What we’re hopeful for in 2023

The next time we publish a Checklist is January 6th

“And I LOVE the idea of coming back on January 6,” said Susan L. from our Social Media Team. “It is an anniversary of note; the danger is not passed, but there’s plenty of reason for hope. Instead of New Year’s Resolutions, we could identify the hopes that we have, and ways to nurture them.” And so we are.

The AoCC team shares their hopes for the new year

Enjoy reading, and please share your own in the comments!

Jen Hofmann, AoCC Executive and Creative Director: I am hopeful that the new year includes:

• More people connecting with communities and meaningfully engage in grassroots organizing to address social, reproductive, and environmental justice.
• More of America’s corporations and richest people paying more taxes to benefit our communities.
• More municipalities implementing ranked choice voting (RCV) for better representation and decreased polarization.
• A growing sense of neighborly kindness, courage, and welcome for the stranger.

Amy L., Immigration Research Team: I hope more humane immigration policies are passed, less hatred and misinformation spread about marginalized people, more joy in what I have, and less consumerism.

Julie M., Equality Research Team Writer: I hope we see continued, and expanding, civic engagement, especially from young people, even now that the mid-terms are passed. I hope there is a sea-change around gun control, whatever form that can get expressed in politically, but also in our conversations and local action.

I hope to see less vilification of opposing parties and viewpoints and more healing and the finding of common ground (I can hardly even write that without feeling cynical). And I hope that the spirit of destructive politics in general becomes significantly less popular and effective, signifying another sea-change around our media literacy as a nation. 

Julie D., Facebook and Twitter Teams: I am hopeful about successful opposition to book banning, young pro-equality people voting and running for offices, gun laws. Fewer broken hearts and lives. Climate miracles. Peace in Ukraine. I follow a few groups that inform, address, confront book banning and do small research projects for them when I can. I hope that every act of kindness I can offer in the world has an impact on all of these.

Julia F., Immigration Research Team Writer and Social Media Team Co-Captain: I hope to live more closely to my values. Taking more consistent action, and empowering my family to join me in doing so.

Denise C., Voting Research Team: I hope that I and others will take proper care of our bodies.  What happens to us does matter.

Dianna L., Equality Research Team: My hope is for people to have more love in their heart. (It’s a song! Put a Little Love In Your Heart.) Art, nature, and tonglen breathing helps me accept what is and hope for better. 

Janet Z., Voting Research Team: I hope that as a country, we can start listening more to one another and finding ways to come together around core values that we share. 

Wendy C., Voting Research Team Writer: I hope I can plan and execute short sabbaticals from AoCC in 2023 and just have it be a fact, not something I make myself feel guilty for. I hope labor unions and workers gain more power and public goodwill/sympathy in the new year. I hope the House will not be able to completely halt progress. Paradoxically, the only way I can think of to actually nourish these hopes is to not think about them too much. 

Sam W., Good News and Gratitudes Writer: I have hope that a majority pro-reproductive rights Senate can pass a federal abortion rights bill. Even if it then stalls in the House, it’s important that Congress’s ability to protect this right is front and center in the public consciousness. 

More generally, I see engaged, caring people everywhere I look who are trying to make the country and the world safer and more fair, kinder and more inclusive. We’ll get there. We are getting there.

Share your hopes with us?

As you think about the coming year, what changes, progress, or issues are you hopeful about? Where would you like to see progress made? How will you nourish those hopes? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.