What I Mean by "Becoming the Blizzard"
- Cheryl Veldman
- Jun 19
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 19
The title came from an insult a total stranger slung at me on social media last winter. I don’t remember what the thread was about, but I remember the word he used: “snowflake.” The details of the argument are gone; the insult stuck. I’ve been called worse. Still, insults linger longer than the rare, precious compliments.
The better comeback didn’t arrive until later, when I was looking out at about a foot of snow on the ground. I thought about how each of those flakes had fallen in a short span of time, backing up traffic and producing the longest grocery store lines I’d ever seen. (If I’d braved the beer depot, I’m sure it would’ve been worse. This is Pittsburgh, and the blizzard hit during football and hockey season.)
A single snowflake is beautiful and unique, but fragile. Catch one on your finger and you can marvel at it for a moment—then it’s gone. But join millions upon millions of them together and they become a force of nature that can shut an entire city down. A blizzard has to be reckoned with.
That’s what I’m hoping we can be: a force that must be reckoned with.
Much of what has happened over the last few decades to push the Republican Party further right was driven by a motivated minority while most of us were busy. We have jobs, kids, bills, aging parents, pets. It’s more fun to watch the Steelers on a Monday night than go to a town hall. I get it; I’ve been right there.
But I hope to take you on a journey through how the country evolved into what it is today—and why we can’t keep putting politics on the back burner if we want to reclaim the promise of American democracy for all of us. One snowflake is fragile. Together, we can be a blizzard.
If this resonates with you and you want to follow along as I keep writing about American democracy, you can join the email list and be the first to know when new commentary and updates on Becoming the Blizzard are published.
