Why I Have Hope in Local Organizing: Reflecting on the Last Four Years

This is a transcript of my fireside chat. You can listen to the full fireside chat here.

Thank you for joining me. To my friends and neighbors in Faribault, across Rice County, and throughout the State of Minnesota: welcome. 

This is my first fireside chat. For those who don’t know, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt called his regular radio addresses fireside chats, as families struggling through the Great Depression and World War Two could gather around their fireplace, listen to Roosevelt himself on the radio, and better understand their democratically-elected government. President Roosevelt used his fireside chats to advance his policy ideas and provide opportunity for action by everyday people. I hope to do the same. 

This first fireside chat will be a reflection on the last four years, and how what I experienced leads me to be hopeful today. 

It has been some time since I last spoke publicly about local issues, though if you know me personally, it probably doesn’t feel like that long. For many of you, the last time you heard from me this way was during my 2022 campaign to serve as Rice County Commissioner for District 3 here in Faribault.

That campaign put me in conversation with a lot of my neighbors. Many were working-class people who had never had a local candidate knock on their door or ask directly about their concerns. It was these visits that kept me motivated every day to continue the uphill battle of being a first-time, twenty-one year old candidate.

I made it through the primary and onto the November ballot. I lost that race. I was proud to have made it through the primary and receive the trust of so many neighbors. It was a close race, with a margin of fewer than 200 votes. My only regret was that I didn’t knock on 200 more doors. 

Regardless of the outcome, my experience running for office enabled me to better serve the Faribault community as a neighbor. After the race, I continued serving on the City of Faribault Planning Commission and the Heritage Preservation Commission into early 2024. 

During that same period, I made a number of attempts to organize outside of formal government. Some efforts gained traction and most were short-lived. What I was looking for was an institution, like a nonprofit or a civic organization I could plug myself into and be the most effective public servant I could be. But what I found was a lack of resources so severe that every organization aligned with my values had to focus on day-to-day operations; getting people the food, water, medicine, and shelter they needed. These are absolutely essential and I am proud that so many people in Faribault and across Rice County are committed to lifting up their neighbors. But where I felt I could be most helpful was in making systemic, lasting change. That's what I feel is missing. Not compassion or care, but someone leading the fight to make institutional improvements so that our resources need not be spent on emergency services.

What I found in my search for where I could be most useful made me incredibly hopeful. And it confirmed how difficult organizing really is, and how much persistence it requires. It also made me more cautious about how I use my voice to build trust within my community.

I don’t believe it’s useful to comment on everything, to have a hot take or an analysis about every news story. What matters to me is not being the one talking, but making sure something necessary gets said. On the few occasions when I’ve spoken out publicly in recent years, it’s been because I believed there was a gap in the local conversation, and that staying quiet would mean I was compromising my morals. My goal in speaking at events or attending meetings or writing letters to the editor over the last few years has been to meet the moment for those who are voiceless.

Those experiences also sharpened my thinking about political parties. I’m not a member of any party, and I don’t believe loyalty to an institution is a virtue in itself. Parties, like politicians, are means to an end. That end being an improvement to our material conditions. We know that the world can't change wholecloth in two or four or six years, but people can feel the difference between endless pandering and a good-faith effort to fight and improve their lives, even when they come up short. Communicating that effort honestly to your constituents is how good public servants stay in office.

Which brings me to Kristi Pursell.

Kristi is the sole rural DFLer left in the Minnesota House, but that partisan fact matters less to me than how she governs. She shows up consistently because she actually lives in her district. She shops at the grocery store down the road, sends her kids to local schools, works part-time at local small businesses, and on top of that holds regular formal listening sessions to discuss local issues. People in her district know who she is and what she stands for. She doesn't just show up when it's time to campaign or hobnob with business leaders. Her work as a neighbor and public servant is what informs her work in governing, not the other way around. 

In 2024, I managed Kristi Pursell’s re-election campaign. I was queasy about wading into party politics. But it was clear to me very quickly that this was Kristi’s campaign, not the DFL party's. The party was an ally, but it did not dictate how the race was run or how Kristi took positions for her constituents. I saw this firsthand. Her priority was serving her neighbors and the party was simply a means to do that. 

What that campaign showed, very clearly, is that people-powered organizing and honest governing outperform purely partisan politics. We didn’t rely on branding or empty signalling. If Kristi spoke out about an issue, whether it was economic or cultural or political, she backed it up with action and effort. In a difficult political environment, where Republicans had massive gains across Minnesota, that approach worked. Kristi was re-elected because people trusted her. I believe that is why she was the only rural DFLer re-elected to the Minnesota House in 2024.

