I've tried everything to take down Donald Trump.
The only thing I haven’t tried is…
About This Site
Actually Trying is an effort to combat a strange phenomenon: many people who are appalled by our current political situation don’t do much to fix it. To help those people out, I built a site with info and tools for participating more in politics. (I’m Sean by the way, hi. Nice browser.)
First order of business: rescuing the 2020 election with a large-scale volunteer surge. After that, maybe a nap. But after that? Boy oh boy. No idea.
Read on for more about how this project started.
The Backstory
In early 2020, I came across a book with a premise so simple yet potent that it changed my perspective before I finished reading the title.
It’s called Politics Is for Power: How to Move Beyond Political Hobbyism, Take Action, and Make Real Change. It’s by a political scientist named Eitan Hersh, and it’s about people who follow politics closely but rarely participate, and the problems they cause.
In other words, it’s about me. I’m one of those people, the kind who thinks of himself as politically engaged but is really just politically conscious. The kind who despises Trumpism in theory but enables it in practice by failing to oppose it.
(Bit rude to write a whole book calling me out like that, but I suppose I had it coming.)
Soon the pandemic hit and I was stuck at home with time to fill and space to think. And when the president fired tear gas at peaceful protesters so he could get his picture taken holding a book he’s never read, that tore it.
I wanted to channel my frustration—at that act specifically, and at the years of cruelty and fraud that preceded it—into something productive. I wanted to think through what concrete things I could do to respond. I wanted to start actually trying. So I started Actually Trying.
Two days after Lafayette Square I registered this domain and got to work figuring out what this site would be. What you see is what I’ve got so far: part guidebook, part laboratory, and part rally point for people who have had enough but haven’t done enough.
I’m not sure what comes next. I’m not even totally sure what I’m doing right now. But it feels good to be genuinely engaged in this election. Five stars, very likely to recommend.
In a way this site is my makeup assignment: one last chance to offset years of slacking with a final burst of effort. I hope you like it. But mainly I hope you use it.
About Me
Hey everybody. My name is Sean O’Toole, and in the context of this project I can best be described as “some guy.” I’m not a political professional. I’m not an experienced volunteer. I learned WordPress so I could build this site. I’m in way over my head here, friends.
But that’s the point. You don’t need special qualifications to just start doing things. All you have to do is start doing things. So now I’m doing things, even though I’m not always sure what the things are that I’m doing.
Beyond my relevant experience as a moron, I work as a freelance copywriter, I live in Chicago, and on the side I contribute headlines to the Onion. It would seem I am also now a “web master.”
This is me with my current best friend, a haircut I gave myself. I think we look nice together.
P.S. Just to be clear, although I write about specific political organizations, I’m not employed by and don’t speak for any of them.
P.P.S. Take the pledge.