THE ULTIMATE MANUAL for Fighting for Your Rights, Effecting Change and Getting Shit Done

THE ULTIMATE MANUAL for Fighting for Your Rights, Effecting Change and Getting Shit Done

Features

MADISON MARGOLIN

It’s time to disconnect from your Facebook echo chamber and exit your safe space. We live in unprecedented times, and no matter what color your state bleeds, it’s hard to feel encouraged by the sociopolitical tectonic shifts set off last year. Confidence in our democratic system—and in the press—is faltering, civil liberties are on the chopping block, policecivilian relations are deteriorating, the planet is overheating, and hostile dictators are fomenting a nuclear arms race. Plus, Prince and David Bowie are still dead. It’s now up to a rising generation of millennials—YouTube stars, Bernie bros and bottomless-brunch boozers included—to fix this shit.

Label them entitled, whiny, narcissistic social media addicts if you want, but millennials are the country’s heirs. Having come of age during the Great Recession and the greatest political divide in recent memory, young people have been dealt a tricky hand—but they’re ready. The unexpected success of Bernie Sanders’s presidential run is proof enough, and in 2015 millennials outnumbered baby boomers for the first time.

“Our generation has finally awoken,” says David Turkell, a community organizer and digital strategist who worked for both of Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns. “This is actually a moment of opportunity, because we’re fired up. It’s a catalyst for good.” And so PLAYBOY presents our anti-slacktivist guide to accelerating change, battling bureaucracy, creating movements and making sure your

voice is heard. Trust us: Never again will millennials be called the lazy generation.

MAKE YOUR REP YOUR BAE

The primary job of representatives is to listen to constituents, but it’s our job to keep them accountable. In the end, their reelection is decided by votes, not super-PAC money. Whether it’s calling your senator’s office or shaking your mayor’s hand, there are plenty of ways to get their attention. Four of the most effective methods of communicating with politicians are phoning them, following them on social media, volunteering for a campaign and meeting them in person at a city council or town hall meeting.

“Having a huge number of people reaching out to elected officials makes a difference,” says Sara Mitchell, a public affairs specialist at Planned Parenthood Los Angeles. “The person answering the phone is tallying how many people call to say, ‘I’m a constituent. I support this bill.’ It really does add up—and elected officials pay attention to that.”

But this goes beyond simply telling your representatives how to vote. If you have a problem with a local issue that affects your daily life, blow up their phones. Your elected officials at the city or state level can help—and they do. “Folks who have trouble with state issues, we can help with that,” says California state assembly member Jim Wood. “When someone calls the office and has a problem with a health insurance company or the DMV, or a business calls with a problem with an agency,

we can help. We do it all the time. It doesn’t always require a change in the law.”

Meeting elected officials and their staffs also makes a difference. After the 2016 election, Mitchell’s congresswoman had a town hall meeting at 10 A.M. on a Sunday. “A year ago, probably 50 people would have shown up. That day, there were hundreds,” she says. “Show up and say, ‘Hi, I live in this neighborhood. I want you to vote this way.’ They’re listening.”

Showing up can be demoralizing when it seems the talking heads aren’t listening, but it’s all a numbers game. “Have at least a couple of people so there’s a counter-argument being presented,” advises Alfred Twu, a 32-year-old designer who sits on the Zero Waste Commission for the city of Berkeley, California.

For better or worse, President Donald Trump has hijacked Twitter as his preferred mode of communication, suggesting just how accepted the platform has become in providing direct access to politicians. In fact, Twitter provides politicians with a 136-page user guide, The Twitter Government and Elections Handbook. “Twitter gives politicians a platform to connect with the public, whether it be over sports or the latest buzz-worthy news item.

It is an opportunity for politicians to show they are more than just a suit—or pantsuit,” the manual reads. There are even political consultants who specifically advise on how to campaign on Twitter. So your representatives are no doubt using it. (Snapchat, however, has yet to be embraced. Blame Anthony Weiner.)

