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10 Reasons to Join a Political Organization

Issue 291

Joining a political organization has many benefits in a moment when the system wants us to feel scared and alone.

Bina Cristan Nov 26, 2024

1. You get to actually be around people

We spend too much time alone these days. Get involved with a group of people that holds regular meetings and events!

2. Make friends that are politically aligned with you

It’s great to know people with whom you can share your radical ideas; hopefully you can challenge each other, stimulating new ways of thinking. These kinds of conversations can also provide a healthy emotional outlet for all the horrific news we ingest. 

3. Political education

Expand your political, historical, societal, economic understanding. Comrades will often share readings and other types of media; some groups even specifically offer political education. And learn from the actions you organize! Challenging the system is a great way to learn how power structures work.

4. Work together

Collective decision making is a big part of being in an organizing group. Learn how to put your heads together to best make effective plans. And how to work in coalition with other organizations. Having a network of organized groups collaborating with each other helps popular movements grow and succeed.

5. Satisfaction of getting things done

Protests, direct actions, strikes, canvassing and know-your-rights campaigns, creating media, etc. An effective political organization has many things going on at once. See the fruits of your labor.

6. Directly support and empower fellow community members

Getting involved in political organizations often gives you the opportunity to engage more deeply in the communities they are rooted in or involved with. 

7. Create people-power infrastructure

Protests come and go but strengthening organizations now will make it easier to channel the energies unleashed by future moments of political unrest.

8. 2028 General Strike

The United Auto Workers put out a call earlier this year for other unions to align their contracts to expire on May 1, 2028 so they can strike in unison. For a 2028 mass strike to succeed, it will be imperative for political organizations to support labor unions. Start planning now.

9. You just might change things

The only way to stop Trump or ­implement leftism is through building mass movements. By getting organized, you can become part of the solution. 

10. And if this world goes down in a flaming wreck…

Better together. Even if you think there’s no chance political organizing will change the path of destruction most world leaders are on, I find more meaning in life when I challenge the system rather than capitulate to it. 

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