13 views on how the pandemic will shape the future

POLITICS, CAMPAIGNS, AND CIVIC LIFE

Wilnelia Rivera is president of Rivera Consulting, a Boston-based political strategy and consulting firm. Jon Hillman is a senior consultant and researcher at the firm.

One year into this pandemic, we are simultaneously living in the reality of today’s world while shaping and forging a new normal for the future. This is especially true in the case of our civic life, politics, and electoral campaigns. The pandemic has forced logistical changes such as mail-in voting and digital strategies that have addressed immediate concerns related to the loss of in-person engagement, while increasing voter turnout and civic participation. In response, a troubling, systematic effort to combat that democratic growth has taken root. 

Activists, volunteers, and paid professionals across the ideological, religious, and political spectrum have had to reimagine their role in the engagement space. Popular voter access reforms driven by these actors, such as universal mail in-voting, same-day registration, curb-side pick-up, and expanded early in-person voting, should become permanent as quickly as possible. Any delay based in nefarious claims about voter fraud should be seen as a distraction from making our democracy more just. 

As for the practice of campaigns, the pandemic provided mainstream constituencies—whether political parties or the media—an opportunity to witness and learn from the power of relational and digital organizing and engagement. It became understood that the social connections that drive value-aligned movements can be activated through digital means regardless of geography or physical restrictions.

Whether you attended a political event via Zoom, sent hundreds of hand-signed letters, or participated in an audio room in Clubhouse, this past year has shown us once again that campaigns have much to learn from the grassroots. The confluence of these strategies led to the largest presidential voter turnout in American history. 

This past year has reminded us of the power of expanding and protecting our democratic institutions despite unprecedented attacks. Yet Trump and his brand of Republican nationalism will not simply go away. State by state, new voter suppression laws are being promoted to roll back progress achieved during this emergency. The pandemic has made clear that the battle for our civic life and institutions in the years ahead is between those who strive for expanded participation in our democracy and those that will seek to restrict it at any cost.  

Read the full article here: https://commonwealthmagazine.org/arts-and-culture/12-views-on-how-the-pandemic-will-shape-the-future/