18 Counties Weigh in on Defending Democracy in Rural Oregon

Dear ROPnet,

ROP is led by rural Oregonians who volunteer their time to advance democracy in their communities. Over the last year, we have hosted 12 defend democracy Living Room Conversations (LRCs) with participants representing at least 18 counties to begin setting our direction for the next 30 years of ROP. More information about LRCs below. 

Eliot Feenstra, radio DJ for Cave Junction’s community station and a community organizer based in Josephine County, recently interviewed Emma for his show “Behind the Fence” about what these LRCs covered and where we’re going next. Eliot had recently participated in a local LRC.

In the interview, Eliot shared: “I had been feeling overwhelmed about the news and the election, and sort of like, I’m just going to focus on me and my life right now. That feels too big and doom and gloom. I couldn’t find a place to locate myself in that conversation. […] One of the biggest things that happened in that [Living Room Conversation is that ROP] named some pillars of democracy [and] asked what we are already doing to protect democracy, and then doing some visualizations into the future, and I found I had so many more ideas and thoughts and there was a different quality to the conversation than me at home listening to the news.”

Listen to the interview here, play it on your local station, or read on for a written summary of the LRCs from across the state! Want to host a similar conversation in your community? Reach out to your county organizer or email sidra@rop.org for support setting an agenda and planning outreach!

Warmly,
Sidra and the ROP Team

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What are Living Room Conversations (LRCs) and why does ROP host them?

ROP is grounded in a community-building culture where food, children, and friendship circles are all a part of our social justice efforts. Relationships of trust are a priority, especially in this time of divisive politics where topics that people are less familiar with and thus less comfortable with are used to drive wedges through our communities. A core part of our work is talking about the most polarized issues of the day: why we need to be talking about race in our schools, why we need housing and addiction treatment more than criminalization of people on the margins, and why gender-affirming bathrooms save lives. Raising these topics has become harder and harder and more and more divisive. Human dignity groups play a critical role in making sure we find ways to have real conversations about the issues that impact our lives and the well-being of our communities.

Establishing a culture of trust, though, is not that easy. Where and how we talk can matter. ROP recognizes that and has developed a culture around Living Room Conversations (LRCs) – that phrase is used even when the gathering happens in a space other than a living room. When our communities are facing such heightened polarization, and when we have real fear and security concerns over having an event or rally, getting together with a group of trusted neighbors in a living room to dig deeper into an issue and develop a shared perspective is more important than ever. What can be accomplished in a living room, when we have time to talk closely and honestly with each other, can not be achieved at a rally or an event, and it certainly can’t be done in a Facebook comment thread. What an LRC symbolizes is important. It communicates that:

• We gather in a place of relative security and comfort.
• While our topic might be of great importance, it is scaled for a living room.
• All who gather come in friendship even if we hold a range of views.
• There is no better place to identify our differences than in a living room.
• We are here to share ideas, not to be talked at.

What were our goals?

• Support rural human dignity leaders to ground conversations with our neighbors in shared values, debunk myths, share accurate information from trusted sources, and meet people wherever they are ready to engage in our democracy.
• Strategically plan how our organizing meets the needs of this moment while making space to acknowledge and move through concerns around the 2024 election. 
• Strengthen connections between groups organizing in the same county (or region) so that we can support one another’s efforts and work towards shared goals.
• Glean patterns from across county lines for a statewide picture of rural priorities for the next 30 years of our movement-building work.

For more about Living Room Conversations, check out our capacity-building toolkit here!

Where have LRCs been hosted so far?

This most recent set of conversations ranged from a handful of neighbors gathering on couches and sharing lunch to a long crowded table at a local restaurant. So many beautiful people were part of these living room conversations! Here’s a rundown of all of them:

1. Coastal Lane County – July 2023
2. Grant County – November 2023
3. Coos County – January 2024
4. Halfway – May 2024
5. Baker City – May 2024
6. Tillamook County – June 2024
7. Clatsop County – June 2024
8. Statewide conversation at Oregon Coalition of Domestic and Sexual Violence Conference – June 2024
9. Josephine County – July 2024
10. Klamath County – July 2024
11. Central Oregon – August 2024
12. Coastal Douglas County – September 2024

What was on the agenda?

