What I learned in the Midterm Election

This year, having spent the past three decades forbidden to do political work, I fell into it with a vengeance, organizing voter protection efforts, curing ballots, poll observing and jockeying voter complaints. Election campaigns are a self-contained world of volunteers, young ambitious professionals, partisan die-hards — the candidates are almost besides the point, except to serve as telegenic rallying posts; it’s all about the electorate and what can bestir them to exercise their franchise.

These midterm elections were styled as highly consequential, even apocalyptic, so I’ll devote a couple of posts to what we might learn from them. One thing I learned: no one answers their doorbell if they own a Ring, which might be the single most anti-democratic technology ever invented. But the other thing I learned was that Americans are not quite ready to ditch democracy. Not yet.