The future messaging of the Democrat Party and following through on calls to action were the main topics at Thursday evening’s meeting of the Allen County Blue Dot Club.
Sponsored by the Allen County Democrats, the Blue Dot Club has been marketed as a group open to any political party affiliation. “We want to have monthly programs that might reflect some things Democrats are interested in as a party, but to make sure people understand they are welcome regardless of party affiliation,” Allen County Democratic Chair Mike Bruner said at the time of its inception. “Our goal is to encourage civic engagement in support of democracy, no matter your politics.”
Despite this, Thursday’s dialogue decidedly hewed to the Democratic Party’s platform.
The night’s speakers included Johnson County Democratic Party Chair Deann Mitchell, Crawford County Democratic Chair Emily Walters, Pittsburg High School student Hadrian Zurek, and Senator Cindy Holscher of Johnson County.
ZUREK, the son of Walters, gave a unique insight to the panel’s conversation. A sophomore at Pittsburg High School, he is a member of the school’s Democrat club.
“The question I get asked the most is how to get young people engaged,” he said. “In every county in Kansas, everyone has this one question on their minds. It requires talking about the two things that I hate talking about the most and which are so over-discussed in politics — messaging and action.”
It’s Zurek’s belief that the Democrat party is not doing enough with its messaging to engage with youth and it’s falling short on calls to action. “People aren’t doing anything,” he said. “When we say that something needs to be done, we need to do it.” He added that people will often approach his mom at county party meetings and state that something needs to be done about a particular issue. “You know what she tells them?” he asked. “She says, ‘That’s great. Do it.’”
According to Zurek, this is how Democrats can win over people and win elections. “If we say a Republican is starving a child, but then we refuse to feed that child ourselves or do anything about it, are we not complicit in that action?” he asked. “It’s easy to believe that both sides are the same if all we do is sit here and talk about it. We have an untapped market of young people who are interested.”
Zurek’s solution to engaging with youth? Buy pizza. “Buy two or three,” he said. “That is the start. We get people to show up. We offer to feed people and offer them pizza. We offer them something — anything.”
MITCHELL stressed the importance of local races. “This isn’t an off year,” she said. “It’s a municipal year. It’s very important. We have 123 races on the ballot in Johnson County.”
These races span city council, school board, college trustees, and water district. “We are very busy until June 2,” she continued. “Municipal years are extremely important.”
Mitchell pointed out that there were 100,000 municipal seats that were uncontested two years ago. “Everyone in this room knows somebody that is more qualified to run for office than most of the people in Washington,” she added. “Especially now, we need people to step up and run for the local municipal races.”
Mitchell also serves as a voting member of the Democratic National Committee. Through this role, she helps organize and get “boots on the ground” to find volunteers and candidates.
“We need funds coming to Kansas for organization and we need to be able to pay for a bigger staff,” she noted. “This is a purple state that has been gerrymandered red and we need people who are able to help us fight that and make a difference here.”
THE DIALOGUE took a more divisive tone at times during the evening.
“What is happening at the federal level right now is really scary, especially when we see it being reflected in our neighbors that were our friends who have turned into somebody we don’t recognize,” said Walters. “I saw a thing on Facebook that read ‘I wish I never asked the question to myself of how ordinary people became Nazis in 1930s Germany because I didn’t really want to know the answer.’ It feels like that a lot.”
