re: #166 iossarian

To me, that analysis leaves out people. They’re important. Hitler wasn’t inevitable— there might have been someone who was actually a ‘good’ populist, who was able to defy the international community constructively to throw off the crushing economic weight it was under. It nearly collapsed on a number of occasions. Likewise, Aaron Burr could have become president, which would have been unbelievably bad. On a different scale, the Civil Rights Movement in the US didn’t succeed on the back of MLK, but on the back of the supporters that he had, the network of men and women who made the sacrifices and the small-scale plans and put themselves in the positions they did. Not a lot of people know that Rosa Parks didn’t just one day decide to take a stand, she was active with civil rights groups and she chose her moment, and she had their support.

People are convinced and swayed by circumstances but also by other people, and a small but deeply spread and committed organization can have powerful effects. Obama has the nascent growth of a real organization, and, weirdly, the GOP are making Democratic get out the vote efforts almost a functional pragmatic organization on their own. I did GOTV for Obama during this last election and met some people I still correspond with and we’re going to do GOTV for the 2014 elections together as well and rope in whoever we can.