IT’S CALLED PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY FOR A REASON
It’s called participatory democracy for a reason: you need to show up. That said, voting is only the beginning of that participation.
I am an optimist. But optimism can have an uncanny way of making you feel worse. Given climate change, economic disparity, police brutality, homelessness, discrimination, gender-based violence — and all of it brought into brutally sharp relief by an unrelenting, global pandemic — being told to be hopeful feels at best delusional and at worst like a veiled threat. Election Day is less than a week away. The stakes could hardly be more dire. Yet, when confronting the complex enormity of the world’s problems, you might reasonably ask yourself: will choosing between a 74-year-old white man and a 77-year-old one really save us all?
No. No it will not. The next president is not going to suddenly change your life. No matter who wins, the days after the election and all of 2021 will be tough. When we wake up on November 4, some of us will be elated, some of us will be devastated — and possibly none of us will know who actually won. We all will have to have patience and cope with the uncertainty and potential unrest that may erupt. That patience begins with the spirit of cooperation and a willingness to work together to address our problems no matter who is ultimately sworn in on Inauguration Day. We will only begin to cope if we look beyond Red and Blue..
It’s called participatory democracy for a reason: you need to show up. That said, voting is only the beginning of that participation. Voting is not a flip of a switch to make everything right or wrong. Moreover, the election is not merely about the presidency, but about all levels of government and a raft of issues. Read your ballot and vote. All politics is local: who runs your school board and what roads get fixed will affect you every day. But, much as the mundane issues you vote on will continue to show up every day, we all need to keep showing up every day. If we speak of the dangers of the apocalypse under one presidency, we are beholden to warn of the dangers of complacency under another. Either way, the work continues. Regardless of who wins, there is much to be done that won’t be resolved at the ballot, but rather in everyday life.
As Founder of the NIKE Foundation, I have worked with all kinds of governments all over the world to strengthen and transform communities. Through our support of the Girl Effect, we have partnered with over 150 programs in 90 countries that have done everything from creating savings and bank accounts for young women to stimulating a culture shift on social norms around child marriage. Governments have both helped and hindered our work. In Ethiopia in 2006, we were fortunate to partner with local government officials in the Amhara District who helped us implement Berhane Hewan, a program for married and unmarried girls ages 10–19 and their parents. With government support and through partners like the UN Foundation, at the end of our first 18-month trial not one girl aged 10–14 was married and participating girls were 90% less likely to be married than others girls in the community the same age.
In Bangladesh, however, things played out differently. In 2002, I traveled to Dhaka to explore the possibility of a safe spaces program for girls and young women ages 15–25. The two-year program would provide social, health and life skills opportunities to girls as well as specific trades training. When I arrived, it was Election Week; conditions in Dhaka were so unstable that the only way I could safely be transported to meetings was by ambulance, concealed under a blanket on a stretcher. The government was in no position to help us do our work, but we had a tremendous partner in BRAC, Sir Fazel Abed’s groundbreaking international development organization. Despite chronically unstable elections and government, Fazel managed over the years to build an organization that not only created an alternative post office, but together with us built safe spaces for girls.
If my career has taught me anything, it’s that real, systemic change is grueling and slow. It begins with an unflinching belief in the power of a single step forward. This is exactly why optimism can make you feel worse if it comes without practical steps and a firm plan. As someone who has led teams from the White House to Microsoft to NIKE, I have learned to deeply listen and seek wisdom from all involved. In the early 90s, I worked in the George H. W. Bush White House as Special Assistant to the President for Media Affairs. When we lost the election to Bill Clinton, standard operating procedure dictated that we were to destroy and wipe all of our systems, so the new administration would be stranded with a blank slate. Instead, I sat down with my counterpart and shared the systems I had used so they could hit the ground running. I was more interested in a functioning White House than partisan victory.
When you feel powerless or depressed watching the political circus, understand that reaching across the aisle is in your power. Small gestures add up. Change is about more than the election, but it’s also about more than working with NGOs or large corporations. You can reach across the aisle by bringing your new neighbor — the one with the other candidate’s sign in their yard — a tuna casserole. Reaching across the aisle begins with simply listening to our fellow citizens. And, while bringing a tuna casserole to a new nextdoor neighbor or joining your town’s Green Team will not win you a Nobel Peace Prize, it just might help kick off 2021 on a more civil note.
Your vote is more than a vague, binary nod toward the future: it should be a doorway to a lifetime of practical, feasible civic engagement. Much as we are more connected now than ever, so are our fates. We must work with, not against, that intertwined reality to find a way to a better future, no matter who is nominally in charge. The American election is, to be sure, a critical inflection point, not just for America but for the world. The choice, however, is not between Trump or Biden but between choosing to be defeated by a gut-wrenching array of problems or inspired to take one powerful step forward.