Why I Dropped Everything to Help My Best Friend Run for Congress ... Against Nancy Pelosi
My best friend is Agatha Bacelar. Brazilian immigrant, Stanford engineer, quadrilingual, capital-F Female powerhouse, Agatha Bacelar. 27-year-old political wunderkind running for Congress against Nancy Pelosi in 2020, Agatha Bacelar.
I took a hiatus from my life as a screenwriter in Los Angeles to be a creative advisor to Agatha For Congress. I help with speechwriting, fundraising, and helping answer in any way I can, Who is Agatha? She’s a spritely, exciting new voice who wants environmental reform, immigrant justice, healthcare and education for all, and corporate money out of politics.
It’s my job to fold all of that into a punchy tagline so your eyes don’t glaze over mid-list, like they just did. I need to make it easy for you to think, as I do:
YES, AGATHA.
Agatha. Know her name.
 Some backstory.
Once upon a time, I played soccer at Stanford University, where I studied Product Design. That’s where I met Agatha; we were in the same major. We first shared a class freshman year, a dorm the following year, an ever-closening friendship since.
Fast forward, post-grad: Agatha moves to a co-op off of Stanford campus and gets a job at Emerson Collective, a social justice organization where she spends her time meeting every kind of person, making mini-documentaries, changing the world for the better every day. Meanwhile, I waffle from industry to industry—I start a tech job, try fashion school, move to New York, find comedy, become a screenwriter, move to Los Angeles where, finally, I find a permanent home. Agatha and I visit each another as often as we can, else support from afar. Texts, FaceTimes, phone calls.
When Agatha first told me she was running for Congress I responded with an enthusiastic “You Go Girl!” But that? Wow. That is not ENOUGH.
So, I called her. I said Let’s do this. Together.
By that, I mean: I want to help you save the world, I want to throw your name through every open window in San Francisco, I want to assure you that this is the most worthwhile endeavor of all endeavors. I don’t know what exactly I’m going to do, but I’m so so in, how should I proceed?
It’s an inspiring thing, watching your best friend run for Congress against the toughest opponent in these fifty states. It’s impossible! A ninety-degree climb!
And yet. I believe in her with my whole self. Why? Is she the next Alexandria Ocasio Cortez? Like AOC, Agatha is young, impassioned, cares, cares, CARES...
But, also. She’s something else. Earthy, grounded. Agatha is special. I am biased, but I am right.
I can not reiterate enough: Know. Her. Name.
I've watch Agatha give speeches at town halls. Inspired, I took the stage at Manny's in San Francisco and made a speech of my own about whyI believe in her. I accompanied her to a summit of inspired young climate-change activists, I made peanut sauce for a dinner party in the back patio of her apartment. She surrounds herself with a rainbow of people.I listen as she answers the questions that come her way: Why are you running? Why do you think you’d best represent this district? Who most inspires you? I feel inspired. I feel awake. I remember I like people.
At a small get-together of Y-Combinator startup founders I listen as Agatha explains at length her desire to bring government up to speed with the breakneck pace of the tech industry. We cheers beers to the necessity of having younger generations represented in Congress for that very reason. This feels, in my bones, like the carbonated bubbling of revolution. A pebble dropped in water, rings expanding outward.
 Fear, sure, is what first drove me to move, to do something. Fear of a future full of guns, global warming, wealth disparity, bigotry, violence, overpopulation. Anxiety onset by too many things to do and not enough time to do them and the constant reminder that all of the people empowered enough to change anything are bad and men and old and don’t care to do the too many things that need to be done because they’re going to die before all the bad things happen.
Whew. You feel me?
But it’s the hope of Agatha’s campaign that makes me stay. This ain’t no cotton soft, cheap, campfire kumbaya, “I sure hope things get better” hope. It’s a a robust, bold, fact-backed optimism that emanates from Agatha herself. A new kind of winner’s mindset: If she wins, we win.
At a Sunrise Movement summit I attended with Agatha, one of the speakers made a point that stuck with me. He said, so often, politicians speak about the future preventatively. If we don’t act, the world will end! People will die! We’re all maybe screwed! It’s... paralyzing. To me, Agatha is a light in this sea of dark. She’s respectful of the generations who’ve preceded her, including Nancy Pelosi herself. Her campaign runs on this regenerative, inspired energy of what could happen, if we work together. Change is a tangible thing. Agatha has brought that down from the sky, onto the skin of my hands.
Here I am, supposed to be condensing all these feelings, issues, experiences into a single sentence.
TL; DR: Yes, Agatha.
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Join us!
Know someone not afraid to stand up to machine politics, who says no to the status quo? Send them this link to sign up and help the Agatha For Congress campaign - there are many ways to help!
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Natalie Griffen
Team Agatha
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