On Fists and Finger and Punches and Pokes
Why were are never lacking power or out of the game...
When I started doing political reporting I focused on local politics. No surprise, covering planning commissions and minor city council debates is what all rookie political journalists do. The big difference for me is that local is where I wanted to be. Sacramento city and county politics in late 1980s and 1990s was pretty exciting. There were huge fights over development, especially over areas in flood plains (Natomas), on or adjacent to wetlands (Elk Grove, Natomas), and that were still rural (Southeast Sacramento Country). Central city activists were desperately fighting for more housing, specifically infill projects, while trying to keep developers from tearing down old and historic buildings.
Sacramento was also a target for sports team shakedowns. The NFL Raiders’ owner Al Davis tried to weasel major money out of Sacramento by hinting at a franchise move. Ony partially successful, he turned to Oakland, his real target, and totally reamed them (once again). Following the Raiders, the Oakland A’s did a little dance with Sac, more of a flirtation to get their hometown jealous than anything else.
And then there were the Kings, brought to Sacramento by a gaggle of land developers for the purpose of using a pro basketball team to break the county’s resistance to Natomas development (they won). After many losing seasons, the Kings were sold to a family or Richie Riches, Las Vegas “show biz kids” who quickly spending down their father’s fortune. After the Kings finally had a good season, the Richie Riches tried to shakedown the city for a new arena, a fight that they ultimately lost simply because they were as easy to peg as playboy sleaze as Donald Trump. The Richie Riches also tanked a casino! (The next Kings owner, helped by a thoroughly corrupt mayor, got the Kings a new arena.)
On the other end of all these fights was a tremendously active group of citizens, people who often worked together across party lines and through basic political differences to stop public subsidies of billionaire-owned sports teams, environmentally unsustainable development, etc. Though sympathetic, I rode the activists hard, while clearly focusing on true power – the developers, the wealthy, and Sacramento’s political elite, who happen to be Democrats.
That intersection between money power and politics was my sweat spot. I loved “following the money” and documenting the connections between developers and politicians (and the emerging developer-politician). This was pre-internet, so reporting meant going through binders of campaign finance documents, copying down names and addresses, and driving around towns so that I could attached names to businesses. Sounds tedious but it was a lot of fun.
Most of my work was for the community newsletter and then paper I published and edited, Sacramento Comment, which has a strong following and ran for about five years. A few years after I put the Comment to bed, Capitol Weekly called and asked me to be a contributor. That meant writing on state politics. As I was burned out on the local scene, I said yes, and I did that for another five or so years.
When Donald Trump got elected in 2016, I was still writing for the Weekly and still on state politics, but it was impossible to stay strictly statewide thanks to Trump’s deep hatred of California. When California’s wildfires started getting real, real bad and the state really, really needed federal disaster aid, Trump took it out on the state, so I started reporting on that. Which led to me writing more and more on national and international politics, something I’d rather not do. My heart is in local politics because that’s where things are more interesting and that is where democracy works the best.
The Trump and Biden years have been bad for local politics, especially for activists working for good change. Because of Trump (not Biden) our attention has been focused on the national and international, but mostly through the prism of Trump. And that’s not wrong: Trump is a uniquely destructive force and an attention hog. His antics coupled with his power demand that we pay attention, even when a lot of the shit that is being thrown at us is nonsense. So, we lose focus on what is happening locally, especially the minutia.
Also unhelpful is the piss-poor state of local media in most cities and the near-total dominance of a few national new outlets. If you are lucky enough to have a local newspaper, especially one that is more than a vessel for national news or operates as some rich guy’s play toy, chances are it is wispy compared to what it was thirty years ago. Similarly, if you were lucky enough to study civics in high school, there’s a good chance that you rushed through local and state politics, and wallowed in the national.
Almost by default, we see politics as national and often international. If we focus on state and local politics, its because we are news freaks or there’s something happening on the state or local level that demands that we pay attention. The tragic thing is that our power as citizens lies most strongly in the local, then statewide, then national, and finally international, where we have nearly no influence.
