Simple Actions to Finish 2024
Claiming your power
One awesome thing about holidays is the space and time to think. I like to read and think in the morning, when my brain cells are fresh and I’m drinking multiple cups of sustaining coffee. Today I was thinking about “agency,” and I don’t mean in the bureaucratic sense. “Having agency” means having the control to make your own decisions and manage their outcomes. It’s a power that I try to embrace.
Personal agency involves individual decision-making, since we decide to take action, decide to offer support to another person taking action, or even decide to do nothing. Doing nothing is also doing something—strategic inaction can be the right thing in some situations. But whatever you do, or don’t do, take ownership—it’s your personal agency at work.
In her communications research, Anat Shenker-Osorio emphasizes agency in terms of assigning actions to people and their individual decision-making powers. Cutting taxes for corporations or billionaires isn’t an action that fell from the sky, and discussing it in the passive voice assumes some unknown force created lower taxes for those who are pulling the strings. Um, nope. The billionaires themselves created that action, through decades of propaganda, through the work of billionaire-funded conservative think-tanks, and through generous donations to politicians who see something in the policy for them. “Trickle-down economics” was created by those who wanted more profits for themselves, and has propelled the careers of countless politicians who exercised their own agency to make decisions steering their own careers.
Understand, I’m writing this to ignite your agency, not admire or denigrate theirs. Power brokers already know they have agency, and they exercise it relentlessly. We also have agency, and we need to exercise it relentlessly as well.
So what are some things we can constructively do right now with our agency? I have ideas 💡
Support local media & nonprofit media. I donate and subscribe to the Arizona Agenda, Tucson Agenda, Lookout, AZ Mirror, Cochise Regional News, White Mountain Independent, AZ Daily Sun, Mohave Daily News, Cochise Herald/Review, The Guardian, Tucson.com, Yuma Sun, and countless different Substacks and blogs. I was inspired by Margaret Sullivan’s Substack to make this my #1 resolution, as national sources are increasingly subsumed by billionaires twisting news for their own purposes. Media fragmentation requires that we choose our sources carefully and support those that offer honest, fearless reporting—especially local ones.
Put your representatives on speed-dial and in your email directory. That includes your county Board of Supervisors representative, your legislators, your city council members, your mayor, your local school board members, and any others who occur to you. It’s easy enough—and you’ll need those phone numbers and email addresses in 2025, guaranteed. Pro tip: use a keyword (like “rep”) that will pull them all up when you search.
Choose one elected official and resolve to be a thorn in their side for all of 2025. They have agency and ownership of their actions and policies, so let them hear from you when they take an action that’s harmful to their constituency. Not just Republicans, either–Democrats and unaffiliated too! One of our big jobs this coming year will beholding ALL elected officials accountable, and we know Democrats love to compromise and shift to “the middle.” Instead of a thorn, you can also be a rose: you may want to choose a school board member, perhaps the sole reasonable one, and decide to show up at meetings to support them. Make your choice and then think of all the actions you can take: phone calls, emails, letters to the editor, op-eds, testimony at meetings, what else?
Finally, own your personal agency and use it strategically. Every time I turn around, I’m reminded that 2025 will be a fire hose of awfulness. Grifters will grift, billionaires will pretend they care about something other than their bottom line, incompetent administrators will bungle and stumble, and a thousand scandals will bloom. In the process, people will be hurt. Choose your battles wisely, and consider what you are emotionally and realistically able to do. We’re in this together, and together we will rise.