Dear Missourians - Democracy is our Garden
Democracy is not a default. Democracy is a garden we tend to feed our families and our friends. A patch of strawberries, cucumbers or peppers does not naturally grow in the sunlight. Whether you’re an apartment dweller with planters full of tomatoes on your balcony or you own half an acre of sweet corn – it requires a plan, a season and a gardener. The purpose of a garden is to feed people or a community but if neglected, the vegetables will wilt, wither or rot on the vine. Democracy is a garden. It only exists if we make it so.
My cousin and I in our family’s “community” garden in Clarksburg, Missouri in October 2020
If we only allow a few people to tend our garden, we may end up with a set of a vegetables and fruits we do not like or we may be cut off entirely. Gardens are affected by the weather – floods, droughts and overcast days. No matter how far removed we are from gardening ourselves, we have all become a little closer to our food supply chain lately and a lot of people realized they didn’t know where their food or meat came from. In a very similar way, a lot of people have become far removed from their local and state governments and certainly are feeling alienated from their national government. This is understandable but also problematic. This election is an opportunity to reflect, be curious and be vigilant.
I have spent my adult life building a career that studies what motivates us to vote and demoralizes us from voting and engaging. Believe it or not this is a problem of apathy and it spans race, class and county. I went to DC in the Bush years learning there’s a big world out there, my 20s in the Obama years, advocating for health insurance coverage for poor college students like myself- angry and hasty. I am now a middle aged 30 something who treats this work as a choice and an intention, not as an ax to grind. I study money in politics, how much it costs to win a campaign. I have run large scale, multiyear voter education and civic engagement campaigns. I have raised millions of dollars to register and turn out thousands of new voters.
You may not always agree with what I do for a living, but I want to reassure you that, you and I agree on 90% more together as every day, middle class people trying to make it through the world. You and I have far more in common with one another than we do with the President. We have shared roots that cannot change no matter what the pundits or President says.
I have put my life into silos, I don’t share what I do for a living with most of my family and friends in Missouri. When I am with my people in Rhode Island and New Hampshire they know very little about my roots in rural Missouri and the struggles that exist in middle America. This is by design because it seems too hard to be vulnerable with people whom I don’t feel I have much in common with anymore. But this is an unnatural thing for any of us – who feel we don’t belong. We insulate ourselves from one another. Yet we are all humans with shared roots. We are all trying to cultivate our garden and it’s getting harder and harder to do alone.
I was named for my two grandmothers, I was born a fierce and fiery girl in a world that doesn’t always value strong willed and vocal women. It took me a long time to find my voice and balance my tone, I am a feminist who believes that if women had equal representation in government, we will have a stronger republic. I believe that women and new Americans, black and brown people deserve to represent their communities and because of an invisible to the naked eye structural problem called gerrymandering – millions of qualified voters and Americans do not have a seat at the table let alone head up a table. I believe our government only works when we come together and vote in large scale and our government must not live in a place of fear and anger.
I drifted from my evangelical roots because I couldn’t see a path to be a leader in it. I do not believe in any institution that will not allow the people who do the work of teacher, pianist or secretary - to not also lead. Women deserve to be pastors and deacons. I do not believe in a system that is disproportionately controlled by people who don’t look like the rest of us. There is no legislature in the country with equal gender representation. In Missouri only 25% of state legislators are women. In Missouri the maps have been altered in an unfair and nefarious way to create a very polarizing environment and it looks entirely different than the way it did when I started this work in the early 2000s. This is happening in dozens of states across the country and is a generational root cause of our polarization. It is not just “the way things are.” It has happened because there are people who are paid to wake up in the morning and go to bed at night to rig the system. I know because I am paid by nonprofits to counteract and out fox those people. The crisis we are in now did not happen overnight and it will not be fixed over night with a single election. But we must start somewhere.
I believe all voters should have equal access to polling places and information to vote. I believe every state should have same day voter registration and that we should be able to register to vote online and vote early for a week before elections. I believe that people who work the second shift at the Cargill plant should be able to vote at 7pm at City Hall the Friday before the election. I believe women deserve to be presidents and governors. I am a full-time advocate because I know if less people vote, we will continue to operate a broken system like the one we see now. A system that values billionaires and social media disinformation spreading like wildfire. I do not work for the candidates, I work for democracy. The demise of a fully participatory democracy where we can gather and get shit done is a rural problem. It is a city problem. It is a problem for farmers, bankers, parents and non-parents. It is a national dilemma and we have to deal with it first individually and then we have to deal with systemically. We have to be honest with ourselves and then with one another.
Long time Missouri Congressman (D-4) and I during my year long service as a Congressional Page while in high school 2001.
