There will be no cavalry that is not of our own making. . . .

Virginia's Lynlee Thorne on rural organizing. "There is no gimmick, no magic messenger, no shortcut. There is work, direct engagement, and coordinated efforts," Thorne says.

Our fourth “Meet a Rural Organizer” series features Virginia’s Lynlee Thorne . Lynlee is a co-founder of Rural Groundgame., and many other things. The Cocklebur conducted this interview with Lynlee over email. Meet a Rural Organizer features rural activists, advocates, and leaders who fight for the places they love.

The interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Lynlee supplied the photos for this story.

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The Cocklebur: So, tell me something good about rural organizing in your part of the world.

Lynlee: As most of your readers are likely aware, organizing in rural spaces is unique in both inspiring and challenging ways. I see a liberating questioning of traditional approaches to community engagement around electoral politics, specifically with regard to a growing acceptance that there will be no cavalry that is not of our own making, but instead that we need a product of our own collective effort and innovation.

Greater awareness of institutional weaknesses or outright failures seem to be motivating people to take responsibility for their community through stronger networks of mutual aid and assistance. That type of essential, local work becomes quickly tied to awareness of policy failures and, ultimately, the local and higher-up elected officials who are either actively creating more barriers or working towards solutions in good faith.

The good news here is that we see an increasing number of younger and diverse leaders emerging from mutual aid and issue-based groups into the space of electoral politics as committee leaders, candidates, and campaign staff. Gen Z doesn’t seem to question whether or not they belong in leadership in the way that I think has been a hang up for my generation. They know that they are ready to lead, and step up to the plate.

The Cocklebur: What are the issues driving the talk at the schools and gas stations and nursing homes and such?

Lynlee: In the 2 places where I pick up a lot of local conversation, the county dump and the local farm stores, I’d put the issues I hear people talking about into 2 categories:

1. Real life, daily struggles related to household expenses and housing,

transportation, health issues, and care of family members. That, and,

2. Fear-based distractions, from the solutions that might substantively address those

real life challenges.

I often go out of my way to engage in conversation with someone signaling their right-leaning political affiliation through their clothing, tattoos, or car stickers.

More often than not, even if a conversation touches on fear of real history, bodily autonomy, or members of the LGBTQ+ or global majority communities, the things people will talk about at length and with more emotion are things like how a parent has lost their driver’s license and needs more care or how hard it is to make time for family when they have to work more than one job.

The Cocklebur: Let's say you’re door knocking or phone banking or tabling. Tell me a good story and why you think The Cocklebur audience should hear about it.

Lynlee: I was knocking doors last month in Southwest VA, specifically those of registered voters who have not cast a ballot for at least the last 3 cycles (with no such thing as an “off year” in Virginia). That day, I was inviting them to an upcoming free event focused on housing and prompting them to share any thoughts they had about local housing issues and potential solutions.

A veteran who had struggled with access to housing himself was pooling money with his coworkers to help a fellow coworker pay to live in a hotel while trying to find a more permanent home. It was clear that he had a lot of experience attempting to navigate available resources.

He had a lot to say about some of the pitfalls of the system but he was more animated and focused on sharing some straightforward suggestions for solutions that made sense to him (and to me). It’s an interaction I keep thinking about. I’d love to see people like him on a ballot.

The Cocklebur: And now you get to tell everybody your take on the "Democrats' rural voter problem."

Lynlee: Anyone approaching this in good faith is going to look beyond the Trump Diner-Safari-Style stories and know that rural communities are far more complex and deserving of more understanding and less judgment.

As rural communities become increasingly diverse, rural voters have an outsized impact on the makeup of the US Senate. Democrats have an enormous opportunity to secure a vast, inclusive coalition of folks in and beyond rural communities who know we can and that we must do a hell of a lot better for each other. There is no gimmick, no magic messenger, no shortcut. There is work, direct engagement, and coordinated efforts to take up space in the places we have retreated from. We simply have to decide to show up and try to earn it back.

A favorite quote from Bill Mollison, “Though the problems of the world are increasingly complex, the solutions remain embarrassingly simple.” We need to put our hands in the dirt and get to work in every community, not just the ones where the wins come easy.

The Cocklebur: You're a rural organizer and you need money. Tell everybody how much you need to get the job done, and then say what you'd do with that funding. I mean, instead of buying TV ads in the suburbs.

Lynlee: Establishing Rural GroundGame was a response to a need for an ongoing, durable infrastructure of staffing support, increased communication, and shared resources for rural Democratic committees, candidates, and campaign staff. This work requires continued engagement, not election-season friendship. And this work needs people to do it—paying them fairly for the work that they do to nurture and create an environment where unpaid volunteers and activists can be a part of an ecosystem that welcomes, supports, and amplifies their work.

What does that mean? We serve as shared staff to many rural Democratic committees and campaigns. We develop and track field plans for voter contact, committee-building, and issue-based conversations. We work with local partners to create and distribute radio, newspaper, and targeted digital ads. We assist committees and campaigns with social media graphics, billboards, yard signs, literature, etc. We offer volunteer, candidate and staff training, recruitment, and retention. We collaborate with partners to host events and build community.

We make sure that Rural Democrats know that they are tremendously valuable and deserving of investment. We are scrappy and resourceful but we do need money to do this work and build. You can support us here.

The Cocklebur: Any local leaders or up-and-comers doing rural work you'd like to highlight?

Lynlee: This work can knock you flat. I’m very grateful to get to work alongside incredible people like Roberta Thacker-Oliver and Finale Norton. Roberta is Chair of the Lee County Democrats—the most western county in Virginia—and Southwest regional Chair of the Virginia Association of Democratic Chairs. Roberta’s no bullshit humor and dogged perseverance push her to seek out the next generation of diverse new leaders, while offering up her wisdom and her work.

Finale is a former candidate from the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and she wears many hats in Virginia grassroots organizations. The warmth she brings to her personal relationships is extended to her community and her studious efforts to understand what it takes to authentically move people.

Both Roberta and Finale are essential advisors and mentors to Rural GroundGame and share a love for their respective communities that drives them to focus on both the humanity of this work and the data and policy solutions required to express that love at scale. They are each currently working to talk to inactive voters and motivate others to join them.

The Cocklebur: Now you get to recommend a book, a song, and a something to watch on a screen.

Lynlee: From the beginning of the pandemic until now, a book that is always on my bedside table is The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin.

Sometimes (sadly), you come across exactly the type of people that metro area folks assume are *all* the people in rural areas and then you may need to listen to Dave Bazan’s Wolves at The Door full blast.

Recently, I’ve had Veep on in the background. A little more real than it should be.

The Cocklebur: Closing statement. Brag about your organization/self/work.

Lynlee: With our partners, Rural GroundGame has made millions of direct voter contacts. We’ve moved electoral margins that consistently outpaced both top-of-ticket candidates and comparable districts that haven’t partnered with us, with gains nearing (and often exceeding) double digits when compared with others. We come bearing no snake oil, not hawking a silver bullet, but with the belief that by investing in people in rural areas and lifting up their voices and their work, real change can be made.

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The Cocklebur covers rural policy and politics from a progressive point-of-view. Our work focuses on a tangled rural political reality of dishonest debate, economic and racial disparities, corporate power over our democracy, and disinformation peddled by conservative media outlets. We aim to use facts, data, and science to inform our point-of-view. We wear our complicated love/WTF relationship with rural America on our sleeve.