As many of us who recently became activists, my journey truly began when Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016.
I grew up in a news family, and as my dad always told me, you need to "always be up on current events." Taking this to heart, I am a devout reader of all things news-related and am always one to be watching the local news, the national news and the cable news stations such as MSNBC.
Thinking back on things, Obama's election as President in 2008 and his second term win must have lulled me into complacency. I truly felt that Democrats had finally done it. We had elected our first black President and not only was he an incredible human being, but he was also a once in a lifetime orator and leader. When Trump came down that elevator and entered the political universe I was absolutely disgusted and truly thought of his candidacy as a joke. I had faith in the American people that they would never elect such a cruel, angry and despicable person into the highest office in the land. And boy was I wrong.
On election night in 2016, I will never forget getting dressed up in my pantsuit and telling my daughters that this night would go down in history because we were going to elect our first woman as President of the United States. As I was sitting with my girlfriends in a bar in downtown Austin watching the election results live, we were slowly realizing that what we dreaded and never thought possible was happening before our eyes. Once the pundits called Michigan we paid our bill and left. We were all too upset to even really talk about it.
That night I went straight up to my room and ignored what was going on all around me. I woke up the next morning to my husband telling me the devastating news. And right then and there I became a new person. A person on a mission.
My mission started small. I joined local groups dedicated to working towards the midterm elections. I flew to Washington DC in order to participate in the Women's March and I wrote a blog post about my experience there. I started donating to Democratic causes throughout Texas and the country, and I became a Volunteer Deputy Registrar in Texas so that I could register people to vote.
Towards the latter portion of Trump's presidency, covid took hold of our nation and the true darkness and desperation of his term came into focus. Trump made the covid epidemic political, and I knew that if we were ever going to get through that dark time we absolutely needed new leadership.
I volunteered to register people to vote in Bexar County and in Travis County. I made social media posts and videos to help people in Texas register to vote, and I offered to help anyone that had voting questions in Texas to reach out to me and I would research the answer for them. I posted all important voting deadlines and I also applied to be a poll worker. I worked at the polls during the entirety of early voting in Texas and I also wrote postcards from my house to voters in Texas and in swing states. I delivered literature about voting and the elections to neighborhoods throughout Austin, I block walked for local politicians and I joined a local baking group that delivers cupcakes to people who donate a certain amount to blue candidates.
Even though none of these actions are particularly earth shattering, doing all of these small things made me feel like I was participating in Democracy. I was doing something instead of nothing, and I was learning and meeting wonderful people along the way.
My advice to anyone who feels like they want to do something but they do not know where to start is to reach out to their local Democratic party and see what their needs are. And depending on where you live, registering people to vote and also the act of voting can be very difficult. I started with voting because Texas never fails to make it more difficult for people to vote and I knew that I could help make it easier for people.
-Erin