This opinion piece was originally published in the American Reformer HERE. It is being republished with permission of the author.
Following this week’s election results, hopefully a few civic realities that have been lurking in the background have reemerged as the obvious truths about politics they’ve always been.
Politics is decided by the people who show up. The people willing to do the work of building a platform, a movement, a party, and the infrastructure required to win are the ones who prevail. Yes, winning is a prerequisite for social and political change.
Put more plainly: posting online from an anonymous account is not political activism.
Many Christian patriots and conservative Christians need to hear this. Yes, it is easy to get online and call out the people shilling for establishment causes and establishment candidates. It is easy to pick apart an opponent in 280 characters, post a scathing rant detailing your grievances with the way things are, or to pass along a meme from another thread to your buddies in a group chat. If the purpose of these exercises is merely cathartic, then by all means, the Christian right has done a fine job. But that is a fundamentally unserious way to view your role in changing the country. That is especially not how you change it if you are advertising that you don’t plan to vote or plan to leave the process altogether, as some have said since the polls closed on Tuesday.
Christian patriots want God-fearing men in office. We want righteous laws. We want a country that is more affordable and more prosperous. We want a place where a family can be raised, and businesses can be built. We want a community that has a strong culture and an environment where it can thrive. And we want to leave communities and our country to our children better than we found it. We don’t want to feel like we have to leave our communities and “escape” to somewhere more hospitable to live by God’s Word and the convictions of our faith and conscience.
Maybe you’ll be surprised to hear this, but getting there isn’t complicated. It is, however, difficult. Real, meaningful, and lasting political activism is hard. It requires building, uniting, organizing, and participating beyond your keyboard.
That’s what it takes if you want to take back ground, recover our culture, save our country, and build something we can proudly hand to our posterity in the wake of Tuesday’s election.
For all practical purposes, it starts with voting.
This sounds obvious, but early analysis suggests many Christians simply didn’t vote in Tuesday’s election. Many in this audience don’t actually vote at all. And maybe you did. Maybe you did make it to the polls for this past election. But the hard truth is that voting alone is entirely insufficient. Take your wife or girlfriend with you. Get your parents and your siblings out. Between now and the next election, consider building a sample ballot or slate card that you can easily print and take into the polls with your immediate network. That can take less than an hour: pull the sample ballots, print them, fill them out, and tell people where to vote. Early voting and Election Day are often at different locations. Give them both. Tell them early voting is usually a short line and can be over in fifteen minutes. Then follow up.
I work in politics professionally, and I don’t even know everyone on the ballot. For example, Dallas County has 32 district courts. Harris County has 67. Do you even know who you’re voting to elect as county clerk? Have you read the local ballot propositions on the last page? Many of the people closest to you have no idea who they are voting for below the office of Governor, let alone the third or fourth page in an urban or suburban county. Use that. Do the research, and tell them that you are supporting people who care about the country, the state, and the community. Tell them you’ve worked hard to try and identify people running for office who are unapologetic about their faith in Christ and care about our heritage, culture, and traditions. You can even do the work and tell them how much their taxes will go up as a result of some of what’s on the ballot.
That strategy works outside your home, too. On primary election day, I took my slate to the polling location and introduced myself to everyone who talked to me before they voted. They were from my precinct or the ones next to it. They were my neighbors. They didn’t know who they were voting for in the state representative race, the county party chair race, or justice of the peace. I told them why the names on my card were there. They were minutes from voting, and those conversations moved elections. All but two of the candidates I supported won in my county. Sign up as a poll greeter through your county party or a candidate’s campaign you’re supporting. You can also just show up with your own cards where the law allows it.
Then widen the circle. Host a meet-and-greet at your house or a local restaurant. Invite candidates for local office. You may even be surprised by how many district and statewide candidates will come for an hour to shake hands and answer questions in your neighborhood, especially if there is barbecue and more than a dozen attendees. Maybe you set up a tailgate toss or a bounce house for the kids. Community is the point; the political implications are the icing on the cake.
Have you hosted a fundraiser? Friends who can only give $50 or $100 still matter to the candidates you support. Candidates for Congress averaged about $65 per donation last cycle. You know people who can give that if you ask them to come. A first gift puts skin in the game. The candidate gets the money. The donor becomes a more active participant instead of a spectator. And do not let the event be the end of it. Everyone who came goes on your list for the next event, the next mail piece, the next text, and the next primary.
If you have friends that can give $250, $500, or more, they can come together for a fundraiser in support of one of the candidates you’re most serious about supporting. You’d be surprised by the number of your friends who have the ability to give more than $1,000 in support of someone they’ve gotten to meet or have taken your word for it.
Some of you will go further. Start a local political action committee. Raise a little money from like-minded friends and family, and make it something you do before every election. A few thousand dollars is enough to matter in a precinct, a justice of the peace race, or a county party fight. You could mail a slate that includes the person you want to see as your next State Representative or Senator. It will not buy a television ad, but it is enough to reach the voters who actually decide those races.
