The Sidelines Are Stealing Our Future: A Love Letter to Burned-Out Texas Democrats

We have the same ten people doing the work of a hundred. If we don’t talk about the fatigue, and the gossip, we are going to lose the very volunteers we need to win Texas.

If you have been a Democratic activist in Texas for the last few cycles, you know the feeling. It lives in your chest sometime around September of an election year.

It is the exhaustion of seeing the same three names on every SignUpGenius link. It is the dread of another text bank, another block walk, another fundraiser, because you know that if you don’t do it, no one else will. And yet, when you show up, the parking lot is half empty, but the group chat is half full, full of complaints.

We have a crisis in Texas politics, and it isn’t just the gerrymandering or the grid failure. It is volunteer burnout. And frankly, it is a specific kind of burnout that plagues the Texas Democratic Party: the slow, corrosive weight of doing the work while being critiqued from the bleachers by people who have not broken a sweat.

But here is the good news: Burnout is a logistics problem, not a moral failure. And we can solve it together, if we are willing to look in the mirror first.

Drive through any competitive Texas House district, from the Rio Grande Valley to Collin County, and you will find them. The "Usual Suspects." They are the ones who hosted the watch party, ran the phone bank, fixed the printer at the campaign office, and brought the snacks.

They are doing the work of fifty people, and they are running on fumes.

Why? Because for every one person on the doors, there are often ten people on social media offering critiques. The graphics aren't modern enough. The candidate didn't speak passionately enough about voter rights. The volunteer check-in process was too slow.

Complaining without a solution is just noise. And right now, the noise is drowning out the signal. When a volunteer who has given 500 hours reads a lengthy thread about how the event they organized was "mid," they don’t get inspired to do better. They quit.

We need to talk about the culture of "back channels." The private text groups. The Signal chats. The coffee meetups where volunteers dissect other volunteers who aren't in the room.

We assume the worst. We assume that person didn't show up because they are lazy. We assume that the precinct chair made a mistake because they are incompetent. We assume bad intentions for every misstep.

When we do that, we become insular. We become a clique. And cliques don't win elections in a state as diverse and massive as Texas. They just scare away the new people.

If you are discussing a volunteer’s performance with anyone other than that volunteer, you are not helping, you are part of the problem. You are burning the house down while complaining about the heat.

Here is the pivot.

The goal isn't to guilt you into working 80 hours a week until you collapse. That is toxic.

The goal is load balancing.

If you are one of the super volunteers reading this: Thank you. Now, stop being a hero. You have done enough. It is time to ask for help. It is not weakness to say, "I am burnt out, I need someone else to lead the block walk or phone bank next month."

If you are the person standing on the sidelines reading this: We need you. Not your critique. We need your hands. We need your time. Even if it is just two hours a month.

Imagine if every person who currently posts an angry thread about Democratic apathy spent that 15 minutes calling three voters in Collin County instead. What could we accomplish?

Before you type a complaint about how a volunteer ran a meeting, ask yourself:

1. Do I have a specific, actionable solution to offer?

2. Am I willing to help implement that solution?

3. Is my assumption about their intent based on fact, fear or hearsay?

If you cannot answer yes to the first two, keep the complaint to yourself.

The only way we turn Texas blue is if we make the volunteer experience sustainable and kind.

We need to normalize "Shift Swapping." You did the last four block walks? Great. Take October off. We have five new people stepping in.

We need to normalize "Direct Feedback." If you have a problem with how someone is doing the work, you talk to them. You buy them a coffee. You ask, "How can we solve this?" You do not put them on blast in a group chat.

And most importantly, we need to normalize Gratitude.

That person who showed up late to the rally? At least they showed up. That neighbor who only sent 10 texts instead of 1,000? Great. Those 10 texts reached 10 humans.

A Final Word to the Exhausted

If you are thinking about quitting Texas politics because the work is thankless and the infighting is vicious, please don't. Stay. But change how you engage.

Set boundaries. Block out the noise of the back channels. And remember: The person next to you on the doors is not your enemy. The enemy is low turnout. The enemy is fatigue. The enemy is the current administration.

Let’s spread the work out so no one has to carry the weight alone. And let’s save our fire for the ballot box, not for each other.

Texas needs your hands, not your critique. Sign up today to volunteer with MADC. Join our board. Show up to everything you can and bring a friend. If time isn’t available consider donating to the club, one time or as a sustaining member. And let the sidelines get quiet for once.

In solidarity,

Erin Sutka