How To Become A Political Activist

How to Become a Political Activist

Wake up on a Tuesday in a gooey sweat, eyes burning from not enough sleep.

Doomscroll for 35 minutes instead of getting out of bed. Let the dogs whine beside you.

Post to Facebook: “I can’t take it anymore. “The American public is asleep.” Check back obsessively to see who’s liked it.

Coffee in hand, walk the dogs through the neighborhood park. Scold yourself for not doing enough. Ask if doing anything even matters. Then ask what you should be doing.

Read a news alert about the gutting of yet another federal agency. Swear loudly into the void. Wonder how we got here, and how much worse it can get.

Decide, then and there, to do something. Even if it’s small.

Sign up for a Zoom call with a local advocacy group. Listen as speaker after speaker denounces the administration in increasingly blunt terms. Feel the first tingle of hope. Let it linger.

Join more calls. Listen, but don’t speak. Feel slightly less alone.

Start researching. Dig into the history of broken systems and the context they were built in. Read the news—but only from sources you trust. Don’t look away when it gets overwhelming.

Talk to friends, family, coworkers, and acquaintances, even when the conversations turn infuriating. Tell them they should be talking about this too.

Meet former colleagues for drinks—ones who’ve been laid off or ground down. Let the anger rise as they describe their new realities. Tell them you’re doing something—and that they can, too.

Before your first protest, scrounge up a piece of sturdy cardboard. Rummage through junk drawers for the Sharpie you lost months ago. Write a mediocre slogan.

Show up. Meet fellow protesters. Hear their stories. Realize your own reasons go back to your ancestors—some of whom were killed in Nazi Germany. Remember your grandmother’s mantra: “Never again.”

Spend your free time denouncing the administration to anyone who’ll listen. Smoke weed some nights because it’s the only thing that takes the edge off. Wonder if you’re smoking too much.

Keep going. Attend more protests. Notice the crowds are growing. That helps. Expand your network: friends of friends of friends.

Eat chips and salsa for dinner. Stress-eat ice cream that makes your stomach hurt.

Watch as more federal workers are fired. Watch as the president calls journalists and judges “radical lunatics” on social media. Watch funding for food stamps, scientific research, cancer research, and green energy disappear. Watch humanitarian and development aid dry up. Watch universities threatened and DEIA erased, along with Black history. Watch the Department of Education dissolve. Watch public figures bullied into silence. Watch a body of water renamed in the president’s image.

Silently suffer as wildfires rage, tornadoes demolish communities, and human rights erode in real time. Agonize over the fact that democracy is faltering—not just here, but everywhere.

Ask yourself why it’s so damn quiet.

Decide you must do more. Realize the most powerful thing you can offer is your voice.

Start a blog.

Write a post.

Wonder if you’re actually making a difference. Or just screaming into the algorithm. Do it anyway.

Call it an act of resistance.

Repeat, until they can’t ignore you.

Source: How to Become a Political Activist