By D’Anne Witkowski
Happy New Year friends, foes, and frenemies! If you’re reading this then at least two things are true: you can read and you survived 2022! Congratulations on both!
What can I say about 2022? It was a wild year, but it didn’t suck nearly as much as 2021 or 2020. True, the bar is very low, but I’ll take it, damn it.
Each year The Guerrilla Politic tasks me with looking ahead to 2023 to discern just what’s in store for all of us in this glorious new year. And so I’m here to bring to you my predictions based on popular New Year’s resolutions. After all, what are resolutions if not a peek into a future that may or may not be realized?
To ask for that raise
I don’t know about you, but something that pops into my head often is actress Sally Struthers saying, “Do you want to make more money? Sure, we all do.” It’s just as true today as it was when Struthers was hawking the International Correspondence School in the 90s when the federal minimum wage was $4.25. In 2022, that amount is only $7.25, which is pretty measly. Granted, there are states with higher minimum wages, but in the majority of states, it’s $7.25, less than the cost of an Impossible Whopper at Burger King. We’re seeing the effects of stagnant wages bumping up against inflation in real-time and it sucks. But we’re also seeing workers across the country standing up for themselves and demanding better wages and treatment. Hooray for unionizing! But let’s not fool ourselves, workers face an uphill battle here where we treat the rich as deities and the poor as moral failures who didn’t have the sense to be born into a rich family. So do you deserve a raise? Yes, probably! Unless you are a billionaire, then you not only do not deserve a raise, you are an embodiment of this country’s immoral state of economic inequality and should be ashamed of yourself. Tax the rich in 2023, damn it!
To lose weight
Let me start off by saying you’re beautiful as you are. I’m also not going to tell you that you’re not fat. Because maybe you are! And I think we can all use a reminder that being beautiful and being fat are not mutually exclusive. Our country’s obsession with thinness is unhealthy, to say the least. That said, it’s your body and your prerogative. I’m not here to tell you what to do. But there’s one group that could really stand to shed some metaphorical excess weight, and that’s the Republican Party. The party is dominated by extremists who are dragging the whole party down (which is, let us not forget, something they intentionally brought upon themselves). We saw that play out in Michigan where the top three races had Republican candidates completely out of touch with reality, believing that the 2020 election was stolen (it wasn’t!), abortion should be banned and criminalized, LGBTQ people are less than fully human, and, in at least one case, that demons are sexually transmitted. As a result, Michigan is as blue as blue can be. And while we love to see Democrats and progressive policy win, these extremist candidates are still winning elections. I, for one, would like dangerous people far from positions of power at all levels of government. It’s going to take a long time for Republicans to become a party that anyone should take seriously again if it’s even possible. So let’s keep voting them out in 2023!
To further your education
If public education is the cornerstone of American democracy, then no wonder Republicans hate it so much! In 2022, public schools endured a barrage of opposition from right-wing conservatives and we saw a large number of anti-public school candidates run for school boards across the country and, in too many cases, win. These candidates ran on racist, homophobic, COVID denial platforms, angry that public schools dared teach about slavery, acknowledge that LGBTQ people exist, take measures to prevent the spread of a deadly virus by keeping kids out of school and mandating mask-wearing, and observe the separation of church and state. The nerve! So if you’re thinking about getting smarter in 2023 – whether going back to school, reading some books, getting a professional certification, or teaching yourself to do something new – then good for you! While Republicans have made being educated something to sneer at (hence complaining about “liberal elites” and running candidates who are decidedly and proudly ignorant), as G.I. Joe taught us, “Knowing is half the battle!” Ignorance isn’t bliss, but it sure does come in handy for a party that has a boner for fascism. In 2023 we need to keep fighting to protect public education, and that means we need more smart people to run for public office, especially school boards. If you’re thinking about running—for anything, check out our training on January 26th.
To get that weird lump looked at
Years ago when knocking doors during a congressional primary I found myself talking to a woman in her 60s who named healthcare as her top concern. As a breast and skin cancer survivor myself, I told her, healthcare was also a huge concern of mine and part of why I was supporting this particular candidate. The woman then told me that her sister-in-law had just died after a grueling treatment for breast cancer failed. And then she said that she was due for a mammogram but had decided she wasn’t going to do it. “I would rather just not know,” she said, “than go through what my sister-in-law went through.” Clearly, this was illogical. But she was very serious. “Knowing is scary,” I told her. “But I’m on your porch talking to you today because my cancer was found early enough. The treatment was not fun, but I’m glad I had the option to do it. Not knowing doesn’t spare you suffering, it denies you any choices in what you do with that knowledge.” By the time I was done talking to her she’d decided to get that mammogram and vote for my candidate. So get those screenings and knock those doors in 2023! You could save a life. (I could make a joke about “knockers” here, but I will not because of dignity.)
To grow your family
There is perhaps no more momentous decision than whether or not to bring a child into this world. And who among us doesn’t want our state government to be intimately involved in all aspects of this decision? Oh, wait, most of us. Most of us definitely do not want the government in our bedrooms, doctor’s offices, and hospital rooms policing our reproductive lives. Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court clearly demonstrated that it DGAF when it overturned Roe v Wade, sending abortion rights into chaos nationwide. Now that abortion rights are left up to individual states, it’s more important than ever to have state governments that support reproductive freedom. Michigan is a great example of what happens when people are motivated to protect these rights: we not only flipped both the State House and Senate, our top three officials won by huge margins as did Proposal 3, a constitutional amendment to protect abortion rights. BUT this might not have been possible without a Democratic majority on the Michigan Supreme Court to strike down challenges to the ballot proposal and an Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission that drew the fairest district lines in decades. My point is that whether or not you want or even like kids, elections matter. All of them. So vote, FFS. VOTE.
To stop biting your nails
If there’s one thing we should have learned over these past few years it’s to keep our hands away from our faces, especially out of our mouths. But bad habits are hard to break, whether that’s biting your nails or voting Republican. If you care about public health, and you should, then you need to stop doing both. No one wants to go back to the early days of COVID when we were washing apples with Lysol wipes and had to visit grandma by standing outside of her window. It certainly didn’t help that the Republican response to the pandemic was to do nothing and just let people die, a fact worth remembering when you hear someone bitch about Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer taking unprecedented steps to save lives and stop the spread of the virus. The scary thing is, our public health system hasn’t radically changed in response to COVID. Yes, we have COVID vaccines now (and boosters. GET. YOUR. BOOSTERS. A great resolution in itself), but we still have a hospital system that works its nurses to the brink, paying them too little and expecting more and more from them. I mean, you’d think they’d be placated by hospitals placing “Health Care Heroes Work Here” signs in their lawns, but nooooooooo. Nurses want good pay and safe working conditions. Wild, I know. We haven’t solved our supply chain issues. And we don’t know what health crises are ahead of us. Unfortunately, “stay ready so you ain’t got to get ready” hasn’t become our public health motto yet. You could do worse in 2023 than electing people who believe that COVID exists, science is real, and lives are worth saving.
To exercise more
And by exercise more we mean your right to vote, of course. Every year is an election year. And if you want to really protect our democracy, that’s the best way to do it. So find out when your elections are this year, and go vote.
Happy New Year! May this be the best year yet. Somehow. Against all odds.