While it is good and vital that we engage ourselves in the horror that Palestine/Israel has become, Russia’s war on Ukraine, new famines in Africa, whatever shitty things the US is doing abroad, etc., we squander our power when we turn away from the local, and that includes our power on international issues. The same goes for the national. Yes, we must oppose a zero tolerance/mass deportation immigration “policy,” but not at the expense of the local. Here’s why:
Local politics is where we build power. It’s were we form the strongest alliances and nurture relationships that we need for bigger fights. It’s at the local level where our fingers form a fist, where we discover that a punch is more powerful than a poke. Local is where you build a force that is formidable on the statewide and national level. It is where activists and organizers find their way onto commissions and into electoral politics. Its where good, grassroots people have a chance to be elected to city council and “minor” offices, which can be used make change locally but also to get to good folks in the statehouse and Congress, and higher than that.
When you have activists working on the outside and good people from your ranks on the inside, we no longer just yell at buildings. Inside/outside means protest turns into politics. That inside/outside connection is why in the Summer of 2020 we saw cities and town legislating police reform. Our monomaniacal focus on national politics and unreasonable expectations that national politics will save us helped prevent activists and their folks inside from surviving the inevitable backlash from the cops and the right. But that failure does not negate the victory of getting some police reform at the local level, especially since it is at the local level that the police are most powerful.
Read my writing long enough and I will mention stop signs and crosswalks. The creation of stop signs, crosswalks, and speed zones is where democracy happens at the purest and most direct. You live on or off a busy street, one on which motorists zoom through at speeds which put the neighborhood in danger. Worse still, on one the side of the street opposite the neighborhood houses is a playground and a park, and there’s no stop sign or crosswalk to make for safe crossing.
After several spontaneous discussions at the grocery store, park, and kids’ school, a few neighborhood folks decide to meet at the local coffee shop to talk about getting a stop sign and crosswalk, and to get the speed zone adjusted down. One meeting turns into ten and a small formal organization, Neighbors for a Safe Street (NSS). NSS organizes the neighborhood, circulates a petition and starts a letter writing campaign. Neighbors are given a script and call sheet so they can contact their city council people and mayor. NSS members meet with the local firehouse captain, the head cop of the neighborhood precinct, and build their way up.
NSS and the neighborhood succeed in getting their issue on the city council agenda, so they pack city hall on meeting night and have a couple dozen speakers – parents, kids, teachers, engineers, etc. – speaking for a stop sign, crosswalk, and lowering the speed limit. The council hems and haws, but NSS pushes and gets approval. But because approval doesn’t mean funding, NSS fights for funding and, when secured, that the project is started and finished. They succeed and five years later the city issues a study showing that the street you fought to change now is one of the safest in the city. And, one of your own now represents you on the city council, so now you have someone working for you on the inside.
Through this fight for a safe street, you have improved your neighborhood, saved lives, and built a power base that you can use to demand more. None of this is small stuff, especially living day to day on a safe or dangerous street.
That is the essence of local politics. That is where political power starts, not just in this scenario but with much bigger struggles, all which started small and local. The fight for a woman’s right to vote started in Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s living room, among a small group of would-be activists. The Abolitionist Movement started in parlors and shacks. Early 20th Century labor activists organized workers where they met, in bars and coffee shops. The Civil Rights Movement began in small churches, the anti-Vietnam War movement in campus offices and church halls. Everything starts small. Everything starts local.
Whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump wins this election, we have the local and can achieve local power. It is also where we can most impactfully get behind the positive change Harris proposes or fight whatever Trump tries to pull. Local is where we can get cities behind us and engaged in a fight.
My neighborhood united is more powerful than me alone. My district united is more powerful than my neighborhood. My city united is more powerful than my district and my state united is more powerful than my city. When California says Yes to expanding Medicare under Harris, we have a great chance of winning one. When California says No to Trump’s immigration horror show and vows not to cooperate, we have a good chance to stop him. And that is the way it goes on all major and minor issues.
Democracy is not an either/or between national and local or big and little. Democracy is all that, but it starts at the local level. That is where citizens mater the most, it is where our voices are heard most clearly, and it is where we actually can work the levers of change hands on. In good times or bad, remember that.