Donald Trump’s election victory evoked disappointment and distress for millions across the country. Many people fear for the future of reproductive justice, immigration, LGBTQ+ rights, tariffs, labor unions, the environment, and much more. Some feel so hopeless about the future that they want to give up. Others are fired up and ready to get more involved in local issues or politics, but they may have no idea how or where to start.
Why I wrote thisIn August 2020, I moved to Washington, DC. Outside of my roommates, I didn’t know anyone there. I was feeling alone and anxious about the world, so I decided to search for local organizations and see what was around me.
I ended up joining two local groups, and over the course of a couple years, I got pretty involved with community organizing. It was a lot of work, but it was also a big source of joy for me. I learned a lot about local issues and made lifelong connections.
Today, I’m hearing a lot of valid concern about where our world is heading and what to do about it. I wanted to write something for those people and give them a framework I wish I’d had. I hope you find your community and that the work is as rewarding as it was for me.
Have questions? Email me at samantha.delgado@voxmedia.com.
All of those reactions are valid. But if people are serious about improving our flawed democracy, they must participate — and not just by voting. Voting is an important aspect of civic life, but presidential elections happen only once every four years.
If we want to make a change beyond the ballot box and find meaning in these challenging times, we need to engage with the people around us. Look at the social movements of the past that created lasting impact, like the Civil Rights movement securing legislation to outlaw segregation and discrimination, or the labor movement establishing weekends and the 8-hour workday. Powering these campaigns were longstanding relationships between different people with different skills and roles, forged together into a collective by their shared values and a desire for a better world. They built communities that were able to create sustained public pressure for change outside of the presidential election cycle.
Despite the need for real community networks, our country’s social fabric has been fraying.
According to the US Surgeon General’s 2023 report on the “loneliness epidemic,” approximately half of US adults have reported feeling lonely. People are spending more time alone and less time with others. We’re more online than ever before, yet we feel more disconnected. We trust each other less.
Belonging to a community provides the interpersonal support human beings naturally need to survive and thrive. But building a real social network doesn’t happen overnight. It requires consistently showing up, being willing to give and take, and managing uncomfortable disagreements. “There is no Amazon one-click for community,” says Katherine Goldstein, a writer who covers care and a fellow for the Better Life Lab at New America.
Creating community takes time. It demands discipline. But it’s not impossible — and there are many other people out there looking for the same connections and sense of purpose.
The civic, health, and practical benefits of communityIn 1970, American political scientist Robert Putnam was in Rome studying Italian politics when a unique research opportunity opened up. The Italian national government had relinquished some of its power and delegated a wide range of responsibilities to 20 new regional governments. These institutions were structured nearly identically, but each region had different economic, political, and cultural dynamics.
For Putnam, this was a perfect situation to study what makes successful (and unsuccessful) democratic institutions. He found that the governments that were able to effectively operate internally, propose relevant policy, and implement legislation all shared a deeply embedded sense of trust and cooperation among their citizens. “Some regions of Italy, we discover, are blessed with vibrant networks and norms of civic engagement,” he wrote in his 1993 book about his research, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, “while others were cursed with vertically structured politics, a social life of fragmentation and isolation, and a culture of distrust.”
Does the latter environment sound a little familiar?
When Putnam came back to the US years later, he noticed a trend that disturbed him: American social life seemed to be disappearing. Membership in groups and clubs was declining. Across unions, religious groups, sports leagues, and political groups, people were reporting less time spent participating and being in these spaces. Putnam wrote the influential book Bowling Alone, published in 2000, in which he claimed that the social structures these groups provided were key to our physical and civic health. A 2023 documentary called Join or Die
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