In thinking about our current political story, I am finding that a promising source of hope, for me, comes not from our history or what political scholars are saying. Instead, I have turned my focus to ants.

Ants are an incredible insect. There are over 12,000 known species and an estimated 20 quadrillion total ants on the planet. Across species, ants can behave like a super organism, fighting off large predators, linking together to form a raft in a flood, communicating to find a safe home, and appropriately responding to varied threats against the colony. All of this is done when individual organisms form up to create a singularity. One entity to save the colony.

A singular ant, separated from her colony can not protect herself or anyone else, but with her sisters she can become powerful and efficient. As voters who hope to keep our democracy safeguarded from those who wish to dismantle it, we can work together, much like a super organism. We have a collective power – this fall and in two years from now – that mustn’t be squandered. We really are “stronger, together”. It isn’t necessary for us to agree on every issue, as long as we acknowledge the importance of protecting our nation from predators and floods – to link arms, coalesce, and become mighty.

I often feel small and insignificant – a feeling which, on its face, is not always entirely a bad thing. Being small or feeling inconsequential can be freeing and, if you step back to pan out, can be exhilarating to notice a world that is bigger than you. It can also be suffocating and make you feel powerless when bad things are happening all around, things which you can not control.

I just hope that when I reach my arms out, instead of being alone in this deluge of hate and rot, someone grabs my hand, links up with me, and invites me to be a part of the super organism that once was (and hopefully still is) the democractic society I was led to believe we were.

Let us all be ants!