Politics is life, life is politics

In 2018, we had the privilege of working with an organization called People Pac, who was facilitating the creation of video assets for state legislature candidates in targeted states around the country. Like many, we were motivated by the events in 2016 to get more deeply involved in politics in the midterms, and so jumped at the chance to go to Michigan.

We raised the money to get ourselves there, and had an amazing, exhausting week meeting folks from all walks of life who’d decided, like us, that it was time to be more civically engaged. What really struck me at the time was how energetically kind and sweet almost everyone we met was. Most of us form ideas about politicians based on national or statewide figures, but rarely have intimate access to folks at the beginning of their political journey, when they’re still schoolteachers and house cleaners, moved by that strange mix of ambition and selflessness that gets people into politics. Not just “I want to make things better,” but “I think I’m the right person to make things better.” Whatever ends up happening to those folks (in fact, we found out that one of the people we’d interviewed was later indicted for embezzlement), I try hard to retain that feeling that the beginning of the road is truly golden.