You could get more personal too. Rather than a slate, you could simply write a letter with your name, the three or four races that are actually contested, and the names you are supporting. They will read a letter from a neighbor, even if they are at the point where they are throwing the rest in the trash. Hit them once early, and once the week before early voting starts. If you cannot afford the whole county, mail your precinct and the two next to it. Texts work the same way, and they cost less. A peer-to-peer text from a local number, sent by a real person who can reply, outperforms a blast that reads like spam. You can leave a stack of slate cards from your PAC at churches, the gym, and the gun range you frequent. You might even consider knocking on doors and handing them your info in person. Crazy, I know.
Election Day is not the end of the work.
Join a local club if your county has a real organization with an active chapter. Grassroots groups, young republicans, or another org you might already follow online. If your area doesn’t have one, start one. And it doesn’t have to be a stale speaker banquet where the mayor explains why he is the man to fill potholes, catch strays, and get new tech up at city hall. The point is a group of people with the same values who will actually show up. Shoot clays. Watch a game. Grill. Do a range day, then a voter-registration table in the parking lot. An organization that exists only to clap for speakers will die a slow, pointless death. A chapter that hunts, lifts, and then block-walks together before a primary will still be around in four years.
Young people, especially, are routinely left out of policy conversations and decisions, and they often bear the brunt of the cost of the ones that get implemented. That is mainly because they don’t show up to vote, and they don’t make their voices heard in the process at all. Committee hearings are where bills are actually argued, for and against, before they ever reach the floor of a state’s legislature. Register, show up, and testify. Two minutes on a bill that raises your property taxes, grows debt, mandates a medical procedure, or spends taxpayer money on something your community never asked for will do more than a month of social media posts. Lawmakers notice who shows up. If the only people in the room are fancy lobbyists and the groups that want the spending, the bill moves. If you are there, on the record, the outcome can change.
Candidates are only the start. Are you subscribing to and financially supporting groups that already have infrastructure and years of experience? Groups that testify before lawmakers, maintain mail lists, educate voters, and move the Overton window? Organizations that can help make your time more efficient and keep you in the loop? Most people posting online are not. If you care about immigration reshaping the country and the electorate, support an organization built for borders and sovereignty. If you care about government mandating medical procedures as a condition of work or ordinary life, support a medical-liberty organization. If you care about affordability, about city councils and school boards passing bonds every cycle, or about taxpayer money spent on drag queen story hour and other woke and weaponized policies, support organizations like Texans for Fiscal Responsibility in your state. Support them, and ask what they need locally. Often it is a body at a hearing, a witness slip, or someone to hand their scorecard to the same neighbors you are already texting.
Many readers live in a precinct with no Republican precinct chair. In many counties, you can be appointed to fill that vacancy without running at all. Your county party can pass resolutions calling out weak politicians, or supporting those advancing the agenda you actually want. Despite the memes, most of the older people in those rooms are glad to see young men who show up, listen, learn, and ask how to help. Go. Then bring a buddy with you to the next one. They’ll probably even let you introduce yourself and share a minute or two about why you’re there and what issues are important to you.
And don’t plan on being a guest forever. Get involved. Once you are making a real impact, consider running yourself. There are more offices than President, Governor, and U.S. Senate. The offices closest to home often affect your wallet and daily life most. If you’ve already forgotten that, take a trip down the COVID-19 memory lane or revisit the Lori Lightfoot video that went viral again last week.
Do a little at a time. Focus on your family first. Then fight for your family by getting engaged in the system that decides whether they will have a prosperous future. Staying home and posting online is not a plan. Nobody is going to care what you think if all you do is excoriate people from an anonymous account on X. Building takes time, judgment, and execution. Once you show up, people start to take your policy demands and political takes more seriously.
It sounds tired and cliché, but there’s no better time to start than right now. Many candidates are running on platforms unlike any we’ve seen in 20 years. Several of them were just elected, despite the overwhelming progressive swing we saw Tuesday. But catch this – they have to win. And that means you have to win too. You can play an integral part in the next chapter of this rapidly changing political environment that will necessarily chart the future of our county and local communities.
Look, the midterms were rough, but at the end of the day, we have no option but to push forward and engage. Setbacks cannot deter us from stepping up to the plate, exercising agency, and using power to honor the calling to which we’ve been called. That means, no matter how bad the sting of defeat this week may have been, you’re not allowed to blackpill. There’s no falling on our sword. No bowing out. No giving up the ship. We are building. Not whining. Not anon-posting about how the people have no real control. None of it. Not until you’ve actually exhausted the fundamentals laid out here.
In fact, we’re only just beginning. Don’t quit before the real fight has even commenced.
Winning requires relationships, infrastructure, and influence. Those take time. Start now so the next cycle can go even deeper.
No staying home. No blackpilling. There’s too much at stake.
Red-blooded Christian patriots are getting back in the driver’s seat through real and meaningful political activism. Will you?
This opinion piece was originally published in the American Reformer HERE. It is being republished with permission of the author.
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