“The Signs They Are a Changin’,” 11 x 15, watercolor, pen and ink, acrylic marker.

I’ve been excited by the Harris-Walz campaign. Something that’s been surprising me throughout, since KH became the nominee, is the number of new folks who are now voting for the Democratic Ticket. I’ve been hoping that we would find a way over our political and ideological divides. It involves forgiveness and understanding and not holding people’s past votes as a barrier to reaching out to them now. We can’t say, “Well, you voted for him twice, so you just stay over there.” We can’t afford to. Anyone who is willing to take a hard look at themselves and change their minds IS an ally. This is how you make allies. Allies aren’t perfect. But they get you to your goal. And ultimately, we all win.

Sometimes I’ve seen allies treated badly by folks— because of past failings, past tweets, every past action that suddenly MUST have a formal apology on social media that will be, of course, mocked and rejected by the self-selected arbiters of justice… and this negative reaction to a positive turn usually hardens the person against changing sides at all. They re-root in the ideology they originally found distasteful, something not aligned with their truth now, but they go back to it because they are accepted there. They are welcomed back. They feel it’s the only place they can “belong.” Sometimes, we on the Left, will criticize them, and say, well, you didn’t want change anyway then.

No, they wanted change–they wanted TO change, but they weren’t allowed to change for the sake of Change. That is a huge loss for any “Change” ticket or issue. There is no purity test for Change.

We have to create that “belonging” for people. We need to welcome anyone who wants to help fight for others, regardless of their past. People change; minds grow and change; and we have to work with those changes.

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