new territories of thought.

on voting and talking about it online.

Last week, while floating on a black rubber inner tube in a warm Maine lake, I published an Instagram post. There’s no wi-fi at the lake and cell service is spotty at best, but sometimes a whisper of connection can be found at the end of the dock and if you’re patient enough to let a post load slowly, you can beam curated glimpses of life into the wider world.

The post that I shared had three photos of me, taken by James while the two of us enjoyed thirty-ish minutes of alone time in a canoe. (Miracles abound, especially on vacation.) In the photos, I am wearing a white nightgown. I am also wearing a bright blue vintage sweatshirt and an even brighter flaming orange personal flotation device, also vintage, but still effective in case of a tipping canoe. I decided to use these accidentally Americana-hued images as a vehicle to share that I’ll be voting for Kamala Harris in November.

I don’t think there’s anything particularly brave or difficult about voicing support for a political candidate on a social media platform. I wish more folks would do it more freely, especially folks with many followers. What I find far more challenging is engaging in measured ways with folks about that support. I find the tenor of internet disagreements to be generally condescending and combative and in forty years on this planet, I’ve struggled to meet condescension or combativeness with particular grace.

What I find most challenging of all is engaging with folks who largely agree on a vision for a more caring, more resilient, more just world, but who disagree with me about the best way to get there. When I shared my intention to vote for Kamala Harris, there were a few predictable folks in the comments committed to the notion that a Donald Trump presidency would mean smaller government and more so-called freedom. This is something that I do not believe to be true and also something that I don’t find to be particularly helpful to debate in an Instagram comment section. But there was also a vocal minority of folks who pointed out that Kamala Harris is currently the Vice President of the United States, under an administration that’s been complicit in supporting a nearly ten-month long genocidal campaign in Gaza. This is something that I do believe to be true and also something I am more interested in trying engage with. Here’s where I stand:

I don’t plan to vote to for Kamala Harris because I believe her to be a perfect candidate with a perfect track record. The democratic establishment’s material support of war crimes, including an unforgivable civilian death toll in Gaza, is deplorable. I plan to vote for Kamala Harris because I believe that during her presidency we will have the best chance to continue the work of organizing and building a more just and equitable world.

One of the books that I read from the comfort of my inner tube last week was Terry Tempest Williams’ When Women Were Birds. In one passage she writes, “Conversation is the vehicle for change. We test our ideas. We hear our own voice in concert with another. And inside those pauses of listening, we approach new territories of thought. A good argument, call it a discussion, frees us.”

I hope that during this election cycle, we can feel free to keep having conversations. I hope we can pause to listen. I don’t really mean here and I definitely don’t mean on social media where expansive nuance and good manners go to die, but I hope we manage to keep ourselves open for each other. For those of us who fancy ourselves committed to justice and liberation and movement building, I hope we can figure out ways to talk to each other that don’t presume the worst possible intentions and the least possible understanding of the factors at play.

Garrett Bucks wrote something that resonated with me last week: “As an organizer, I strongly believe in voting for the party/candidate that you can potentially push and organize to do better, rather than the party/candidate that not only won’t listen to you, but will crank the ‘cruel things that make life worse for people’ dial up a few more notches. In an uncaring system, life under both parties will still require mutual aid and harm reduction, but not at the same scale.” He goes on: “I anticipate that, if elected, I’ll disagree with President Harris on some really important issues (Gaza, corporations vs. working people, criminal justice, the size and scale of America’s social safety net), and also that she’ll be the most progressive President of my lifetime. Multiple things will continue to be true at once, is what I’m saying.”

Brittany Packnett Cunningham wrote this week, “I believe politicians are not Gods, they are our employees. They are fallible because humans are fallible, and I have yet to vote for one with whom I agree on absolutely everything all the time…My personal litmus test is who can help me advance the goals? Not perfection—usefulness.”

I look forward to voting for Kamala Harris. I think a vote for Harris is a pragmatic vote that matters tremendously.

Where do we go from here?

+ For my part, I’ve signed the Working Families Party Not Another Bomb Petition. I hope a whole bunch of you will, too. On our drive from Maine yesterday, I listened to this conversation with Nelini Stamp and Chani Nicholas which I found inspiring and affirming and hopeful. I’m also planning to join tomorrow night’s call for a Not Another Bomb Digital Day of Action.

+ I’ll be voting for Kamala Harris on the Working Families Party ballot line in the fall. We deserve more than two inadequate political parties in this country but I don’t think any of the third party candidates we have are viable (or advisable) options and I do think that we need to be more strategic than splintering a progressive vote.

+ Presidential politics are extremely visible and very easy to argue over. What are less visible and less argued over, but perhaps higher stakes, are state elections. It’s in state legislatures that some of the most important policies get passed into law and if we care about inching our way toward a functional democracy, we should be caring about them. Toward that end, I’ve finally gotten around to starting a Tea Notes States Project Giving Circle. I’ll have more to share in the coming days, but rest assured there’s more than the presidential race for us to care about (and spend our money on).