{"id":1328,"date":"2020-11-06T22:54:01","date_gmt":"2020-11-06T22:54:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/paid.texasmonthly.com\/texas-optimism-project\/?p=1328"},"modified":"2020-11-06T22:54:02","modified_gmt":"2020-11-06T22:54:02","slug":"one-good-thing4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paid.texasmonthly.com\/texas-optimism-project\/one-good-thing4\/","title":{"rendered":"One Good Thing: Beyond the Vote"},"content":{"rendered":"
Welcome back to One Good Thing. Part do-gooder spotlight, part travelogue, part humor column, this series captures the journey of award-winning novelist and filmmaker Owen Egerton. You may recognize Egerton as one of the hosts of the Texas Optimism Project\u2019s monthly podcast,<\/span> The Good Newscast<\/span><\/a>\u2014an extension of what we hope to accomplish with One Good Thing.<\/span><\/h5>\n

Dear November-Owen,<\/span><\/p>\n

This is October-Owen writing you from before the election. Remember me? I was that anxious, irritable guy who kept rage tweeting and refreshing Nate Silver\u2019s FiveThirtyEight. I\u2019d love to guess the outcome of all the elections, but I\u2019ve never been great at forecasting the future. I swore Joey Fatone would be the breakout solo act from *NSYNC. I urged my parents to invest heavily in Betamax. I\u2019m still holding fast to my Motorola flip phone.<\/span><\/p>\n

But, November-Owen, if I had to guess what you\u2019re feeling after November 3<\/span>rd<\/span>, it would be summed up in one word: hungover. Not just from celebratory toasts or mind-numbing self-abuse depending on the outcome, but from the months of toxic rhetoric, explosive confrontations, and high-level anxiety. I imagine that you, like many Americans, are waking up in a post-election world trying to remember exactly what happened before November 3<\/span>rd<\/span>. The memories are blurry, but you know things got a bit out of hand, regrettable words were said, and everyone got a little crazy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Who can blame us? Back here in October, we are riled up! Strong emotions are more than understandable and bold actions are called for. We\u2019re campaigning, we\u2019re waiting in lines, we\u2019re voting our voice.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Did everything change? Were all the problems solved? Do we even know the outcome yet?<\/span><\/p>\n

From where I\u2019m sitting in October, it feels like everything ends on November 3<\/span>rd<\/span>. But I\u2019m guessing no matter who won and what propositions passed or failed, that people are still suffering, that the flow of justice is still clogged, and that in this incredibly wealthy nation the gap between the <\/span>haves <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>have nots<\/span><\/i> only grows.<\/span><\/p>\n

So November-Owen, what do you do now the voting is over? How do you participate beyond the mad, thrilling, and noisy election season?<\/span><\/p>\n

First, take a nap. Have a big glass of water. It\u2019s been a crazy-hard year.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, when you\u2019re ready, dive back in.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The election may be over, but the work continues.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The nonpartisan <\/span>nonprofit public policy organization, The Brookings Institution, has some helpful suggestions on how to do just that. They\u2019ve compiled<\/span> The Bucket List for Involved Citizens: 76 Things You Can Do to Boost Civic Engagement<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the suggestions are simple: Subscribe to trustworthy new sources on both the local and national level. Purchase a pocket-size copy of the U.S. Constitution (or<\/span> more for sharing<\/span><\/a>). If that reading sparks an interest, go deep with a line-by-line breakdown of our founding document at the<\/span> National Constitution Center<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Other ideas from the Bucket List are more challenging: Attending community board or city council meetings, joining a parent-teacher association, or even running for office yourself. Brookings also recommends talking (civilly) with people who hold different political opinions (they suggest getting some help from <\/span>Braver Angels<\/span><\/a>). This can be particularly difficult, even painful, I know. But the beautiful thing about our civic system is that it is designed so we may disagree\u2014sometimes radically\u2014and still remain neighbors.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of Brookings\u2019 suggestions had never occurred to me as civic engagement: Planting a tree, giving blood, painting a mural, visiting a nursing home, picking up litter, or perhaps most simple and profound of all, \u201cIdentify a problem in your community and work with your neighbors to fix it.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Are you writing this down, November-Owen? This is good stuff! Concrete steps to participate in our country\u2019s democracy at every level. National elections are immensely important\u2014and also really, really loud. So loud they can drown out the call for civic action at the state, local, and neighborhood level. Keep your ears open. The election may be over, but the work continues.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

You may not remember this, November-Owen (I\u2019m a little younger than you, so my memory is sharper), but you weren\u2019t born in the United States. You were brought here by parents who saw something brilliant not just in what America is, but what it promises to become.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a nation we suffer from a heritage of racism, sexism, and oppression. Even as we fight for justice, we foster injustice. We have made liberty and inequality bedfellows. All too often, we fail to feed our hungry, help our neediest, protect our neighbor, or even offer equality under the law. We are not yet what we have promised to be.<\/span><\/p>\n

But we can be.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

America is wounded, but very much alive. We heal toward our ideals. We grow toward our promise. No signed document, no political system, not even a president can guarantee our equal rights, a just system, or freedom for all. These continue to be the hard-earned fruits of participation. The participation of the protestor, the soldier, the volunteer, the journalist, the teacher, the jury member, the neighbor, those who kneel, those who stand, those who march, those who vote, and anyone at all who contributes to this messy, beautiful, evolving country of ours.<\/span><\/p>\n

One last thing, November-Owen, I\u2019m eating an unprecedented amount of Halloween candy right now, so don\u2019t forget to floss.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013 Owen<\/span><\/p>\n

Illustration by Mark Conlan.<\/p>\n

Award-winning novelist and filmmaker Owen Egerton is the author of a number of books including\u00a0The Book of Harold the Illegitimate Son of God<\/em>,\u00a0How Best to Avoid Dying<\/em>, and the PEN Southwest Book Award winner\u00a0Hollow,<\/em>\u00a0which was named one of NPR\u2019s Best Books of 2017. He is also the writer\/director of several films including the\u00a0Mercy Black\u00a0<\/em>(Blumhouse, Universal, Netflix), and the horror comedy\u00a0Blood Fest\u00a0<\/em>(Rooster Teeth, Warner Media). Egerton is one of the hosts of the Texas Optimism Project\u2019s monthly podcast, The Good Newscast. He is also one of the talents behind the Alamo Drafthouse\u2019s long-running comedy show\u00a0Master PancakeTheater<\/em>\u00a0and has been named Austin\u2019s Best Author six times by the\u00a0Austin Chronicle<\/em>.<\/span><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

November 3rd has come and gone\u2014but life carries on. Columnist Owen Egerton reflects on the 2020 election and how, after we take the time to recover from the work we\u2019ve put in as a nation to make this election possible, we can all continue to strengthen our civic engagement. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-optimist-case-study"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paid.texasmonthly.com\/texas-optimism-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paid.texasmonthly.com\/texas-optimism-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paid.texasmonthly.com\/texas-optimism-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paid.texasmonthly.com\/texas-optimism-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paid.texasmonthly.com\/texas-optimism-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/paid.texasmonthly.com\/texas-optimism-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paid.texasmonthly.com\/texas-optimism-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paid.texasmonthly.com\/texas-optimism-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paid.texasmonthly.com\/texas-optimism-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paid.texasmonthly.com\/texas-optimism-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}