Oh we can do it, but nobody likes the answer when I give it.

The answer is we need to all be collectively more involved in our communities, in our towns, our cities, our counties and states. We need to hold some fucking yard-sales and pass out free lemonade to our neighbors and learn their names, learn where their kids go to school, learn who the local neighborhood organizers are, learn who is running for office in our districts, attend town-meetings and get to know who is representing us.

The reason we feel like we can't change things up high is because we have all allowed the foundational systems that support the highest offices to run unmanaged, unmaintained. Our local representation should be a garden or a bonsai tree, it never stops, you never leave it alone. If we all pushed harder on the power we have to change our local representation, those people would represent our values. We have countless local and state elections running nearly or completely unchallenged, and certainly not with the scrutiny we give the powerless figureheads that captivate media attention every four years.

The only time I've ever seen widescale public interest in midterm elections was when we lost rights. We can't do that. We can't be reacting to changes in politics, we have to get ahead of it.

And it takes human connection, the one thing everyone seems to be running from.

That American flag that we now associate with rednecks and hate and Trump, we lost that icon when it should be representing our neighborhoods and our values and ideals and our hope for a just and equitable future. And the reason we lost the flag is because the good people who deserve the flag felt too powerless to challenge the loud assholes.

We have to teach each other to challenge the loud assholes.