Tweet at them like you’d tweet Uber if your driver dropped you off on the wrong block. Slide into their DMs freely. Don’t let all those hours their interns spent training them go to waste.

Face time is important too, and volunteering on a campaign is a surefire way to connect with a potential or current representative. More important, it gives you a hand in controlling the message. “Going into a campaign field office or headquarters separates reality from spin,” says Turkell. “It allows you to see not only the most effective methods of outreach, but also the next generation of organizers who are most likely to be political power players in the future.” Adds Twu, “Finding other movements or politicians with a similar idea, latching onto that movement and getting your stuff on their agenda works really well.”

Lastly, Turkell suggests downloading an app called Countable. It rounds up the statuses of

bills in Congress and connects constituents directly to elected officials who have the app. “You just press a button and it will send how you feel to your Congress member and how they should vote on upcoming bills,” he says.

VOTE IN EVERY DAMN ELECTION

Approximately 58 percent of eligible voters came out to vote in the 2016 presidential election, which means more than 90 million did not. In most major cities, less than 15 percent cast their ballots in mayoral elections. Overall, voter turnout was at a 20-year low in 2016.

Turnout is especially bleak in local elections, where results are most tangibly felt and a couple hundred votes make a huge difference. Local election results can affect everything from whether the potholes in front of your apartment get fixed to whether that mom-and-pop

FIFTEEN STATE LEGISLATURES HAVE TERM LIMITS. THE COMPETITION ISN’T TOUGH: 60 PERCENT OF RAGES ARE UNCONTESTED.

coffee shop down the street shutters. “When more people vote, elected officials have to pay more attention to you when they’re trying to get reelected,” Mitchell says.

In larger cities such as Los Angeles, local politics has abroader influence. “We can do alot of things locally that actually affect the state level and the national stage,” says Jessica Salans, a 28-year-old candidate for L.A. City Council District 13. “We can create policies that make Trump break his promises”—for example, protecting L. A.’s Mexican immigrant population. As we’ve seen with marijuana legalization, local law can supersede federal law.

As eyes move toward 2018, remember that 32 states plus D.C. offer online voter registration. “It’s the easiest thing,” says Turkell. “It’s faster than setting up an online dating profile.”

PARTY FOR A CAUSE

Political parties got you down? Throw a real party and charge a cover. Then donate the proceeds to your favorite cause or, better yet, to an underdog such as a Planned Parenthood chapter in the Deep South or apro-pot congressional candidate in the Rust Belt.

Or you can dance it out. Derek Marshall, director of outreach for Salans’s campaign, founded a Los Angeles-based event series called the Party by Ostbahnhof, which merges activism and electronic music. “I was inspired by Berlin’s party scene and how political and social awareness play into it,” Marshall says. The parties, one of which was held the night of Trump’s inauguration, create a “safe space for people of all identities to exercise selfexpression, celebrate art, reject gender norms, embrace sexuality and feel accepted in our collective weirdness.” Some include speeches

from local politicians. The point is to marry politics and partying. “Partying is not to dissociate,” says Marshall. “We’re partying to connect with people. We’re partying with the intention of social awareness. There will be fun in the revolution.” Bernie Sanders inspired similar fetes, with “Bernie Man” parties popping up in Brooklyn, Seattle and Austin during his campaign.

KNOW THE LAW EETTER THAN THE COPS

If you don’t use ’em, you lose ’em. We’re talking about your liberties. America’s narrative is imperfect and contradictory; as Michelle Obama said, she’s a black woman who lived in a house made by slaves. Amid the nuances that make Amer-

ica what it is, educating people about their rights gives the disenfranchised, the apathetic and the impassioned something undeniable around which to coalesce. “In order to fight back, people need to know their rights and how to exercise those rights,” says Brooklyn-based attorney Daniel Miller, who founded the Society for Constitutional Protection after the November election. Until recently, Miller says, he took his freedoms for granted. Now he fears they could be in danger. “I want to do something to be part of the solution, to make sure our systems stay intact,” he says.

