Mr. Silvercloud, I am a nobody, from nowhere. Somehow people think that a big title makes a person bigger, but they are wrong. Every one of us, is a nobody from nowhere.
40 years of experience in activism, organizing and civic work gave me a little different point of view. In civic work, I learned that systems are way too big for a handful of people to change all by themselves. If you want to make change, you have to invest every available mind, minute, and penny very, very well.
It sounds calculating and cold, even uppity, but the groups that succeeded in making deep, lasting change talked about strategic planning so often, I spent six months learning how to do it.
As the organizations I worked with began implementing strategic planning, we started succeeding too. And that’s how I learned that disruption forces change. It’s actually a life cycle – systemic change forces social change, and social change forces economic change and economic change forces system change and round and round we go adapting to changing times.
Once a system is disrupted, it cannot end until the entire system has adapted to new demands and recovered its balance, or crashed and died. Finding that disruption point takes work, but it is worth it.
When Obama came into office, he was laser focused on the healthcare system. For a long while, I thought he was just talking. Eventually I realized he was thinking strategically. Obama was determined to disrupt a system that would improve the lives of every American – without exception. Obama had two years to disrupt the healthcare system and he succeeded.
Soon enough, all of my co-workers had health insurance – some for the first time in their lives. Our boss followed Obama’s lead and assigned me the task of helping every employee get enrolled, then help them find doctors and dentists that would accept the Obamacare insurance. This is a small business and the boss could not afford to pay for health insurance, but he gave his employees paid time off to get physicals and exams for themselves and their families.
Sometimes we find ourselves in a position to do something worth doing. To get that something done can require sacrifices no one sees, understands or acknowledges unless they’ve been in that position. The hardest sacrifice of all is accepting condemnation for everything we did not do. That is the reason, most people use their moment for themselves.
If Clinton had put his political capital into healthcare, the system would have been healthy by the time Obama took office. But Clinton had other priorities and the healthcare system got sicker and sicker every year.
Naturally, I was worried when Trump came into office. Had Obama disrupted the healthcare system or merely wounded it? Trump tried to reverse course and failed – repeatedly. Republicans tried and failed – repeatedly. The Obama disruption stuck and there was no going back. The only way left was the Obama way – and that was forward.
As I said, I am a nobody, from nowhere – and I saw in Obama someone who understood his moment– and used it on our behalf. Thanks to Obama, my co-workers and their families have had health insurance for 12 years in a row.
