"Hope is not some starry-eyed ideal"

Wendy Davis, Gen Z, and "hope" as a verb

Former Texas State Senator Wendy Davis is a living master class in the practice of hope.

When she ran for governor in 2014, she lost to Greg Abbott by more than 20 points. (For reference, Beto just lost to Abbott by 11 points.)

Did she give up? Leave the state? Decide politics wasn’t for her?

Hell no.

She looked around at all the young people who had taken political action for the first time after being inspired by her historic filibuster in the Texas Senate that slowed passage of a bill restricting abortion access in Texas.

She looked at those young Texans and said, “How can I empower them even more?”

So she started Deeds Not Words, an organization that is training a new generation to advocate for their rights at the Texas legislature. They’ve given more than 140 testimonies at the Capitol (67% of which were from young women of color) and helped push 34 bills to become state law.

Here’s Wendy speaking at Texorcism, an event I hosted to inform and inspire action for abortion rights in Texas:

One of the most beautiful moments of this year’s Texorcism event was when Adri Pérez, who was sitting next to Wendy on the panel, shared how Wendy had inspired their own start in activism.

Inspired by Wendy’s filibuster, Adri went on to start an abortion fund in West Texas and help more than 1,000 people access abortion care. They have helped evolve the dialogue on abortion to be more gender inclusive, and they are making this state a safer place for trans Texans against incredible odds. Now, they are the organizing director for the Texas Freedom Network and sharing stages with their heroes.

It moved me to tears seeing in real time the ripple effect of one person’s bravery and how it ignited the next person who is now lighting a fire in so many others.

Today I’m thinking about Wendy and Adri and every single other Texan who loves this state too much to give up on it.

That includes Olivia Julianna, Director of Politics and Government Affairs for Gen Z for Change. When Matt Gaetz body shamed her, Olivia turned around and raised $2 million+ for abortion access. She then used her platform to bring attention to critical races up and down the ballot in Texas, always centering the priorities of her fellow Gen Z-ers.

I fan-girled hard when I ran into Olivia at one of the polling locations on the University of Texas campus in the final hours of the 2022 election:

See all those kids in line to vote behind us?? THEY give me more hope than anything.

One woman I talked to registered to vote the day she turned 18 but didn’t receive her voter registration card before the election. She called every voter helpline she could find and still couldn’t get a good answer on whether she’d be allowed to vote, so she showed up to wait in a 2-hour line just in case. “I’m fully prepared to be told no, but I have to try,” she told me.

Another woman ran up 6 minutes before they closed the line, strands of auburn hair clinging to her sweaty forehead in the humid air. She had just sprinted back to her dorm room to get her state ID after learning that student IDs aren’t one of the approved forms of voter ID in Texas.

But it’s not just anecdotal—look at the way young voters showed up for Democrats across the country:

The future is in excellent hands, y’all.

For even more tangible signs of hope, I’ll close out with this Twitter thread from my brilliant friend Jen Ramos:

Texas election thread time!

While I know many of my friends are grieving (and you have every reason to feel this way) I am going to share where my head is and some preliminary things to look at.

In spite of statewide losses, we kept the line. There is no GOP supermajority in the Texas House. We’re sending the two first Muslims to the #txlege (Democrats) in history, and one of them represents the district previously held by radical Republican Rep. Stickland.

Locally, ballot initiatives for cannabis decriminalization won with over 60% in 5 traditionally red counties thanks to the amazing work of Ground Game Texas.

We are poised to take Dem majorities on the Harris, Hays, and Dallas County Commissioner’s Courts. The Austin City Council front runners for runoffs are housing advocates and we have elected a record 5 teachers onto the Austin ISD school board, with other central Texas school boards fighting off radical anti public education conservatives.

Asian Americans had a good night, not only with their additions to the Texas House but with Judge Peter Sakai elected to be the first Japanese American County Judge in Texas history. We are sending a record number of Latinos to Congress.

I know it seems easy to insist that the state is going to hell, but please don’t discount all the local candidates who have worked their asses off and are going to be our frontlines of defense against the draconian regimes of statewide Republicans.

Hell yeah, Jen!

When I asked Jen for permission to include her thread and whether she had anything she wanted me to promote for her, she didn’t mention her great podcast Jen Has Issues… she only wanted me to plug the fact that we must keep our eyes on the December 13 runoffs.

In Austin, that means supporting pro-housing candidates like Celia Israel for Mayor and Zo for City Council District 9 if we want to be pro-active about making our city livable for everyone.

(Please permit me a moment of pride in the fact that all the local candidates I endorsed in my ballot guide either won or made it to the runoff, sometimes against long odds.)

One thing I know for sure is that hope is contagious, but so is despair. Let’s keep spreading hope.