Life of Wry

Tonight was the 2024 campaign season kickoff for a wonderful organization — the Bay Area Coalition — an informal consortium of progressive grassroots political action orgs in the greater Bay Area (including Davis). BAC helps coordinate the work of I-don’t-even-know-how-many orgs, so that there is a sharing of knowledge, resources and effort. Sister District Yolo and Indivisible Yolo are both members and we all benefit from the connection and networking.

The zoom meeting tonight had nearly a thousand attendees. A THOUSAND ATTENDEES! We are all volunteers working with our various orgs, all committed to a favorable outcome in the upcoming presidential election (and some key downstream elections, as well). The guest speaker was Professor Heather Cox Richardson (Boston College) and she was as clear, informative and inspiring as always, (tonight in zoom-person, rather then in email newsletter form)! I was SO inspired. SO glad to have attended (even as I had to put the coverage of the New Hampshire primary on hold for a whole hour).

Since about 2017, I think, I’ve been reading Heather’s nightly commentary on the day’s political events. I’ve shared some of her pieces here. They consistently offer incredible clarity and very helpful perspective on our daily dose of crazy. Most useful is her comprehensive summary — always so articulate — and her reality check on the unrelenting hysteria we are subjected to with a lunatic seemingly always in the news, and a news media that can’t seem to see the forest for the trees. She cuts through all the noise. As an historian, she also places the events of the day into historical context, letting us know our times are not uniquely dire.

Well, except now. These are uniquely dire days and the election later this year really will have a bearing on the viability of our noble experiment in democracy.

Deep breath.

Anyway… here’s a screen shot:

I could write lengthily about her comments, I took lots of notes .. but I gotta turn in. I will say, if anyone reading this wants to listen to her presentation, BAC has a youtube channel and I imagine tonight’s meeting will show up there soon (it’s not there just yet, but I know it was recorded).