Harwood is president and founder of The Harwood Institute. This is the latest entry in his series based on the "Enough. Time to Build.” campaign, which calls on community leaders and active citizens to step forward and build together.
By the time I was 23, I had worked on numerous political campaigns. On the last one, I was an aide to a presidential candidate.
I experienced dozens if not hundreds of political rallies. We all know the purpose of these: Fire up the base, throw potshots at your opponent, and shore up votes. Such rallies have played an important, iconic role in American history. But amid our increasingly ugly politics, most political rallies have become less connected to the challenges facing our communities and more focused on stoking division, even hate and bigotry.
Is this all we can hope for in 2024? We, the American people, don’t have to settle for this. We need a new kind of rally. A civic rally.
Coming out of Super Tuesday, let’s start by rethinking what it even means to rally. In the United States today, we desperately need a space that builds us up, not further divides us. That nourishes us, not perpetuates negativity. That rallies us around one another and the good work happening in our communities. That restores a sense of possibility and hope.
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Such events can be virtual or in-person. Small or large. One-off or recurring – a civic ritual of sorts. What matters is that they are grounded in our shared aspirations, not more grievances, political manipulation and the divvying up of America. They must focus on how we can build communities that work for all of us, not just some of us.
I’ve been crisscrossing the country this year for mynew civic campaign, Enough. Time to Build. When I ask people — everywhere from Fresno, Calif., to rural central Ohio to DeSoto County, Fla., to Flint, Mich. — if they are ready for that kind of rally, their response is an emphatic, “Yes!” That’s why I’m going to be hosting a virtual civic rally every other Friday this election season, starting March 22 at 1 pm EST. I hope others host their own too.
Back in the early 1990s, The Harwood Institute released a report, “Citizens and Politics,” that discovered Americans were not apathetic about politics and civic life. They felt pushed out, disconnected and impotent.
Those feelings have only deepened in the decades since. While most pundits and thought leaders define America today as hyper-polarized, I believe that’s a misdiagnosis. What I’ve found is that Americans are in the grip of a fight-or-flight mode.
We feel isolated. Disoriented. Like we’re trapped in a house of mirrors with no way out.
In a society that is breaking apart — and in many ways already broken — people need safe passage to hope. There’s no quick fix. But there are practical ways forward. We need spaces like the civic rallies I’m proposing that foster belonging, nourish our dampened spirits, and encourage us to build and create anew.
A few months back I was in Selma, Ala., meeting with leaders from the local NAACP chapter. We were in the basement of First Baptist Church, the very place where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders planned marches that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Toward the end of an emotionally charged discussion about how Selma could move forward, an older gentleman leaned across the table, looked me in the eyes, and asked, “Will anything change?”
On a recent trip to southwest Michigan, I was with a group of local leaders who were fostering a new set of norms for how groups in the community work together. For over two hours, we discussed what it would take to catalyze progress. Finally, a leader stopped our conversation to ask a question that cut through the room. “Am I strong enough?”
Will anything change? Am I strong enough to make a difference? These are the questions consuming Americans today. Too many political rallies fail to answer these questions. I know our divides are real. But there’s a deep yearning across this country to come together and figure out a pathway forward. We want to work better together, create change,\ and foster communities that thrive.
Will we seize this moment? To do so requires a new kind of civic space that calls us back to public life, together.
If we do this right, I believe it’ll put our political leaders and those who seek to divide us on notice. We don’t have to follow them. They should follow our lead. Let’s demand new ways of doing business, focused on what really matters to everyday people, not what matters to out-of-touch politicians.
It’s time for a new civic rally.
