Empowerment Structures
...we're hearing a lot about 'permission structures' in this election as a way to describe the Harris campaign's appeal to Republicans and others who haven't traditionally supported Democratic candidates.
It's been a cathartic outreach that has benefited both Democrats who need republican and independent votes to round off what looks to be unified support among our own traditional voters, and also Republicans who are looking for a way to identify themselves apart from the divisiveness and awfulness that Donald Trump has brought to their party.
But there is another important acquiescence to be made by Democrats in this election that could well define the outcome. It's our party's reflexive insistence that the old guard is essential and preferable when the chips are down and the challenges are grave.
We have a rapidly aging population, but our nation is not bereft of the vitality and ingenuity of our youth. There has always been a well of participation and support in our young voters primed and ready to be mobilized and activated.
You might ask, how? Or, you might be wondering why we haven't seen the same outpouring of enthusiasm and votes at election time from younger voters when they clearly have so much at stake. Is is a dearth of information, of interest, of belief?
I remember back to the galvanizing protests over the shooting of Mike Brown in Ferguson, and how those demonstrations and the activism that grew out of those efforts to hold the local police accountable, and the way they cast light on the scourge of police violence against the black community nationwide.
Somewhere toward the winding down of the unrest there, I remember a meeting held by the young activists who had been organizing march after march, and one direct action after the other, which was also attended by Rev Sharpton and other Civil Rights era leaders, as well as a young Ta-Nehisi Coates who was emerging at the time as a progressive writer (saw him this week on TV with his graying hair, lol).
I'm a product of that older struggle for rights, and I appreciated the blend of concerns and perspectives at the gathering, but the young folks weren't having any of it. Al and the other civil rights stalwarts got booed down when they tried to speak.
It was jarring and a bit disturbing, but I listened as they spoke and came to the realization that our struggle had not been their primary responsibility in their youth, and their fight was not primarily the struggle we had fought.
Despite the similarities in movements, there were many aspects of our past resistance that didn't sit well with the young people now engaged in their own fights for their lives and livelihoods. It wasn't for us old folks to say.
I watched Al Sharpton experience that same pushback from young activists when we were all protesting together, later in D.C., against the Iraq War. There was an insistence by the young protesters that the generation which may well have worked to make things better, were nonetheless, part of the generation which had screwed things up.
Indeed, it was a generation in which liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans who are still represented in our national legislature could not recognize and advance many Americans' basic rights because of seemingly intractable conditioned beliefs; from marriage equality and sexual and gender identification; to reproductive rights; to the need for universal health care; to protecting the environment; to protecting us from dangerous weapons on our streets; and many other expectations Americans rightly should hold.
Indeed, even our current Democratic president who we turned to in our time of crisis in 2020, also has roots in that seemingly immutable period where these issues and concerns were cast as intractable from the attitudes and opinions of the past.
What the 'passing of the torch' by President Biden to Kamala Harris is poised to accomplish is to empower a new generation to firmly take on these issues and more as their own primary responsibility, and confidently move them forward into the future in which our younger generations will reside.
An empowerment structure which shares the reins and encourages our younger generations to lead the nation over the finish line in this election, and into the future.
They don't need our permission, just the means and opportunity that this new way forward presents them with Kamala Harris as president.
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