Letter Fom Red Country

Women's March January 21, 2016, Coos Bay, Oregon

I’m an Oregonian who had just moved from the Portland Area back to the rural County in which I was born just in time to see trump receive nearly 60% of the vote in that County in the 2016 presidential election. Every Democrat, save one, was trounced.

I awoke the next morning feeling as if I’d been fist run over by railroad train and then backed over by the same train.

Once my body and mind stopped aching, I thought, “well, if I’m down here in the heart of Trump country, I might as well take a stand here.” And it turns out that many other people have had the same feelings and thoughts as I’ve had. It has been an energizing moment. We realize that we in reddest Oregon have a key role to play.

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo is right about this If stopping Trump happens,

“it will happen because of grassroots organizing in red states and the red parts of blue states. The cities are already overwhelmingly Democratic. The fight is really outside the major cities. Nor is it just geographical. Trump's power will be broken most on issues like health care - some mix of Medicare, Obamacare repeal, etc. These are issues that cut across the urban/rural divide.

So, a few questions. Who is starting to crisscross the country now recruiting candidates? Are they candidates that can win marginal districts? What people or groups in the political realm are creating databases of people likely to be affected by Obamacare repeal for political mobilization? What is the message?”

The national upsurge against Trump we’re now seeing in our cities is great and necessary to stopping Trump, but it will not be enough without a rising of progressive voices in these areas where we have lately been subdued. We must make ourselves known where we’ve been unknown, visible where invisible.  We in the red counties of Oregon and in all the red counties across this country can be the crucial fighters in this battle. It will be won or lost here.