Changes are Coming

History took a turn this week when Nancy Pelosi and seventeen women were sworn into Congress bringing the number of women in congress up to 102.  This filled me and hopefully all of you, who have been dedicated to resisting the era of Trump since the 2016 election. The first woman elected, Jeannette Rankin of Montana, in 1917 started a trend of change not only for women but for the Nation as well.  The election of women since this time continues to indicate change is coming.  These recent elections are no different.  Our Nation has lost ground on all fronts particularly Human Rights since the 2016 election. Now we can bring about this change with a little help from our elected officials.

News like this is like fresh air in a stuffy room when gender wars have escalated on a daily basis as we watched Trump bully women including his opponent Hillary Clinton.  Emily’s List, an organization established in 1996, became instrumental in electing these women to political office.  Emily’s list gained notoriety in part because of the Women’s March in January 2017.  Emily’s list has been an important organization in the grassroots women’s movement where women have been jarred into action responding to Trump’s anti-women rhetoric.  Benefiting from their consistent vision of a government that reflects the people it serves by electing decision makers who genuinely and enthusiastically fight for greater opportunity for all Americans, Emily’s List successes in 2019 benefits all of us.  

Like Emily’s List many of us want is to see someone who reflects who we are to be in the room where policy is made.  The 2018 election’s accomplishment brings representation closer to actually looking like the American people.  Not only does Nancy Pelosi and newly elected women bring a women’s voice to national politics but they also bring racial and ethnic diversity.  New women in Congress include the House’s first two Native American women—Deb Haaland (D., N.M.) and Sharice Davids (D., Kan, the first two Muslim women—Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), a Somali-American, and Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), a Palestinian-American.  With a woman at the helm in congress, and input from the new diversity adds to what we progressives can accomplish in 2019.

Speaker Pelosi showed the world what she is made of in the televised meeting with Trump when she held her ground contradicting Trump’s alternative facts with truth.  This kind of assertiveness from Speaker Pelosi has already helped accomplish breaking the glass ceiling for women twice now.  The first time in 2007 when she became the first woman to be voted Speaker of the House and then, January 3, 2019 when she became the only women and the third Speaker of the House to regain the Speakership after their political party lost power.  In this new congress Americans are in a position to participate in the United States policy making like never before.

The first change Speaker Pelosi did was change the rules of the House of Representatives making bi-partisan legislature possible. Next on Speaker Pelosi’s and the Democratic Party’s agenda is voting rights.  The message for us in the resistance here is not to back down, not to think that the road to change will be easy now.  Like all of you I get tired participating in our democracy on a daily basis.  But when we get complacent as we learned in the 2016 elections money and men in power move in turning the outcome that we expected to take a turn to a disastrous end. We all worked hard these last two years to get where we are today and the 2018 elections only lay the ground work to build momentum for our vision of a country where we have the unalienable rights to “Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness” equally for citizens and non-citizens alike.

Let’s celebrate the victories of the 2018 elections, roll up our sleeves getting ready to escalate the resistance in a climate where we hopefully have more leverage.  Join this new diverse congress, support warriors like Stacy Abrams, and Andrew Gallium who fought a viscous battle in the last election and haven’t given up even though they lost their elections.  Let’s get behind longtime progressive politicians such as Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders to keep us as a country moving ahead to a place of compassion, hope and respect for basic human life.