I volunteered to take a shift at the local Democratic Party booth at the County Fair here in small town Oregon. It's a very small fair, but there were FFA animals, fair food, and an odd assortment of booths in a barnlike building. Oh, and a very bad rock band/hair band.
The booth was set up with voter registration materials, a cage with a kid mannequin under a silver blanket and signs saying "no kids in jail". We also had a large poster board with all the candidates pictures, and conducted a straw poll with anyone who passed by. So far, the winners are (in order) Harris, Warren, Biden, Bernie and Buttigieg.
They paired me with a good-spirted, talkative woman and we had a right good time. All day, we asked people if they were registered, and if they wanted to vote in the straw poll. We engaged anyone and everyone who would talk to us, especially those who didn't like us. Had two couples quietly ask how to switch their membership from Republican to Democrat. Nine people asked for registration materials in 4 hours.
There were a handful of Hispanic kids about 7-10 who walked past the booth, did a double take at the mannequin in the cage, and looked terrified. I tried to smile and indicate that we were not against them, but they ran away in terror. I felt really bad, so we asked the next Hispanic person who came by to help us make a sign in Spanish "No kids in Jail". Mostly, their parents looked relieved to see signs of support.
We had some saboteurs. The NRA booth was right behind us, and someone kicked out the legs from our straw poll sign. An anti-abortion guy left us a bunch of single page information flyers about Margaret Sanger, with lots of her worst Eugenicist quotes, to campaign for closing down Planned Parenthood. He would wait until we were engaging with someone, and then slip his flyers on our table, in the displays etc. He was quite sneaky.
The Trump table was very lonely, the people old and crabby with few visitors. We also had several white supremacist types circle by a few times and flash the White Power symbol. At one point, a crusty old Sheriff came by and unobtrusively took pictures of us talking to people. We just smiled, waved, and asked if they were registered to vote.
Eventually, we had more visitors than the Republican Party, NRA, and anti-abortion tables combined. They just liked hanging out, eating candy and chatting.
I felt like I made a difference today, and it felt good. If you are feeling dispirited, volunteer at a local event. It’ll do you some good.
