Half the battle is just showing up. – Stephen Hawking

Picture this: You’re speaking before the board of directors at your current place of employment. You’re trying to get them to allow employees to continue to work from home. You finish your well-thought-out speech only to have one particularly outspoken board member blurt out, “Well, if all of your fellow employees want this, why didn’t they show up too.”

You look around and realize you are the only employee in the room. While all your co-workers encouraged you to speak out, and told you they were behind you, none of them bothered to show up. Is it any wonder the board denies your request? You had no one to back you up.

This is the Life of the Conservative Politician

Unfortunately, this is the plight of many conservative leaders. They’re elected by their constituents to represent conservative values. But once the election is over, their support disappears and they are left alone to face increasingly violent opposition.

It’s enough to discourage even the most fervent politician. At some point, after battling the liberal agenda and its combative sycophants alone many of our most promising politicians “call it quits”. And the very people who elected them and then left them alone to die on the hill of conservative values wonder why they quit.

This has got to stop or at some point we will run out of conservatives who are willing to place their lives on hold, spend months raising funds, endure attempted character assassinations, and sacrifice their families only to be left to defend conservative values…alone.

Things Are Different On the Other Side

Our Democrat opponents don’t seem to have this problem. They seem to have a well-run organization that shows up whenever their political leaders need them. Regardless of whether this organization is paid for by nefarious individuals or not doesn’t matter. Democrats stick their necks out because they know someone has their back. Conservatives don’t.

Regardless of how outrageous the behavior might be, in most cases, Democrats look back and see their base right behind them. This has been evidenced in our own state numerous times when Democrat members of the State House have acted inappropriately and still been defended by their base and leaders.

While researching this blog post, most of the information I found came from the Democrat side. In fact, one of the best resources came from a group called the Northern Winn Dems in a blog post entitled, “Why You Should Attend Our Local Government Meetings”. Furthermore, you have only to look at the Knox Young Dems and Knox Dems Facebook pages to see their laser focus on attending local meetings.

It seems to me that if our Democrat opposition is so insistent on the importance of attending local county commission, school board, and city council meetings then we should be doing the same.

While our local officials have made it relatively easy to attend meetings remotely, I don’t believe that they really did us any favors. Our county commissioners can’t tell we are attending a meeting. Our school board members only see the vocal opposition that attends the meetings and not the silent majority that watches from home.

Yes, I understand that it’s not always easy to attend these meetings. In fact, it seems like they have almost tried to make it difficult for those who work to attend by holding the meetings during the day or starting them at 5:00.

And yes, I am guilty of watching from home because it was more convenient. But did my county commissioner who was acting on my behalf know that I was backing her while I sat at my office chair eating supper and watching the meeting? No, she didn’t. Did that affect her voting? I don’t know.

Nothing Replaces the Power of Showing Up

While watching online is more convenient, something extraordinary happens when you show up at these meetings. According to the Northern Winn Dems, “Showing up to meetings encourages transparency. When public officials know that community members are watching and engaged, they tend to be more careful, thorough, and ethical in their decision-making. Attending meetings allows you to witness the decision-making process firsthand and hold your representatives accountable for their actions.”

In other words, when you show up, things can change. It’s just common sense and normal human behavior. Typically, people are more careful when they know they are being observed by those who have some control over them.

And though many elected officials may try to ignore this fact, the voters do hold control over their elected officials. We can vote them out. When we show up it shines a light of transparency over the meetings. Officials can’t “let things slide” because they know their constituents are watching.

You See Things In Person You Don’t See Online 

In addition, you learn a lot when you show up to meetings. In my own experience, showing up to county commission meetings influenced how I voted in this past election. By physically being at the meeting I saw things that you don’t see by watching online. This changed how I voted.

It’s Time to Stop Complaining and Show Up

As conservatives, we tend to complain a lot about our elected officials. We blame many of them because we don’t think that they hold to their conservative values. But the question has to be asked, “Would we hold to those same conservative values if we were facing opposition alone?”

Somehow, I don’t think we would. I think we might do like many of them do and give up, caving in to the opposition. I think there would be some things we would continue to fight for but I believe that we would fold under the opposition on other things. After all, there is only so much energy for the fight.

But if we were surrounded by a vast and vocal conservative army, I believe we would stand up for more. And so would our elected officials. There is safety in numbers and there is power in numbers. The Democrats know that…it’s time for conservatives to figure it out too.

Here’s my challenge. Pick a meeting…county commission, city council or school board, and commit to attending every meeting you  can. After you’re comfortable in attending the meetings, then sign up to speak out and support your conservative officials. If we don’t begin to show up for our conservative elected officials, we may eventually find out no one is left to represent us.

I leave you with these words by Erin Brockovich:

“Things will only improve when the people – all of us – say to authorities, ‘I will hold you responsible.’ We should all be showing up at city council meetings, lighting up every community with activism and mobilization.”

Image by Tung Lam from Pixabay