Real Change Starts Local

The once-mundane morning review of the newspaper has become a task filled with despair.

And no wonder — with stories of how dysfunctional, destructive, and disconnected from reality our national politics has become, it feels as if the government has lost the ability to actually improve the lives of its citizens. Sometimes it seems as if the actual governing of our country has been consumed and swallowed up by political theater. But you’d be mistaken and misguided to resign yourself to cynicism about our democratic system and relegate yourself to your daily quota of social media activism.

To create real change, we must all participate in local elections. The strongest refute to federal power lies with the smallest unit of our government — the local. Participating in all local elections can help enact tangible changes with real impacts on your lives and those around you.

Just look at the impacts of local government here in Cambridge.

City Manager Yi-An Huang ’05, for example, recently signed an executive order forbidding enforcement by federal immigration authorities on city property. City managers are selected by Cambridge City Councillors, who are elected every 2 years. If you’re a Cantabrigian, your selection of City Councillor directly impacts the policies that get made, and ultimately, the way the city responds to the federal government’s actions.

And for those of us not from Cambridge, you can still have a significant impact on your hometown community through absentee voting, making research and participation in local elections even more vital.

The difficulty for most students is that when they’re hundreds or even thousands of miles from their local election commission, it isn't immediately obvious how vital those elections can be.

Local government doesn’t always create flashy results, and may be frustratingly single-minded. I’ve found myself discussing the election of a particularly inefficient county clerk with other Memphians. However, the singular focus of these elections creates their crucial importance.

The granular level of detail targeted by a local race is its most powerful asset. Rather than tackling an entire legislative portfolio and political considerations — like a member of Congress, for instance — municipal representatives often have a much more clearly defined set of responsibilities. More often than not, they have a smaller set of constituents and wider reign to influence other local offices that can impact the issues that matter most to voters.

When we, as Harvard students, neglect our civic responsibilities to participate in local elections, we do our home communities a disservice. Without voting locally, your beliefs go unrepresented in a vast number of meaningful elections. And the perspective you bring — as a student who’s had the opportunity to learn about different opinions and spend time engaging in the most pressing issues of the day — makes your input all the more valuable to the people representing you locally. Being at college should not preclude your beliefs from being included in the decisions made for your community.

To leave our hometowns behind completely, to detach ourselves as if we no longer have a connection, reveals a deep misunderstanding of what it means to contribute democratically.

National elections that involve significant controversy and name-brand politicians are the easiest to pay attention to: just scan the front page of any newspaper or read the first email in your inbox. Alternatively, to stay informed about your hometown requires looking for patterns in local news week after week, month after month. It requires spending time talking to your family and friends, learning about what has changed and what needs more attention since you’ve left. It may even require navigating an inscrutable local election commission website.

Your impact, of course, isn’t constrained to your ballot.

Your representatives are morally obliged to be responsive to your questions and concerns. Candidates asking for your votes should produce answers to the concerns you bring to them. Your care for the issues affecting your community can spark the kind of conversation that decision-makers need to make crucial choices.

So I implore you, this year, to take an actionable step in addressing the issues that you post about. Think critically about your hometown, and take a real stand for the communities that have raised you. It’s our responsibility, now, to be good stewards of our democracy.

Political change is not contained in platitudes delivered in our discussion sections, or even in fiery op-eds published in the student newspaper. Rather, it lies in building a record of consistent participation.

Ira Sharma ’28, an Associate Editorial Editor, is an Economics Concentrator in Mather House.