There are a host of reasons that I’ll detail, but in a word: “Facebook”.

In November and December of 2016, I received literally hundreds of phone calls, texts, emails and knocks at my door all saying essentially the same thing.

“You know how I told you for the past 20 years that I didn’t have the two hours you asked for to stand Voter Registration, or canvass or phone bank? Well, I have time now.”

Such enthusiasm.

Such anger.

Such abject terror.

In January of 2017, someone signed me up for the local Indivisible group. It had been begun by a dedicated local guy who was as appalled as everyone else at what had happened in November. He set the group on Facebook. Most of the participants were new to any sort of politics beyond voting, and there were a lot of questions. A LOT of questions. There were several of us who were able to answer them, and he put together a core group to lead our little local group.

As a digression, when we were deciding who would do what, I asked, I begged, to be the blogger for the website we launched. The sole vote I received for that position was my own. I love the deep dive that really good blogging provides. Thanks, I feel better now.

In the beginning, our group was able to do a lot of things that mattered to me. We had more than 200 people attend our first training event – to learn how to be political activists. This followed two organizing meetings which were standing room only.

There were things I truly disdained in ’17 — notably the meetings with the other groups (Indivisible and non-Indivisible) in the Southeastern Pennsylvania (SEPA) area. I hated the meetings. I used to argue that the directive to align along issue lines would never work, and that it would cause groups to become moribund within a few months. Turns out it took closer to a year, and I received a “we’re sorry, you were right” email from National Indivisible.

Flipping forward: our Indivisible group devolved into two distinct groups: the actual humans, and those who thought that this was a Facebook group.

I am so very proud and heart-warmed by the human group. These are the people who:

• Came to the meetings (including Beer Night)
• Attended the trainings on political engagement, canvassing, voter registration and other topics
• Engaged in our presentations related to the courts, the pipeline (a huge local issue), statewide budget changes, and other meetings led by speakers we brought in
• Participated in our rallies and protests
• Came to listen at our candidate and Congressional forums to learn where candidates stood, and later to hear from elected reps
• Helped with Voter Registration
• Canvassed for candidates
• Became Block Captains and canvassed their blocks AND returned their paperwork to ICC so we could tally it
• Participated in our endorsement initiative in 2018
• Helped out with various and sundry ICC initiatives
• Attended the secret meetings related to legitimate resistance action
• Became actively engaged with the local issue groups (huge shout out to the pipeline people!)
• And most of all, those terrific people who ran for office (I cheer, applaud and love, LOVE, LOVE these people!) be their race be for a political office, or as an Election Official, or a Party position

All of these things were a lot of work. And the rest of the Leadership Team worked (and continue to work) hard to make everything a reality – the website, the events, the newsletter…so much to do, so few people willing to be a part of helping out.

I tried with everything I had to provide leadership to the team and to the members. I have endeavored with everything I had to teach all of you how to affect political change, how to evaluate what is true and what is false, how to stand up, and when to walk away. I believed then, and more so now, that there is a vacuum of leadership at all levels. I did my best, and sadly, it wasn’t enough. I am sorry for all the ways that I failed you.

And then there is Facebook (you knew I was coming back here, didn’t you)…SIGH. Facebook. Back in 1964, Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase “The medium is the message” in his seminal work Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. He didn’t live to see the advent of Facebook, but he is certainly smiling in his grave that he has been proven right a billion times over.

Facebook has caused people to believe that having a conversation on the platform is action. As if having a conversation on Facebook matters one whit.

It doesn’t.

To be fair, there are MANY people on Facebook who are also physically involved in meaningful political action. And it’s a great place to organize a high school reunion decades out. Facebook is a great medium to share event information. Sadly, the vast majority of people who say they’re going to an event don’t both showing up, causing headaches for the organizers (trust me on this.)

Facebook has sucked time from my life that I will NEVER get back. I get five to ten Facebook messages a day. Some are legitimate – but far too many are from people that want me to solve their real life political problems because they know that I’m a kid of action, and I know both people, and how to do things. But will these folks ever leave their houses to DO something? No. All they want to do is discuss, and sometimes complain, and too often post things with a level of vitriol that make me cry.

I posted to Facebook that I was leaving the group, and amazingly to me, not one person on Facebook asked me why. Six (as of this writing) made me smile in that they put the little “heart” emoticon next to the post indicating they love that I’m done — I’m glad that I made six people happy by leaving!

Meanwhile, in real life, I received so many phone calls throughout the day that I didn’t have the opportunity to speak to everyone (yet). Candidates to whom I’d made promises wanting to be sure I was still in for the duration. Activists in other groups wanting to know if I was still going to stay engaged with them. Activists from groups with which I am not engaged, wanting to know if I had time for them now. People with questions. One person (and I am truly bereft about this) who called in tears. Sadly I cannot hug through the ozone. Such a difference between Facebook and real life.

I became engaged with Indivisible because I viewed it as a vehicle to engage people and get them truly involved in politics. This has been a lifelong quest, and one I will continue until my last breath. Those of you who actually know me, know that I quote my grandfather, the rabbi, who taught me that the only obligation a Jew has on this earth is to leave the world a little better the day he dies, than how he found it the day he was born. I have worked tirelessly my whole life to meet that goal.

There is also the issue of “leadership”. Here in our little corner of the world in Chester County, we lack solid leadership in many ways — there are factions and fragments and sadly schisms. I had hoped that ICC could fill that void, and that I could provide solid leadership, but that didn’t work out.

Being off of Facebook will free enough time for me to return to my chosen typing activity, that being blogging. You can see my “back to blogging” post here.

So goodbye Indivisible on Facebook. I will not miss you. I wish I could give up Facebook in its entirety – but there are my IRL friends and family, and oh yeah, cat videos….

And with great sadness, good-bye to the human part of Indivisible, I WILL miss you. But I failed you – I couldn’t teach you enough, nor engage you enough, nor provide you the leadership this group desperately needs to thread the needle of far left purists vs committed moderates….people wouldn’t listen, they wouldn’t read….instead they took to Facebook to share the same articles over and over and over…and then argue with vitriol and malevolence.

At her hundredth birthday party, my grandmother gave us all tips for living, and included in her monologue was the idea that young people look at old people and think that getting old “made them that way” – but the truth, she said, was that things become magnified. You weren’t always an angry old guy yelling on the lawn, you were always that angry guy, you just got old enough to not care if people saw you outside yelling in your bathrobe. You didn’t end up a sweet old lady, you were always nice – it just grew on you and finally enveloped you.

And so, I am an old person who cannot change what I am: I just know more than I knew 60 years ago this September when I carried that first lit basket. I cannot stop myself from accosting potential voters in supermarkets, driving around with a voter registration booth in my trunk, helping candidates, leading people who want to affect change….and a host of other things….I cannot change those things any more than I can give up breathing air.

I hope that you have learned something from me – and that you will find in yourselves the willingness to get involved, affect change, be ethical, and fight with every cell in your body to make the world a better place for those who come after us.