Hello Homo! PART TWO Election Interview with Brian Sims!

Last week I shared the first part of my interview with politician, civil rights attorney, and LGBTQ+ activist Brian Sims (he/him/his). In last week’s column, we discussed a readers concern about the lack of attention to local and regional politics and how to regain and maintain political optimism. In the second portion of the interview, I shared another readers question:

Hello Homo,

What should I do when I see my friends and family members focus so much on the presidential election and they don’t pay attention to smaller elections and down ballot politics? I need help engaging my friends and community members in talking about local politics.

-Anonymous OFM reader

Brian was very excited about this question when I read it out, and his take was:

 There are a couple of ways that I try to address this. If I know the person well enough, and I know the issues that are the most important to them, I will often ask, “Those issues that you care deeply about … How were those issues impacted by the last three presidents?’ And mostly, what you will find is, among the major issues that we all care about, the things that most deeply impact our lives, like non-discrimination, housing, employment, public accommodations, education, healthcare insurance, those things that impact us on a daily basis, you know, marriage equality being down there, basic civil rights, how we interact with police, how we receive public health care, way up here. Those things, unfortunately, don’t change a lot under different presidencies.

Now, different parties, I believe they change deeply under. That has to do with sort of funding and approach. Among the major issues that a lot of people focus on, even among democrat and republican presidents, they don’t change much. That’s because those issues are impacted at a statewide level or at a local level.

Whether you are subject to discrimination, and whether there is a response to the discrimination you are subject to, has so much more to do with the town you live in, and the state you live in, than who the President is. Whether you have the autonomy over your own body right now is strictly something that is decided at the statewide level.

What happened is, we got sort of conned and cajoled into believing that each election is a top-down referendum that starts with the highest person on the ticket. If there’s a president, it’s that person. If there are governors, etc., etc., etc., and that’s just not the case. In far too many cases, some of the most critical people on the ballot are in a statewide race.

There are people right now running against bigots in Oklahoma. Those races matter a ton. There are two deeply homophobic and transphobic elected officials in Florida that I think are going to lose in this next election cycle. That will have a ripple effect that will impact equality across one of the most unequal states in the country.

If you know a person well enough, try to figure out from them what the issues are that impact them and are import to them. It doesn’t take a lot of homework to be able to figure out what issues have a local impact.

The other is that what I find often when people are that frustrated with top the ticket politics is that they’re the kind of people I most want in politics. I know what it looks like to just naturally matriculate from political families and political dynasties and political work, and all of that into politics. But I also know what it looks like to be the frustrated person who steps to the front of the line because the thing needs to be said, the thing needs to be done, the work has to be has to happen, and nobody else is doing it.

I find those people that are the most frustrated with national politics and party politics, they are oftentimes the people that are the most willing to understand the nuances of what change looks like, and are often the best at doing it.

I am married, and have been married for 13 years. You are engaged to be married. Our marriage rights could easily be up for debate as a state-to-state issue again, depending on how the election goes.

I think they will be too, for sure.

That topic alone is a way to talk about the personal impact of local and state politics on our lives. We can engage others in topic that might directly impact them or someone they care deeply about to help them feel into the importance of local politics. Like a trickle down.

It goes right to you!

Yeah, I also, I don’t spend much time in my life trying to convince rabidly conservative, rabidly anti-whatever people. I certainly don’t spend any time trying to convince them who they should vote for. I don’t. I find addressing them is giving them the thing that they want, and they want to take my attention away from advancing things and waste it on them. So I don’t do much of that.

I focus on the places and people who want and deserve that focus and to not give so much. I have spent a lot of time in my life giving oxygen to flames that have burned me and burned others and continued to burn to this day.

You know, while I can think about moral wins, in some of those cases, the vast majority of them are just scorched earth.

You may have a moral win, but to what impact and what are you having to give up for those wounds or wins? What wounds are you taking with you?

And who’s morals, and how big of a moral circle?

Exactly! So Brian, tell the readers of OFM about what you are working on right now and what you would like to share with our readers.

Well, you’re getting this before anybody else, because it won’t go on press release for another week. I have just been hired to be the brand-new CEO of a political action committee called Agenda Pac.

Agenda Pac was started by a group of LGBTQ+ political scientists and campaign professionals and a group of out elected officials. They focus on the 300-400 most anti LGBTQ+ elected officials in the country, based on their votes and their public statements and, in every cycle, they find the 10 most defeat-able. For example, the 10 that are in democratic districts that almost lost their last race, and go after them.

It’s not that we just give money to whoever are their challengers; most of their challengers are actually queer. We take their voting records on bodily autonomy, on trans issues, on women’s rights, and we plaster (them) on billboards in their districts, and we teach their voters why these are the most anti-LGBTQ+ elected officials. We call them the “most beatable bigots.” Agenda Pact puts its money on teaching voters in districts why their elected officials are the worst in the country.

Exciting, congratulations on your new role! We will look forward to hearing more about Agenda Pac and your other projects! Thank you so much for your time, Brian!  I hope that your enthusiasm and excitement will activate some hope for this reader and the readers of OFM. 

Check out Agenda Pac here: agendapac.org or follow Brian on Instagram here @briansimspa, and follow me on Instagram @holistic.homosexual for updates on my new column. Stay tuned for the next HELLO HOMO! See you next week!

Have a question you would like answered? Submit your questions directly to me at hellohomo@ofm.media.

Disclaimer: Hello Homo is for informational and educational purposes and is not a substitute for mental health treatment. Hello Homo (Jesse Proia) is not providing mental health advice, diagnosis or treatment to readers. If you are someone you know is experience a mental health crisis or emergency, please contact 911, 988, or go to the nearest emergency room.

All images courtesy of Jesse Proia