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WHAT NOW?

​BY TIM MCCLUSKEY

The results of the Presidential election has left many stunned, depressed, and with a sense of deep anxiety.  President-elect Trump will in the short term fundamentally change the entire American and mostly likely the world landscape. His election also may not only threaten the very existence of unions, including the NEA but most likely change our work and the work of the affiliates. Instinctively NEA will issue a call to arms. Hopefully it will embrace both a defensive and an offensive. It is my belief that a deeper and more strategic response is also in order if his election is not to result in long-term threats to our country.
Some of my very personal and random observations (obviously not all that follows is objective but some is) follow in no particular order.

1. Donald Trump beat both the Democratic candidate and the Party. He also beat the Republican Party.  Neither party can be assured of its longevity, much less count on surviving in its present form.
2. Not everyone who voted for Trump is a racist or a misogynist, though there was and is a core that was driven by these motives. Nor is everyone who voted for Trump ignorant or uneducated. However, they are not innocent.    
3. Only 19% of the American voting public identify themselves as progressive. Progressives need coalitions to win. This coalition involves, among others, the working class in states like Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
4. Message politics cannot replace relational politics.  Message membership cannot replace relational membership.  Consumers change products based on message. People who are bound together in relationship hang together even in crisis. (See Malcolm Gladwell’s article, Small Change, New Yorker, October 4, 2010.) We need to talk with citizens; stop developing messages.
5. Data is important but data is not a relationship.  Micro targeting may be useful in marketing membership and even moving people to vote in a certain way. However, it does not build a political or a democratic culture. It can track and move people to do certain electoral activities, canvassing, phone banking, attending a rally, voting, but none of the above build a sustaining democratic culture in which citizens actually shape the discussion. Focus groups help develop messages that may persuade voters to act but again it reduces citizenship to passive reaction to an agenda decided by the powerful and the elite. Citizens have been reduced to voters much like students have been reduced to test-takers in the educational system. There is no space for argument, deliberation, negotiations, and compromise of ‘ordinary’ citizens in contemporary America. I think there is a case that there is no body politic. 
6. The established political parties will not give up power. It will have to be taken from them through organizing. The question is whether unions and other institutions have the will, the resources, and the long-term vision to do this. 
7. Our civic society is deeply fractured. At the same time America is becoming more diverse, Americans live in separate and isolated worlds.  Americans associate with those who are like themselves, religiously, politically, racially, etc.  Social media assists this isolation. (The NEA, and AFSE for all our institutional faults, may be a rare imperfect exception.)
8. Both major parties, Republican and Democrat, have shown little empathy for working families who are caught in the vise of the structural change in the world’s economy – globalization, transnationalism, and the changing demographic of the country. 
9. The three branches of our government, courts, the legislative bodies, and the executive, have embraced Wall Street and the ‘marketization’ of not only the economy but also the culture.  Every aspect of our common life (Politicians and political parties are concerned about their brands in the same way the NFL or Nike are). Brand loyalty has replaced genuine discussion of interests.
10. Institutions are weak.  Virtual communities that can organize some activities well but do not build deep relationships have replaced unions, neighborhoods, the press, and real community.
11. Trump’s promises of an economic resurgence are false as the manufacturing jobs and clerical work has moved offshore and will not return.  The way the US economy will emerge strong and reliable is if the country invests in a version of the G.I. Bill for the 21st Century. So far the nation has not shown the will to make the major investment necessary for success.
12. Beyond the G.I. Bill education is central. NEA knows all too well the attacks on education currently underway.  Without robust and rigorous public schools, Americans will continue in a downward spiral of low-paying jobs.  Income equality will become greater.
13. Germany has been able to reduce unemployment and at the same time sustain high quality and high performance economy. It appears their educational system is part of its success. Why does America lack the will to invest and if necessary re-design our system?  
14. Our civic society is deeply fractured. At the same time America is becoming more diverse, Americans live in separate and isolated worlds.  Americans associate with those who are like themselves, religiously, politically, racially, etc. (The NEA, and AFSE for all our institutional faults, are a rare imperfect exception.)
15. America needs an institution to lead its rebuilding, a difficult task.  I believe it must be built on conversations. New opportunities for organizing, mobilizing, and ultimately rebuilding will present themselves. These conversations will unlikely emerge from Wall Street, elite think –tanks, the pollsters, the political parties, nor the professional political class. The conversations pointing the way to the re-creation of our common lives will have a rough edge and will call for clear-eyed dialogue. The fight against the worst instincts that emerged this past 18 months will have to be waged in neighborhoods, schools, union halls, congregations, and community centers. In my estimation, these are not ‘crucial conversations’ nor are they 10 minute one-to-ones. 
16. This latter step may prove to be most difficult within the current labor union movement because unions have confined themselves within a contractual culture rather then understanding that unions are fundamentally ‘formation’ institutions about power and relationships not contracts. (Contract flow from power not the other way around.)
17. NEA needs to be proud of its history, past and presence, in the leadership for social justice. There are few organizations that have dedicated resources and taken risks on behalf of children, institutional racism, gender and economic inequality, etc.  However, establish programs and even speaking with a prophetic voice is only one dimension of the struggle.  Beyond program, NEA needs to provide leadership in building real public relationships across every demographic in America.  Even inside NEA, conversations around race, sexual identity, economic inequality and gender appear to be around policy or some abstract notion of justice. All too often, this abstraction allows us to talk past each other rather than engage in transformative dialogue. 
18. NEA must be schizophrenic. It needs to defend the attacks including building membership at the same time it builds new relationships with church communities, community of color, moderate working class men and women, if a new political reality is to be build.  
19. This schizophrenia extends to our political engagement as well. Deep involvement in the legislative process at all levels, deep relational work with elected official is essential BUT no elected leader will ‘lead us to the promise land.’ Work with political leaders BUT trust our organizing more. Trust people in relationship.  It may take longer but it lasts.  (Remember the Obama coalition of 2008 was weaker in 2012. It was unable to hold together in 2016.)
20. Say what you will about Trump, he is bold. Are we really bold enough in our response
21. The work is urgent but it demands patience at the same time. 

Neither defeat nor victory is assured. I began re-reading John Steinbeck’s East of Eden just prior to the election. Once again I was struck of the conversation between Samuel, Lee, and Adam regarding the parable of Cain and Abel.  Lee’s reflection is not that humankind is ordered to triumph over evil, nor is it promised to over come evil.  It only ‘mayest’ – Hebrew timshel – meaning the outcome is thrown back to humankind to decide. (Sorry, I cannot take the theology out of me. It is my foundation – does not need to be others foundation.) 
It may be that Trump has given us a gift – a scary one – but a gift nonetheless.  Can we create the space to have the dialogue to take advantage of this gift?  Can the NEA deal with the short-term threats at the same time embrace the long-term opportunities? Is it possible to do this outside of the management\labor structure, at least initially? What we should be doing will determine how we do it?