Dear John,

So many of us are feeling split, or out of place– never more desperate for things to change, yet never so unsure of how to change them.

Children getting killed at school. Friends dying from overdoses, or getting caged in a local jail. Unpayable health care bills and unrelenting employers. Violence everywhere and healing hard to find. Perhaps worst of all, we are daily reminded that the “proper channels” were set up by those in power to keep us from making a difference. It’s not hard to find reasons to give up.

No single person or organization alone will be able to answer the crises we face. But we are proud of the role that WV Can’t Wait has carved out in this state. As we all try to figure out where we fit and how we can keep up the energy to fight, we wanted to offer a little insight into how we think through those difficult questions.

1. We’re not trying to persuade those at the top. We’re replacing them. That means encouraging folks to run for office and then offering them a “campaign-in-a-box” (webpage, door cads, $, training, texting, etc.) when they have the courage to say ‘yes.’ It means throwing our weight behind them when we win. And it means spending lots of money and time helping the people in our communities who are already doing the work that government fails to do. 

2. We’re slow. Everything moves fast. We live in a world of hot takes and rapid response actions. We need people who live in that 24 hour news cycle. We also need people and organizations, like WV Can’t Wait, that push against that trend, that try to build something to last. Sometimes that means saying ‘no’ to a particular foundation or action in the short run, so that we can invest in an organizer or mutual aid program for the long run.

3. We’re the bad cop. Think of the the old “good cop, bad cop” routine in movies. Social movements need this dynamic too. We need groups like WV Can’t Wait to be the “bad cop” – delivering real political threats and naming the world as it should be. That helps create more space for others to fight for the world as it could be.  

4. We believe in making mistakes. We’ve made candidate endorsements we have had to withdraw. We have tried bold new campaigns, only to fall on our face. Sometimes it feels like everything we are doing is an experiment. And that’s a good thing. These are desperate times. It’s rarely clear what the right thing to do is, and so we feel a responsibility to take risks and make mistakes.  

5. We’re never too busy for a tough conversation. Sometimes it can feel like we talk too much. WV Can’t Wait won’t start a new program without at least 50 one-on-one conversations… not to mention running it by our staff and leadership team. We also make room to talk to our opponents from both sides of the aisle and our neighbors and co-workers who didn’t vote the same way we did. All this conversation slows us down, but it also makes us sharper. 

6. We make invitations. Maybe this is a West Virginia thing, but it feels like we are constantly making invitations. For every 1 candidate we recruit, we probably invite 20 to think about running. We invite people to start their own mutual aid programs and citizen media outlets and statewide organizations. We invite people to volunteer, to donate, to organize in their workplace. Our whole mission is to win a people’s government. That means we believe that everyone has a vital role to play, no matter who you are.

So, let this email serve as one more invitation. If you are not sure where you fit, or what you could do to make a difference, let’s have a conversation (just hit reply, and we’ll set something up). If you don’t have the time or energy to run for office or volunteer or even catch up, let this be an invitation to donate one more time…to support the people who do have the time.

In solidarity, 

Stephen and Katey, for the WV Can’t Wait team

PS Here's a link to a recent article about how we see our role in the movement: https://medium.com/rural-organizing-how-tos/our-job-is-not-to-persuade-those-in-power-its-to-replace-them-7503e8bc38a9.

PPS Here's that big blue Donate button one last time. Our average donation is about $38. It adds up!

WV Can't Wait is a movement to win a people's government in the Mountain State. For more information, visit wvcantwait.com.