassroots groups having raised over $280,000 in a single night alone.
There may be no more prominent an advocate for grassroots organizing than former campaign advisor to Bernie Sanders, Chuck Rocha. The mind behind the “Tio Bernie,” campaign, Rocha recognized the opportunity Sanders had to win big among the Latino community and orchestrated the campaign to do so. With a focus on directly contacting individual communities throughout the southwest and funding a home grown group of canvassers who understood firsthand the issues impacting the area, Bernie's message resonated throughout the Latin communities leading to a dominant performance within this demographic. Sanders fell short of nomination and Covid-19 derailing the democratic primaries and limiting the full realization of Rocha’s work, the thesis of his position remains strong.
Learning from his work in the southwest it was Rocha who sounded the alarm for the Biden campaign in South Florida. Concerns grew when seeing the Trump campaign's community outreach far outpacing Biden’s especially among Latinos in the State. Concerns that were only validated on election day when Trump handedly won the state in spite of polling that would have suggested a much different outcome. It was in fact work by the Trump campaign that paid dividends in the state. The area had been a focal point for the past four year with some of Trump's highest advisors working out of the region and Trump himself spending much of his time at Mar-a-lago. This focus saw the spawning of groups like “Club 45” that held reelection events throughout Trump’s term. This grassroots on the ground organizing was never matched by Democrats in the state, with efforts to reach the community coming far too late for Biden to make up the ground he had lost.
THE PROGRESSIVE CASE FOR GRASSROOTS ORGANIZATION
“All politics is local” is ingrained in American thought, but one wouldn’t know looking strictly at how politicians spend campaign cash. It's beyond naive to suggest grassroots-on-the-ground campaigning could ever supplant mass media campaigns, But the results that these organizations have already delivered prove their continued validity. What can progressives take away from this information? The largest messaging obstacle that progressives must overcome is the “Socialism” label. The Red Scare is as American as apple pie. Running as a progressive in much of America today is like running as a Catholic in West Virginia in 1960. Pretty damn hard. But there is plenty of evidence to suggest it can be done. America is a weird place; it’s citizens hold heterodox non-uniform political opinions that are oftentimes completely dissonant and contradictory. This is how a campaign saw one side weaponize the Socialism Sucks, and yet somehow saw a $15 minimums wage pass in Florida and a Fox News Exit poll show 70% of the country in favor of government healthcare. Overcoming this dissonance is the best path forward for a progressive agenda. Swath of Americans are willing to overlook ideology in order to support candidates and efforts that they believe will help their families and communities. Someone just need to be there to make that case. A progressive future depends not on well run ad campaign, but instead begins on the doorsteps of regular people.
Thanks For reading! This article was done in tandem with a story I covered for The Desk Podcast. Give the show the listen for more my own work as well as incredible stories presented by my friends there! If you want to read more written content be sure to subscribe to the Back Talk newsletter and feel free to share with everyone!