Bring Politics Back Home

By Rod Powell | Special Guest Opinion

OPINION — A while back somebody asked me why I spend so much time at farmers markets, food pantries, community events, and little gatherings around Cleveland County. The answer was pretty simple. That’s where I find out what’s really going on.

I taught history and civics for thirty years, and one thing I learned a long time ago is that you can learn a lot more by listening than by talking. Some of the best lessons I ever got didn’t come from a textbook. They came from people telling me what was going on in their lives. I still learn that way.

Some mornings at Washington Outreach Ministry in Waco, people are already waiting before daylight. As they come through the food line, I see pillows and blankets piled up in the seats beside them and behind them. You don’t have to ask a lot of questions to figure out what happened. Some of them spent the night in their cars because they couldn’t afford to miss the food distribution. I haven’t forgotten seeing that.

A few days later I might be at the farmers market talking with somebody who has spent years working in our public schools and wonders why all those years don’t seem to count the way they used to. I talk with people going from one job to another and still having trouble keeping up with the bills. These aren’t people looking for something for nothing. They’re working. They’re trying. A lot of them are still falling behind.

Then you turn on the television or get on social media and nearly everything becomes another Republican versus Democrat fight. I get tired of it. When I taught civics, every so often I’d stop and ask the class one question: “What does this actually mean?”

I still ask that when I read about something coming out of Raleigh. What does it mean for the person waiting in line for groceries? What does it mean for a teacher who has spent years in the classroom? What does it mean for somebody working two jobs and still wondering how they’re going to pay the power bill or the rent?

I care a lot less about which party gets to brag about a bill than I do about whether it actually helps people here at home.

We’re not all going to agree on every answer. I don’t expect that. But I do think we ought to know what a proposal actually does before we start cheering for it or cursing it because of the letter beside somebody’s name.

Schools, health care, housing, jobs, growth, the cost of living. Those things look different when you quit talking about them in Raleigh and start talking to the people dealing with them here.

That’s what I mean by bringing politics back home. It means asking what decisions made in Raleigh mean in Waco, Shelby, Casar, Lincolnton, Cherryville, and all the little communities in between. It means looking at whether something helps our schools, our families, our small businesses, and our neighborhoods. And it means listening before we decide we already know everything there is to know.

After thirty years in the classroom, I still believe that. We could use more of it in North Carolina.

Rod Powell is a retired public school history and civics teacher, Chair of the Cleveland County Democratic Party, and Democratic candidate for North Carolina Senate District 44. He lives in Casar.

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The Shelby Independent.