Scattershot

It's a sad day when I agree with neocon David Frum about anything whatsoever, but he is absolutely correct here. Pick two things: Taxes and Russia. Go for them full out.

The amount of irk I am starting to build up from the onslaught of "My uncle has a barn, let's start a political movement" posts and emails I'm receiving is threatening to erupt in my skin again. I love a good political movement; don't get me wrong. And I am the first to agree that action beats inaction. However....

The Left has never been able to focus. Think back to any protest event you've been to for the past umpteen years. There's the Women's Issues table, the Environmental Issues table, the Latino table, the Socialist table, the Anarchist table, the Tshirt and Bumper Sticker table... It's like a village bazaar instead of a focused political action. Do you think the Tea Party had a Christian table, an NRA table, a RTL table, a KKK table? No, they just went for it, figurative guns blazing. And blazing guns beat scattershot sniping every time.

The Women's March on Washington was different, because it really managed to wrap all the causes up into one big ball of expressive anger and point it like a cannon down the Mall toward the White House. That's the kind of focus we need.

What's happening now is that I'm snowed under by groups that are largely doing the same kinds of things under different names. Sorting them out, or even telling them apart, occupies way too much energy that should be going to honest-to-god action. I don't want to read your new newsletter; I'm already reading two perfectly fine newsletters and would like to cut back to one. I don't want to share your ideas for saving ACA; I just shared someone else's ideas for saving ACA that were honestly just about the same as yours only maybe a little bit clearer.

How's this: Join forces with an existing group. Merge your followers with their followers. Pick a thing. Do it. Don't talk about it fifteen different ways. Just do it. It's fine to invite others to do it, too, but don't waste a lot of time on that. Doing it is the important part. Then start again the next day. Do a related thing. Don't go off on a tangent because you read a cool article. Pretend there's a target in front of you, and your only goal is to hit the bullseye. Possibly 100 times. Maybe until the target shreds, and you have to find a new target.

Oh, and while you are making your super nice FB event page for your thing, consider that people you might wish would join you, those rural folks or working class folks who live outside of town, don't even have broadband and won't ever see it. Maybe that could be a thing... oops, don't get distracted.