My Phone Call with the Veep

A Historic Cartoon Tuesday

- by Kevin Necessary

True story: when I rolled out “Laboratories of Autocracy” and "Saving Democracy," insisting that we have to fight for democracy in every corner of every state, I heard from a lot of you.

But the most important political figures in America? I didn't expect to hear much.

And with a few exceptions (thank you Hillary Clinton!) I didn't.

It wasn’t a shock. I’m just a guy from Ohio trying to open eyes about what’s happening in states like mine across the country. Plus, what I’m saying might, on the surface, appear to undermine the cause of some of the nation’s important federal officials because a central emphasis is that we have to do more than only focus on them if we’re going to win in the long run.

But do you know who I did hear from amid the rollout of my books?

Care to guess which senior elected leader called me out of the blue (after a Morning Joe appearance) to say she agreed with what I was saying, and wanted to talk about it?

The Vice President of the United States, that’s who.

Kamala Harris.

We talked for 15 minutes about how we have to fight for democracy not only at the federal level, but in state after state. At all levels.

We talked about some of the states I'd been visiting, and she asked what I was hearing amid those visits. My answer: many felt so overlooked, and that they simply wanted their fight for democracy to be seen and supported. Many were frustrated that in too many parts of the country, elections weren’t even being contested, and no one seemed to even care. And that’s why extremism was getting so much worse.

We also talked about her visits with statehouse leaders after Dobbs, and how they were the front line in the fight for reproductive freedom, and democracy, and needed our help. (I thanked her for being one of the only officials who went right to states after Dobbs, and didn’t just focus on federal offices).

Now, as you can imagine, that was a phone call I will never forget.

Not only because I was honored…and my kids were impressed and excited that dad had been talking to the Vice President of the United States in my home office. (I may have mentioned it a few times after :))

But because it also showed so clearly...Vice President Harris gets it.

To protect democracy, we don't just need to win the highest office in the land (although we must win that one too).

We need to fight for it all levels, and across all states of the land. All the time.

* * *

That call happened a little more than a year ago. But for obvious reasons, the call and our conversation feel even more important now. Even more energizing.

Because to protect democracy, if there’s a single person in America that we want to see all this more than any other, it’s the President of the United States.

And our next President does!

I heard it myself :)

Let's go!

And now, onto Kevin’s cartoon commentary…