I Was Just Thinking…Voting is needed, but is it the only answer?

History shows other legitimate options can bring change

BY: Norma Adams-Wade

          Powerless is the word most often heard when citizens feel they cannot change the course of events that surround them.

          Our current president Donald J. Trump has a cult of followers who actually approve of his often illegal political actions and personal behavior.

          Those followers are called the MAGA Movement – Make America Great Again (MAGA) – and they proudly wear red baseball caps with that slogan affixed.

          On the other side of the political spectrum are the anti-Trumpers who rage on social media against the president’s politics and dubious character.

          The question is: which side shall prevail in the future?

          A number of folk are proclaiming that Trump will win a third term in the next four years.

They float the idea that he may even be able to pull enough political strings that will enable him to hold the nation’s top post indefinitely — like a king or European monarch.

          Another question before the public is what legitimate actions to take to prevent that outcome?   

Some political observers say that the next generation is losing its faith in the power of the vote and that their waning interest may infect generations that follow them.

That next generation largely includes Millennials, Generation Z and Generation Alpha (the children of Millennials). They were born approximately between the early 1980s down through around 2010. They generally are protective of the environment but rely excessively on technology. And some predictions are that Generation Beta, set to follow Gen Alpha, may relying frightening on Artificial Intelligence (AI) that could have the potential of overtaking politics.

Where is the power of the vote in all this?

I will leave it up to you to pull aside someone in those age groups in your family or circle of friends and ask them directly.

The recent No Kings rallies across the nation did indeed show the visual power of public street demonstrations. The question now is how to harness  that street power and develop effective strategies from it that will change our lives for the better.

History has given us some examples of life-changing strategies and movements. These included:

1. After The Great Depression, FDR’s 1935 New Deal that created Social Security and put food back on tables of the nation’s largely underserved populations.
2. Vietnam War protests that ultimately pressured President Richard Nixon to withdraw American troops from Vietnam war zones.
3. Civil Rights movement, largely led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in nonviolent demonstrations and protests that heightened during the 1963 March on Washington where Dr. King Jr. delivered his iconic “I Have A Dream” speech.
4. Black Power Movement – with leaders including el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz (Malcolm X), Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael), and the Black Panther Party — that shifted African American attention from integration to cultural pride and self-determination.
5. Nelson Mandela’s Anti-Apartheid Movement in Africa that ignited a broad coalition that used both nonviolent and armed people protests. The movement also  and attracted effective international economic sanctions against South Africa that finally eliminated White suppression of the Black majority population.
6. Black Lives Matter movement that helped expose police brutality against African Americans and prompted policy improvements that included banning chokeholds and “no-knock” search warrants and secured a rare murder conviction of police officer Derek Chauvin in the 2020 death of George Floyd.

Yes, organizers of the recent international No Kings protests are strategizing to develop effective follow-up actions. Social media and news reports hint that those considerations include:

(a). More peaceful street protests (b). Non-stop phone calls to elected officials’ offices, and (c.) Wide-spread consumer boycotts of businesses that support Trump’s unpopular policies that include deploying the National Guard to Blue states and allowing masked U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents unchecked authority to arrest “suspicious looking” undocumented immigrants.

Whatever the next move, it should signal that powerlessness is not an option. The powerful quote by author and social activist Marianne Williamson – a quote often erroneously credited to Nelson Mandela and Hillary Clinton — applies here:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” The point is we fear embracing our strength and wrongly yield to our perceived weakness. Williamson is correct. We are not powerless.

Dallasite Norma Adams-Wade is a Texas Metro News senior correspondent, The Dallas Morning News retired writer, and a National Association of Black Journalists founder.