While I was gaining grassroots experience on the Pursell campaign, my own life was changing. I got married in the middle of campaign season. In September of 2024, my wife and I learned we were expecting our first child, who was born in April of 2025. My new life as a husband and father clarified my priorities almost immediately. Whether or not I attended a particular meeting or helped organize around a particular issue depended entirely on if I felt my presence would be effective enough to warrant time away from my wife and baby. It means, I hope, that I have discerned a better sense of strategy and tactics when it comes to community organizing. 

Things changed very suddenly for my family last fall. In September of 2025, as my daughter was just beginning to figure out how to hold her own bottle, I was informed that my job managing the public television station in Northfield was eliminated due to budget cuts. 

There was no advance notice and it was quite a shock. That morning, I was strategizing with coworkers on how to communicate messages to the public. That afternoon, I was cleaning out my desk and trying to process what just happened. That night, my family had to figure out how to navigate insurance, childcare, and finances with only one stable income. 

Our health insurance and most of our household's income came from this job. My wife works at Nerstrand Elementary School, a small tuition-free public charter. It is her dream job, working in a supportive environment with smaller class sizes and proper staff support. However, her salary and level of benefits are much smaller than that of a teacher in a typical public school. Without the income and benefits that came from my job, our financial world changed overnight.

Our daughter was only six months old at the time. My wife and I had been discussing that perhaps, with our next child, she might want to try being a stay-at-home-mom if we could afford it. We cannot.

Thankfully, things are better now. I was able to stabilize essential income through my small business after a difficult few months. I feel incredibly fortunate. Many people don’t have a budding small business to fall back on. My experience reinforced how fragile stability is for most families, even when they are doing everything “right.”

It also reinforced my conviction that our social safety net needs foundational reform. With all of the stress and uncertainty that we experienced, my greatest frustration was not that the work I had been doing for the last six years was down the drain. Nor was it the fact that my wife and I had to put off home improvements that would make our home more energy efficient and safe for our newborn daughter. 

My greatest frustration was that the programs that my former employer ensured me were “there to help” were convoluted and designed to discourage me from pursuing the support my tax dollars pay for. MNsure, unemployment, and several other public assistance programs either denied us help because my wife’s income as an elementary school teacher was simply too high (too high to receive assistance, yet too low to cover the expenses of a growing family) or they required form after form and application after application to even be considered to receive relief. Then, even when we were approved, it had been a long enough process that things had already stabilized for us. 

Again, we were lucky. This is not about “woe is me.” We had savings, I already had some income from my small business, and my former employer did provide four weeks of severance. That is a lot more than most people have. And if we didn’t have those things, the convoluted systems of “support” would have done little to ease our immediate pain. Those who think our social safety net is a free ride or easy money are dead wrong.

Which brings me to why I am starting these fireside chats now.

Over the past year, I have seen growing fear and frustration among my neighbors, especially around public safety and the feeling of powerlessness. So I am done waiting for the perfectly-structured nonprofit or advocacy group to organize locally. 

Instead, I am focusing on being a neighbor. I’m not a perfect messenger, and there are many other voices that deserve to be heard. But the challenges our neighbors face cannot wait for that imaginary institution to coalesce. Systemic change is required to make our community safer for everyone. I feel that I must use the tools I have at my disposal and the relationships I’ve developed--with everyday people and with those working inside local institutions--to try to make tangible, local change.

If we want progress at the state or federal level, it has to be rooted locally. City councils, county boards, and school boards are where accountability begins. Change doesn’t happen passively. It requires organized effort.

I have heard again and again from folks working inside local government and local nonprofits that they want to be doing more and that they are capable of doing more. What they lack is the political will from the community to get it done. Constant pressure must be applied to local governing bodies to be more aggressive in improving the lives of working class people. Without that, our civil servants are only allowed to do the bare minimum. And the bare minimum only helps the comfortable. 

It is up to all of us to do our part. But that doesn’t mean it is all on you. We are all living within the same systems. The question is whether we face these challenges individually or together.

The most immediate concern I hear right now is public safety. People want to know what is actually happening in their community and what can realistically be done. Mutual aid matters and our community has a strong tradition of showing up to provide direct services. But when unmet needs are recurring and predictable, that means they are systemic problems. Systemic problems require organized solutions.

That is where I believe I can be useful right now.