We started the conversation with refreshments and introductions, getting grounded in who was in the room. We then got on the same page about what we mean by democracy, sharing the four pillars of a strong democracy based on the Worldbook Encyclopedia definition:

• Inclusion of all; equality for all
• Majority rule and minority rights
• Well-educated and well-informed people who participate in the democratic process
• A reasonable standard of living

Next we discussed a series of questions as a full group.

1. What will our community need to prioritize if Trump is elected vs if Harris is?”
2. Project 2025 outlines a strategy of the right: working across differences, building a coalition, and executing long-term strategies to whittle away our rights from abortion to immigration and beyond. They are thinking big and they have been for a long time. How do we think bigger? Where do we need to start in 2025 to get to our 10 year vision? 30 year vision?
3. What do we need to do between now and November to set ourselves up for success?
4. What are you taking away from this conversation?

So what did we learn from all these conversations?

#1 Spending the time necessary for folks to be able to move through grief and fear in community when it comes to the upcoming November election really helped people get to a place of “let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work” by the end of a meeting.

#2 We reached broad agreement that more gatherings like this would help everyone’s organizing. We broke bread, shared stories, and went home feeling more connected to each other than when we arrived. Folks agreed that they wanted it to grow bigger and, in some cases, meet monthly!

#3 To defend democracy, finding common ground and building community trust are essential! The conversation reinforced something ROP has learned over the decades: “more people and more trust = more safety!” Here are some ways folks planned to make this happen:

• Reach out to friends and community partners at libraries, schools, and beyond;
• Host apolitical potlucks, community meals, walking groups;
• Organize a post-election debrief for your neighborhood or county;
• Participate in the town’s Bridge or Quilting club, shop at local businesses regularly;
• Create opportunities for curiosity to lead to learning by hosting positive community events;
• Spread joy and build safety by hosting targeted community events;
• Check out the Summer of Joy and Justice ROPnet for concrete examples!

#4 Engaging with local government to invest in youth and families is critical, especially when it comes to childcare, affordable housing, health care, and public schools. This can include voting, electing people to office, participating in public meetings, signing up to represent your community on advisory committees, writing letters to the editor in the local paper, calling or meeting with your elected officials, and so much more.

#5 Doing something, even if it feels small, has an impact, and continuing to show up, bear witness, and make our voices heard is essential. What form that action took in each conversation varied widely but here are a few common ones:

• Form a human dignity group!
• Share information on how local government (county, city, school district) impacts someone’s daily life by starting with “What are your concerns?” 
• Check out the STAND Election Guide which does just this! Email sidra@rop.org if you want to order newsprint guides in English or Spanish to share with your neighbors this fall.
• Bolstering local media, especially investigative journalism, to keep the democratic principle of “Well-educated and well-informed people who participate in the democratic process” strong. 
• Host a de-escalation and community safety training.

Would hosting an LRC in your area be useful? Do you also want to start a human dignity group, or get involved in any of the work that’s coming out of the conversations that have already happened? Reach out to sidra@rop.org! We would love to support your organizing!

What happens next?

Many of the learnings we have gleaned from these conversations have already been incorporated into our work. Ideas have turned into STAND Election Guide articles, a partnership with the national election protection hotline (check out the October KTA for more details), and more election-specific organizing plans.

But what about after the election? One of the biggest takeaways from these conversations was that we are building a movement beyond Election Day! Four years ago, human dignity groups came together to build the Roadmap to a Thriving Rural Oregon, a list of our priorities. We’ve won or made amazing improvements on some of these issues and others of them still need some serious work. As we move to defend our basic freedoms, we know we must also imagine the world we want to build, and then go build it together. The next stages of this work will continue to be led by volunteer leaders across rural and small-town Oregon. We can’t wait for what we will build next.