How Good Policy Will Be Made This Year
The first sunrise of 2000, I was on a ferry off the coast of Maine and a guy proposed to a girl on the bow as the new century's light broke around us. I'm thinking today of that earnest morning air that held 100 new years of possibility in it. And how we can reach for that kind of expansive possibility now.
So I come back, again, to the most reliable motor of good change, especially policy change. It's a muscle so commonplace, its sheer force can be overlooked.
It's care, plain and powerful.
This past Congress, 19,308 bills were introduced. And 415 of them - that's 2% for those following along at home - became the law of the land. It's diabolically hard for legislation to be enacted. And it takes more than horse trading and good luck.
The best bills don't become law unless someone cares enough to find a path forward for them. Then to find a new path when the original one becomes impassable. And another when our party loses the majority. And another when we get told, "Not gonna happen this session." And another when...
It is care - not rage or righteousness - that will sustain us in this slow work of making more just, generous policy.
And it is care that will protect us against cynicism, burnout, apathy. As Eli Weisel put it, “The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.”
It seems useful then to be good stewards of our care, however that looks for each of us. Maybe long nights of sleep, or absent the possibility of that, a few good cat naps. Plenty of time in great fresh air, in the company of great people. And I always love what poet Tony Hoagland says:
among your duties, pleasure
is a thing
that also needs accomplishing.
Our care is an engine. And if we can protect it, then as James Baldwin reminds, "Those who say it can't be done are usually interrupted by others doing it."
This is not a barren landscape we are walking into. There is possibility for honest, decent change. And that change will belong to those who realize that this is love work masquerading as policy work.