We must, as a community, identify and organize around specific policy changes we want to see. Let’s say you are concerned about public safety with ICE raiding homes across Rice County. You see families separated without contact, infants being teargassed in their carseats, and you watch a U.S. citizen being shot at point-blank range in a blatant display of incompetence just fifty miles away. You, rightfully, are concerned that the same unpredictable violence may occur if you find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time in Rice County. Calling Congress and writing to the President may, in theory, enact some kind of reform. In the meantime, direct services help relieve the pain but it doesn’t change the system that continues to cause more pain. The most immediate and effective change you can advocate for is not in Washington D.C., it is in Faribault.

Every law enforcement agency has some policy regarding their collaboration with ICE. You have the right to go through your local law enforcement’s policy and decide if you are satisfied with it. If you are unsatisfied, that is when you inform your friends and neighbors about this policy. Let's say you can get a small group passionate about a specific policy from the Rice County Sheriff’s Office; then you can meet with your County Commissioners, the Sheriff, and the County Attorney to advocate for changing a policy. From there comes a potential pressure campaign, which can go on as long as it needs to. If those currently in office won’t change the policy, you can show potential challengers in the next election that there are votes available for those who would approve the change. That is one path you can take. If you are persistent enough, you will succeed in one form or another.  

To quote Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “Never in the history of the world has a Nation lost its democracy by a successful struggle to defend its democracy. We must not be defeated by the fear of the very danger which we are preparing to resist. Our freedom would never survive surrender.”

I have hope, not because I believe things will fix themselves, but because I have seen what happens when people stand side by side and refuse to accept that nothing can change. I believe in this community, and I believe in what neighbors can build together.

When Faribault is united, when Rice County is united, only then can we enact the systemic change necessary to make this community safe and prosperous for everyone. When neighbors stand alongside one another and refuse to be divided by labels like race, nationality, religion, or gender, Faribault and Rice County become stronger. When people recognize that, in spite of their different identities and backgrounds, they have far more in common with one another than with any billionaire-- When we realize that, the balance of power begins to shift. Only together can we take our power back. 

As I plan to do with every fireside chat, I want to end with a historical reading. Maybe it’s an indulgence just for me, but it’s my fireside chat. I feel grounded when reminded that humanity has faced massive challenges in the past and persevered. Maybe you will too. 

Tonight, I’m sharing an abridged version of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s May 27, 1941 fireside chat, limited to what still speaks clearly to this moment. You heard a bit of it a moment ago. This was delivered when the nation was healing from World War One and the Great Depression. Franklin Roosevelt met that moment with an unprecedented restructuring of society to center the working class. In this address, he discusses the imminent threat of authoritarianism and bigotry that was positioned to destroy all that the United States had built. This is a greatly cut up rendition of the original speech to speak to today’s audience. Think of this like an oratory collage. I will link in the footnotes where you can read the full address with its original context.

We cannot afford to approach them from the point of view of wishful thinkers or sentimentalists. What we face is cold, hard fact.

We do not accept, we will not permit, this Nazi shape of things to come. It will never be forced upon us if we act in this present crisis with the wisdom and the courage which have distinguished our country in all the crises of the past.

There are some timid ones among us who say that we must preserve peace at any price, lest we lose our liberties forever. To them I say this: never in the history of the world has a Nation lost its democracy by a successful struggle to defend its democracy. We must not be defeated by the fear of the very danger which we are preparing to resist. Our freedom would never survive surrender.

It is no mere coincidence that all the arguments put forward by these enemies of democracy, all their attempts to confuse and divide our people and to destroy public confidence in our Government, are but echoes of the words that have been poured out from the Axis bureaus of propaganda. Those same words have been used before in other countries to scare them, to divide them, to soften them up. Invariably, those same words have formed the advance guard of physical attack.

Defense today means more than merely fighting. It means morale… It means the use of a greater American common sense in discarding rumor and distorted statement.

Today the whole world is divided between human slavery and human freedom.

We choose human freedom.

We will not accept a Hitler-dominated world.

We will accept only a world consecrated to freedom of speech and expression, freedom of every person to worship God in his own way, freedom from want, and freedom from terror.

Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, the Emancipation Proclamation, all were ideals which seemed of impossible attainment, and yet they were attained.

Odds meant nothing to us then. Shall we now, with all our potential strength, hesitate to take every single measure necessary to maintain our American liberties?

I repeat the words of the signers of the Declaration of Independence: “With a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

Thank you for joining me. In my next fireside chat, I will discuss in detail the local ICE policies that I would target for reform. I hope today’s reflection inspires you to join me in that advocacy. Stay safe.