You don't start at the national level. You start at the local level, which is far more important when it comes to stuff like this. You can propose labor laws as a city councilman, or your state's general assembly. You can also find candidates in those elections, and assist them by campaigning, canvassing, etc.

[–] BartsBigBugBag@lemmy.tf 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

What do you do when your state preempts the ability of localities to improve their own conditions, as has been done in many states?

In my experience, the local method has already been the driving method of grassroots movements, and even in seemingly progressive states it can run into these preemption issues.

Similarly, what of projects that are on a scale outside of what is under the purview of the locally elected officials? The next county over to me is so saturated with natural gas wells and so heavily fracked that my county is now experiencing earthquakes and we frequently have worsened air quality due to their emissions. How do I effect change to them without influencing, at the least, the state level, where again it requires more resources than most grassroots organizations are capable of assembling?

There’s also the issue of time tables. Your method of grassroots electoral politics has shown to work in some instances, it’s why my city has municipal fiber and the one over from me is one of the most bikeable around, but given the severe existential threat that climate presents, how do we accelerate what typically takes decades to affect change to something that can create broad, sweeping changes at a societal and infrastructural level quickly enough to enable not only reduction in future damage, but can begin working to repair damages already incurred?

Our system is designed to move slowly, and to allow for actors with more money to have more influence, which currently serves to slow progress even where it is won. My county has been paying for a light rail project that was supposed to be completed in the early 2000s for decades now. Despite agreeing to a contract which was then voted on and passed that would allow use of existing rail, BNSF has continually raised the price to use their rail, and now we’re currently being quoted 2074 for completion of the rail we’ve already paid hundreds of millions of dollars for. We as a state don’t have nearly the resources to force BNSF to negotiate in good faith, and the federal government has shown exactly no willingness to incentivize or force large landholders such as the railroads to do so. Nor do we have the resources to just build our own rail system. So, what do we do here?

[–] thesprongler@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah, the cool thing is you don't need to run for office. There are plenty of volunteer and appointed positions that can help at the local level.