Miller’s group aims to educate communities on individuals’ rights. It presents guest speakers and offers lessons on protected speech, when you need a permit to protest, immigrants’ rights, how to fight back collectively against

the federal government’s unconstitutional infringement of states’ rights and howto interact with the police. Did you know, for example, that if the cops stop you for questioning, in order to leave, all you have to do is ask? If they prohibit you from walking away, it’s your right to know why.

“Trump will try to persuade people of a vision of America that is twisted, dark, builds walls and bans Muslims and immigrants,” Miller says. “It’s important to understand why such a vision can’t be adopted. We all need to become effective, compassionate advocates of our own and each other’s rights.”

The American Civil Liberties Union website (aclu.org) provides a comprehensive, bipartisan resource for how to take action when those rights are infringed upon. The ACLU also has affiliate offices in every state.

CHALLENGE GRANDPA TO A FIGHT

If Trump’s campaign proved nothing else, it

proved that an inexperienced nonpolitician can run for office and win. “Establishment politicians don’t have a good rap right now,” says Samuel LeDoux, a former Republican delegate from New Mexico. There’s no better time to run for office—even if you’re a 20-something. Turkell suggests running for whatever position you have the most expertise or competence in, be it a school board, water board or city council. “The best possible antidote to egregious federal policies over the next four years will be through grassroots organizing at every level of government,” says Turkell.

Only 15 state legislatures have term limits, but the competition isn’t always tough: Approximately 60 percent of races are uncontested, estimates Jim Guppies, director of Run for Office, an online resource for prospective candidates. For example, in 2016,65 percent of Illinois state representatives had no opponents in the general election. In 2014, more than a third of all state-legislature candidates across 46 states went unchallenged.

REACH ACROSS THE AISLE ONCE IN A WHILE

LeDoux, who graduated from high school in 2010 and most recently worked for Senator John McCain’s reelection campaign in Arizona, attends political meetings on the right and the left to engage with people who aren’t like him. “The biggest problem in politics is that millennials want to be around other young people. Unfortunately that doesn’t translate into good political action,” LeDoux says. “You’ll never get your idea across if you surround yourself with people who are similar to you in political ideology. When I go to these meetings and I’m the youngest person in the room by 10 or 20 years, you have to ask, how can we get our voice out there when we don’t show up?”

Etymologically, rival once meant something closer to companion since rivals referred to factions on opposite sides of a common stream. “The basis of any rivalry—and why you clash so much—is because there’s so much commonality in the places where you fight,” explains psychiatrist Julie Holland. She recommends getting involved in an increasingly bipartisan issue such as marijuana legalization. In a politically torn country that’s suffering an opioid crisis (the victims of which voted overwhelmingly for Trump), sensible drug policy may help bring people together and heal. “Empathy and compassion are the answer,” says Holland.

Molly Endries belongs to a San Franciscobased collective of queer activists and artists who take a visual approach to unity by wearing patches that promote visibility and safety. “We’ve been told that queers feel safer and more comfortable when they see someone with our patch around them,” says Endries. “It highlights the need for mutual aid and protection.” Meanwhile, artist Julia Vericella photographs those who feel marginalized by Trump’s agenda. “I’ve tried to make this project approachable for both sides so Trump supporters won’t immediately scoff at it, because empathy is a big part of understanding,” she says. “We’re not going to get anywhere unless we have conversations about this.” Vericella also writes letters of encouragement to mosques that have been targets of Islamophobic hatred. “I want people to be encouraged to do what they can to take part,” Vericella says.

“People who are afraid of Mr. Trump need to try meeting a Trump supporter,” LeDoux says. “Breaking down that barrier is the best way to alleviate your fears. You’ll find they’re more similar to you than you think. The biggest division in our country is our ignorance of each other.” ¦