Building Up the ASP by Building Up Community

[This talk was initially given at the virtual Michigan State Meeting on October 26, 2024.]

So I thought I would focus my remarks tonight on that same local engagement: how we can build up our party by building up community. 

Last month I attended my town meeting. My town has about 15, 000 residents. Town meetings essentially serve as a biannual legislative body for the town. They are action packed! The town provides a warrant with articles to be voted on, and the registered voters who show up to the meeting decide whether or not to approve the articles on the warrant, most of which have to do with budgets and spending. Riveting, right? Except that somehow it is. I attend with a friend who brings seltzers and Swedish fish for us to munch on as we watch the town drama unfold. Much like at our own ASP yearly national convention, townspeople can get up and speak for and against articles, even offering floor amendments–although as anyone who has participated in an ASP national convention will tell you, that will get you a lot of dirty looks.

The line to get into the town meeting was out the door. Everyone was shocked by the turnout–everyone except the people who had organized the crowd to show up. It turned out that a group of citizens had petitioned for an article to be placed on the warrant. Residents of a certain road were upset because huge delivery trucks kept cutting through their neighborhood, making it unsafe for children and pedestrians, and occasionally they even ripped out low-hanging electric wires. The trucks were ignoring the signage the town had placed on the road. To combat this problem, a consultant to the town had made a series of proposals, one of which was closing the road off to all but emergency traffic.

            Cue the drama! 

You see, the road in question wasn’t just a cut-through for large trucks but also for many commuters trying to avoid an even more congested route. On top of that, an industrial park that shared a road with this neighborhood worried about their businesses if the trucks couldn’t use the cut-through anymore. 

           The owner of one of the businesses in the industrial park happened to be my next door neighbor, so my neighbors circulated a petition asking people to advise against the not-yet-proposed road closure before it could even get off the ground. Then they posted about it on the local neighborhood Facebook groups, stirring up enough outrage to inspire at least 100 people to come to the meeting and vote on their side. Their main appeal to their fellow residents–who were not residents of the street in question–was that this would add time to their commute and that the town government couldn’t be trusted to make a good decision on this issue.

I can’t claim to be an expert on urban planning, but I knew my neighbor’s petition sounded off. What unfolded at the town meeting really made me think about the principle of subsidiarity embedded in our party: that the stakeholders closest to a problem ought to be the ones making the decisions to solve it. Here were a group of townspeople trying to work with their closest level of government, the select board—our version of a city council— and another group of residents from my neighborhood, a neighborhood that is more enclosed and across town from the street in question, stepped in and tried to stop it. 

           One resident was in tears at the podium when she pointed out that everyone who had signed the petition to keep the road open lived on my street, a road that is very safe to walk in. She pleaded with other residents to allow them to work through the process step by step, rather than jumping in to try to interfere with the outcome before every possibility on the table had been discussed.

But the commuters won. My friend and I even voted on opposite sides—“think about what a mess Route 16 would be!” she said. She was right. The group of suburban moms I typically “caucus” with in my town elections were on the other side of the issue because we all have to drive our kids up a busy street to get to our Catholic school, which is 9 miles away, toward Boston traffic.

The Sonski-Onak campaign slogan is ‘pro-life, pro-family, pro-worker.’ We tell people they can vote all their values. I heard a fellow delegate say one year that “solidarity is one of the most beautiful words in the English language.” The ideals of our party are lofty ones, and they tend to inspire people when they discover us. One other thing that we must keep in mind is that solidarity requires sacrifice. In the most basic, communal setting, it asks us to allow ourselves to be inconvenienced for another’s sake.

When news of Dobbs broke last summer, the internet was inundated with pro-life arguments about our best next steps. I tuned in to one featuring Leah Libresco Sargent and two other women whose views on abortion were sympathetic to the pro-life movement but who were concerned about many struggles and barriers women face, such as poverty, the lack of paid leave, and the lack of community support. In fact, our platform addresses these concerns. Our party has a “both/and” approach. We want to eliminate abortion and address the factors that drive women to the decision to abort. We want to take care of babies and their mothers and families. 

        Leah agreed with their legitimate concerns. But eventually, Leah was forced to point out that no amount of policy changes could make motherhood easy. Suffering is a part of life we cannot fully legislate away. Although we pelicans acknowledge our duty to strive toward a more just America, there are some sufferings that we can’t erase. Those of you who are parents know that bringing a baby into the world is one of those challenges. Becoming a mother is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Not due to lack of resources. Not due to being unmarried or lack of family. It is hard because it is a sacrifice requiring you to give up your body for another person. After the Herculean efforts of pregnancy, labor, and delivery come another set of sacrifices–the sacrifice of everything you knew as normal life–sleep, food, work, your friends. The pro-life movement uses a lot of photos of cute babies–and we should, because babies are cute! But I don’t think we should shy away from admitting that what we are asking of women and couples when we ask them to choose life is nothing short of heroic. We are asking them to make a huge sacrifice for the greater good of the life of their child. It is hard, but we can do hard things. 

In fact, we have to. Solidarity and the common good demand that we put the greater good of our family, neighbors, and community above ourselves. And that example of sacrificial love of neighbor has to start with us. Let’s face it–if we can’t convince people to accept the inconvenience of an additional 10 minutes on their commutes, how are we going to convince them to allow themselves to be inconvenienced by the arrival of a new, helpless, human being for whom they were not prepared?

This work begins with conversations within our spheres of influence— like my “suburban moms caucus”. I wasn’t going to convince them to change their votes through text messages within a span of 12 hours. Rather, it’s the day-in, day-out value of lived community that gives credence to my opinions. Showing up with a meal when a new baby arrives. Giving each other’s kids rides home from school when something comes up. Sending a simple message–“I’m about to go to the drug store. Do you need anything?” I would argue that before our political ideas will have any influence among our friends and family, they must first see our capacity to sacrifice for them. We must show others that we are willing to forgo an individualistic agenda when we encounter someone in need of our time or resources. 

I’ve gotten to know a lot of amazing people since joining the party. Some of you may know the state coordinator for Vermont, Michael. Michael goes to the State House every time a piece of legislation comes up that involves our core values–whether it’s for the unborn, workers, migrants, and so forth. He always asks to speak, and he always takes time he could be working to do so. He has become “the ASP guy” in the Vermont state house. What if we each became “the ASP guy” in our communities? How many more tiny shifts toward solidarity would we see?