But that was a long time ago.

Today pockets of progressives live in Lincoln and Omaha, and we have a handful of statewide groups. I am part of a group that has been meeting for five years. We originally came together to stop the Keystone XL pipeline from crossing our Sand Hills and Ogallala Aquifer, a cause that has brought together farmers, ranchers, urbanites, Republicans and Democrats, students and senior citizens. We are still fighting the tar sands pipeline, but we have expanded our mission to clean energy, environmental justice and the local food movement.

The old-timers in our group are the royalty of lost causes. Many of us have fought for decades for improvements in our schools and university, affordable health care, the abolition of the death penalty, immigration reform and workers’ rights. We have lost almost every battle. However, we have kept the Keystone XL pipeline out of our state and country for five years.

We are generally a resilient bunch. We know how to lose and keep working. Twelve to 15 of us meet once a month to report on our activities and to plan actions for the next month. We celebrate small victories and manage to keep one another cheerful and hopeful. We believe, to quote the Nebraska Farmers Union president, John K. Hansen, that “activism is not like planting corn and walking away, rather it’s like milking cows, something you do over and over again all year long.”

However, this last election was difficult for us. The best Democrats in anyone’s memory ran for governor and the United States Senate. Chuck Hassebrook, our gubernatorial candidate, had been the director of the Center for Rural Affairs, a respected nonprofit committed to small farmers, environmental stewardship and social and economic justice. Our Senate candidate, Dave Domina, born on a ranch in the Sand Hills, is the best trial lawyer in our state. His firm has represented landowners pro bono in their lawsuit against the pipeline company TransCanada and the state of Nebraska to stop Keystone XL. Both were trounced.

The evening after this dismal election, we met for our usual potluck. At first, a few of us tried to point out slivers of silver linings, but then one of our members said flatly, “We are doomed.” What followed was a sad discussion of our broken political system, big money in politics, Fox News and four more years of inaction on environmental issues. This was the first meeting in my memory in which I felt worse at the end instead of better.