Good News from the Resistance: Lately I’ve been thinking about my all-time favorite Saturday Night Live character, Father Guido Sarducci, the chain-smoking priest. Father Guido created a Five-Minute University, an education concept I bet Cruella DeVos could get behind. The idea was simple: In 5 minutes, students learned everything they would remember five years after graduating from a 4-year university. Economics: Supply and demand. Spanish: ¿Como está usted? Business: Buy low, sell for more. Spring Break: 20 seconds under a sun lamp, and a Dixie cup full of orange juice. Tuition: $20.
In 1976 — about when I was watching Father Guido on SNL — I was taking an Organizational Behavior class. Here’s all I remember:
Performance = Motivation x Ability
Translation: Performing well at anything is a function of how motivated you are to get the job done, and how capable you are at the task. Lazy (motivation = 0) geniuses are not productive. No matter how motivated you are to finish a work project one night, if you splash tea on your computer keyboard, the screen goes black and you can’t fix it (ability = 0), your project will remain unfinished.
The Good News? The sky’s the limit when you are 100% committed to achieving your goal, and you’ve got the smarts and ability to stick with it. Which is where we are right now.
Never has our motivation been higher to oust an Occupant of the White House. And never have we been so well organized to get the job done.
Highly Motivated Voters x Well-Organized Voters = Ousting the Grifter-in-Chief
Highly Motivated Voters x Well-Organized Voters = Flipping the Senate
Yes, Iowa was an embarrassment. Yes, there is (at this point) a void in party leadership. N.H. did little to calm our fears. And yet. On-the-ground grassroots organizers aren’t being hamstrung by the mess at the top. They’re running full-speed ahead, fueled by three years of the Grifter-in-Chief’s antics.
So get off that sofa, stop reading all of the Chicken Little, click-maximizing news, and heed the motivating words of Shinedown’s hit song, “Get Up“:
I’m on the bright side of being hellbent
So take it from me, you’re not the only one
Who can’t see straight
If you were ever in doubt
Don’t sell yourself short …
Hard to move mountains when you’re paralyzed.
Get up, get up
Get a move on!
There are dozens of organizations, represented by thousands of organized groups in every Congressional District and state, that are educating and registering voters, getting out the vote, and building infrastructure that will ensure we have the ability to win the White House, flip the Senate, and keep the House. Fear-mongering sells clicks, not reports of organized citizens knocking on doors and registering new voters.
One thing is certain: You-Know-Who will continue to provide our motivation. It’s up to us to use our tenacity and smarts to get him out of our lives. ¡Sí, se puede, people! Get up!
Here’s what you can do to create more Good News from the Resistance:
- Use Swing Left’s laundry list of tasks to decide how you will help win 2020
- Get Angry, Then Get Even with an Indivisible chapter near you
- Join She the People in organizing women of color to beat The-Occupant-of-the-WH
- Apply for Organizing Corps 2020’s Bootcamp (or send your kid)
- Pay someone’s fine in Florida so they can vote
- Support Voto Latino’s effort to register Latinx community members to vote
- Work with Stacey Abrams to fight voter suppression
- Invest in the Big 5 Battleground Fund with the Movement Voter Project
- Back Mi Familia Vota in its work to educate, register, and engage Latino voters
- Inspire 7+ million voters to turn out with Move On’s Our America for All campaign
- Use MobileAmerica to find a volunteer event near you
Sign Up. Show Up. Never Give Up.