So here is my personal testimony and wish for my family members, friends and anyone who is confused, dismayed and wants to make sense of the disorienting political world we are in right now. I want to ask you to personalize this election and put faces with your vote. I want you to call, email or text me if you want to talk, openly and honestly. Text me at 573.230.7630, call me or email me at paulajhodges@gmail.com. I am a master gardener for democracy and I believe we will all do better when we all know a little more about how to tend our garden.
This is who I am, tending this garden for in 2020 and beyond. This is why I am asking you to vote against Donald Trump for President, to vote for Nicole Galloway for Governor and very importantly, to vote NO on Amendment 3 in Missouri and really dig into the records of those running locally. Will they stand up for you and your garden? Will they tend your garden or will they tend the garden of billionaires and special interests? Will they vote to end factory farming?
For my boyfriend who is a PhD in mechanical engineering from Iran who worked his entire life from elementary through an advanced degree to escape a spiteful dictatorship. He is an immigrant who fills an important role in the U.S. in biotech and is an upstanding human. He loves our national parks and our country more than most born here citizens. He cannot vote because he is not a citizen yet. His entire family remains in Iran. This is the sacrifice immigrants make to seek a better and very fruitful life in the U.S. but he now fears the U.S. is succumbing to the same authoritarian behaviors and populism and shutting down of every day voters that allowed his country to unravel in the last 30 years.
For my best friend who lost her American dream job, a job that came with a pension and benefits as a sheet metal worker at General Motors. A job that has gone the way of the dinosaurs - laid off just shy of 50 because our fair trade agreements are undermining American companies and products.
For Lydia, a complete stranger I was paired with last March in the pandemic. I pick up and deliver her laundry and groceries every week because she is a 25-year-old immunocompromised human who is unable work or go out into the world because of a raging pandemic.
For my mom because she is a 60-year-old nurse in a rural hospital working in a state that does is willfully ignoring a basic action no different than traffic rules, that will curb this invisible virus raging inside our neighborhoods.
For our local farmers who are unable to stop the corporate greed of multinational corporations ravaging the one thing they thought they could protect if they just bought up more acres – their watersheds and farm land. Do it for small farmers who just want to make a simple living but whom massive factory farms made it impossible to make a living.
For my first boss Ike Skelton, who was a 34 yearlong Congressman and public servant who survived polio to blaze a trail in public service. Ike represented rural Missouri with honor and whose leadership didn’t require dehumanizing real people, women and children yet also didn’t pander to either party. Without him I would not have found my voice.
Vote against Trump because there is a line in the sand of being on the wrong side of history. Democracy is not the default, it is the exception in the world. Democracy requires a trust of one another and a humanizing of our collective woes. Democracy is a garden that requires regular watering, regular engagement. You do not have a democracy if the seeds are fallow, if the ground is cracked or if we allow billionaires to take our land, grow their garden and send it abroad. You do not have a garden if the pollinators do not come in or if a deer eat every bloom and sprout. A garden must have soil that is fertile and tilled, a fence to provide security and it requires a collective action to maintain it by humans and mother nature alike.
This is not a war of the everyday people. The war laid out by Trump and the people who I study on a daily basis, do not want you to speak up and break loose from the status quo. There are paid domestic operatives and foreign operatives who generate a viral and false narrative for the average American, while ordinary people are just trying to get by. But doing our best inside our silos isn’t enough. The collective conscious of our country is one of a good and caring people.
I hope you’ll consider the following steps ahead of this election day and for the months and years ahead into the future. I implore you to spend a little more time reading and watching, talking to your friends, family and neighbors in a thoughtful way. To be curious and cautious. I implore you to consider your role as a gardener of democracy. It starts with me. It starts with you and me. Democracy starts with you and me and those we know, getting outside our comfort zone.
Five Steps to tend to our Democracy
1. Reflect on where you receive your news and consider subscribing to a single source for news that involves an independent press corps. Pick a single source and don’t overwhelm yourself with dooms day news from privately owned corporate news sources.
KBIA Mid-Missouri Public Radio, Missouri News Wire via the Associated Press, MissouriNet - Political News, KMOS PBS TV
2. Engage with a grassroots organization outside the parties to receive information about your elected leaders based on what issues you care about. Missouri Rural Crisis Center, League of Women Voters, Jobs with Justice, Missouri Faith in Action, Common Cause
3. De-bunk fake news and disinformation. If something seems phony or fake or inflammatory it is likely false and put there intentionally to insight fear and anger. Ask yourself these questions before you react. If you see fake news on a friend’s post correct it, direct message the individual with the right information. Do not comment and increase the thread’s audience.
4. Volunteer to be a poll worker via your town or city clerk
5. Run for local office
Voting early at city hall in Providence, RI this week.