Democracy Depends on Organizing Between Elections
Written by SP Editor
Every election cycle, political campaigns make the same mistake.
They arrive in communities a few months before Election Day and suddenly decide voters need to be “educated.”
Campaign offices open. Organizers are hired. Voter files are downloaded. Millions of dollars pour into television advertising, digital campaigns, polling, consultants, and voter contact.
Then political professionals ask why voters are not focused on the issues that matter.
After nearly two decades in political and community organizing, I believe we are asking the wrong question.
The question should be: Where were we for the last four years?
I have spent much of my career in electoral politics. I organized to reelect President Barack Obama in Ohio in 2012 and later served as a regional field director for Hillary Clinton and Democratic candidates in North Carolina, Phil Bredesen and Tennessee Democrats, and Mike Bloomberg's presidential campaign.
I have managed organizers, opened field offices, trained volunteers, studied voter data, and executed get-out-the-vote operations.
I believe in elections. But I have also come to believe that the political industry has confused mobilization with organizing.
They are not the same thing.
You Cannot Educate an Electorate in 90 Days
Political campaigns are often expected to introduce a candidate, explain complicated public policy, persuade undecided voters, recruit volunteers, and turn out supporters in a matter of months.
Political organizers are being asked to build civic understanding while trying to win an election.
It is no wonder voters are susceptible to distraction.
When communities have not spent years discussing utility rates, housing, health care, infrastructure, wages, or environmental conditions, those issues are difficult to explain in a 30-second advertisement or a three-minute conversation at someone's front door.
Meanwhile, politicians who understand fear and outrage know how to fill that vacuum.
Suddenly, we are debating gay bathrooms while a family's electric bill increases again.
We are fighting over manufactured culture-war controversies while people cannot afford groceries or rent.
We are told to fear our neighbors while corporations negotiate tax incentives and public subsidies behind closed doors.
The point is not that social issues are irrelevant. The point is that an electorate without sustained access to public policy information can be manipulated into giving disproportionate attention to issues that have little impact on their daily lives.
Distraction is a political strategy.
An organized, informed community is the best defense against it.
Trust Cannot Be Parachuted into a Community
Throughout my political career, I noticed that the strongest campaign operations were often located where someone had already been organizing.
There was a pastor who could fill a room. A neighborhood leader everyone trusted. A union member who could recruit ten volunteers with three phone calls. A community organization that knew which streets flooded and which local official actually returned calls.
Campaigns sometimes call these people “validators.”
They are more than that.
They are the infrastructure.
Today, my work with Anthropocene Alliance has reinforced that lesson. We support grassroots organizations and build statewide organizing coalitions around environmental, public health, and infrastructure issues.
Through our statewide organizing work, organizations in Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Arizona are connecting local problems to public policy and political power.
In Louisiana, community organizations are organizing around extreme heat, air pollution, and disaster preparedness.
In Mississippi, Missouri, and Oklahoma, communities are asking hard questions about rapidly expanding data centers: How much water will they use? Who will provide the electricity? Will residents pay higher utility rates? Who benefits from public tax incentives?
In Arkansas, organizers are working on flooding, warning systems, and utility accountability. In Arizona, communities are organizing around mining, water, clean air, and energy.
These may look like environmental campaigns.
They are also democracy campaigns.
Every time an organizer explains how a public service commission works, democracy gets stronger.
Every time residents learn how a zoning decision is made, democracy gets stronger.
Every time someone learns to testify at a public hearing, organize a petition, read legislation, or request a meeting with an elected official, democracy gets stronger.
That is voter education long before anyone enters a voting booth.
The Electric Bill Is Political
Ask someone whether they are interested in politics and they may say no.
Ask whether their electric bill is too high and you will get an answer.
Ask whether their neighborhood floods. Whether groceries cost too much. Whether rent has increased. Whether they can afford health insurance.
People have opinions about these issues.
What they often lack is information about how those conditions connect to public policy.
The electric bill on a family's kitchen table did not fall from the sky.
Someone approved a rate structure. Someone regulates the utility. Someone voted on a budget. Someone approved a tax incentive. Someone appointed the people sitting on a commission.
Community organizers help people understand that chain of decisions and give them the tools to act collectively.
Once people understand that chain, elections look different.
A voter who has spent two years fighting a utility increase will ask different questions of a candidate. A resident who has testified about flooding will listen differently when a politician discusses infrastructure.
An informed electorate is harder to distract.
Stop Rediscovering Voters Every Four Years
Every election cycle, political organizations spend billions of dollars rediscovering voters.
Campaigns hire organizers, create voter universes, and call community leaders they have never met.
Then comes the request: Can you help us turn out your people?
Community organizations may have spent years helping residents after hurricanes, fighting pollution, organizing tenants, or navigating government systems.
A campaign arrives in September, asks them to produce voters in November, and disappears after Election Day.
That is not organizing.
It is political extraction.
If political institutions truly care about voter engagement, they must invest in the ecosystem between elections.
Fund organizers. Develop community leaders. Invest in public policy education. Support local coalitions even when there is no competitive race on the ballot.
Stop treating community organizations like rented campaign offices.
By the time a political organizer knocks on a voter's door in October, much of the work has either already been done—or it hasn't.
The real campaign begins years earlier, when someone helps a resident understand why their electric bill increased, why their neighborhood floods, or who benefits from a billion-dollar development.
That is community organizing.
And if we are serious about protecting democracy and creating an informed electorate, it is time we treated community organizers as essential political infrastructure.
Chris Williams is a veteran political organizer now working as a xxxx with the Anthropocene Alliance.
