When Dave Ratner did the dastardly deed of standing behind President Donald Trump during a White House ceremony in October, all hell broke loose in the Valley. The response was swift, explosive, and furious.
Emails, editorials and letters flew, Facebook exploded, apologies were issued, apologies were rejected, and boycotts began, all in about 24 hours. The response to Dave’s unfortunate decision signaled just how tightly wound we all are, ready to explode and pounce. Poor Dave was in the line of fire of 10 months of built-up tension, anger, despair, hate, confusion, uncertainty and fear.
But this is not about Dave. Reaction to Dave screams volumes about how primed and desperate we are to move forward, and to do what we can do to alter the collision course with democracy the president has put us on.
We do not have even one branch of government to rely on for checks or balances. We lost the executive, the president is packing the judiciary — we are one Supreme Court vote away from decades-long disaster — and we don’t have either house in the Congress.
While we’ve achieved some partial successes in beating back legislative actions (only to be undermined by executive order), it is imperative that we take back one of the two branches within the Legislature. The one with the clearest path and best shot in 2018 is the House.
There are 435 Congressional seats up for re-election in 2018. Currently Democrats have 194 seats, and we need 218 for a majority. When we do the math, we only need to flip 24 seats to gain a majority. That’s all.
We need to be deliberate and thoughtful in finding those 24 seats. We know some of those seats now (California-29, Illinois-12), but there are many unknowns. In some races there is no declared Democratic challenger yet. In other cases, the Democratic candidates won’t emerge until after the primaries.
Also in the mix are recent Republican resignations, which have presented inroads into seats previously assumed sewn up for the GOP. There may be more resignations in the offing.
The Massachusetts Democratic Party, along with the Democratic Congressional Committee and others will be working to identify the flippable seats. Once they do, our work will be to help flip them.
We have a lot of work to do in Massachusetts to ensure the re-election of Jim McGovern, Elizabeth Warren, Maura Healey, and the successful Democratic primary candidates for governor and for Niki Tsongas’ congressional seat. There will be many people who are unable to go to flippable districts, but could work within the state. They will be critical.
Many of us, though, have the time and ability to go to those flippable districts. Once we identify the seats, the rest falls into place. We will need to ensure outside help is both wanted and needed. We will need to coordinate with local parties to ensure there are places for people to stay, raise money for people who need it to get those places, and ensure campaigns have the ability to absorb our help in a productive way.
Then we start recruiting people to go to those districts for however long they are available — long weekends, a week, two week, two months. Just like eco-tourism, where people go to other countries to help work on local projects, with politico-tourism we can go to other states where there are flippable House seats and help Democrats in those districts flip them.
People are always asking what we can do in blue states. This is what we can do. This is what we must do. Democrats must gain control of at least one branch of government. Failing that, I fear that our democracy as we know it, sorely tested now, will fade.
Encouraging election results last week across the country give hope for 2018. In these amazing victories in Virginia, New Jersey, Maine, Manchester, New Hampshire, Northampton, Easthampton, Holyoke and Salem, we saw a collective and defiant statement that we will take on and right the damage that’s been inflicted on the U.S. and on each of us.
Taking back the House is the path to correction.
Elizabeth Silver, of Florence, is the chairwoman of the Northampton Democratic City Committee.