“Thank You for Your Service.” a note to Progressive Volunteers, Activists and Supporters by @spockosbrain

“Thank You for Your Service” a note to Progressive Volunteers, Activists and Supporters 

by Spocko

Maybe your proposition or candidate won. Maybe you got crushed by big money and blatant voter suppression techniques.  After a win some people look around and pat each other on the back and appreciate everyone’s hard work. Of course then some killjoy will say, “Now the hard work begins.”  Please. Just let me celebrate for a bit Debbie Downer.

After you fail some people will attack the people next to them. Instead of a “Thanks for the hard work, we’ll get ’em next time!” it becomes, “I knew we shouldn’t have listened to you! Spocko, your shenanigans cost us the election!”

Before any of that happens I want to say thank you to everyone who has spend so much brainpower, money and energy to help progressive causes and candidates.


Thank you for your service. On behalf of all Vulcan Americans, I appreciate your work, win or lose.

We can disagree on methods, issues and people, but I try to remember that our colleagues do the work because they too want to make the world better. Sure they might be misguided, wrong or naive, but they usually aren’t doing it maliciously.

We can get depressed with failure and quit, or learn from it. I try to channel my anger at the people I think are hurting America.

I try to remember to praise and support the people helping, even if not every attempt is a win. Yes, let’s learn from our failures, but in addition to soul searching, identifying and fixing failing internal strategies and actions–let’s look at the people, structures, systems and attitudes that defeated us and attack them. 

• Pissed that big money swamped your proposition? Take that experience and use it defeat Citizens United. 

• Angry that the media sat back and enjoyed the millions in campaign ad money with nary a story about money in politics? Time to check if they recorded all the “who paid for what” details in their public files and bust their ass if they didn’t comply.

  Do it now while you are still angry. The least they can do with all that juicy, juicy TV ad money is to do their publicly mandated job of record keeping, especially if they aren’t going to do any journalism. 

• Does it make you crazy that the people behind dark money got what they wanted and nobody knows who they are? Support people like my friends at the Center for Media and Democracy who are digging up the dirt on them. Then USE THAT DIRT!

  They are hiding for a reason, figure out what that reason is and use it as leverage. Maybe they don’t want their customers, investors or employees to know. They can either explain how their support of crazy candidates and regressive policies are in line with their brand values or stop supporting the regressive policies.  What else are they hiding? Footage of the CEO kicking a dog in an elevator? 

I want to contrast this work with people who dedicate their lives to making the world worse, more divisive and hateful. They know what they are doing, they aren’t dups. Instead of wishing them ill, I hope that they will have a Tony Stark or Lee Atwater level conversion and they use their power for good.

I went to a Day of the Dead party last week. I loved hearing the stories about friends’ dead relatives and loved ones. Sometimes the person wasn’t loved, but provided an example of how “not to be.”