Q Force held their first Q Salon Forum, Community, Kiki and Conversation, to relaunch the organization after a little over a year’s hiatus Jan. 20 at Elixir Andersonville cocktail bar, 1509 W. Balmoral Ave.
According to the Q Force website, the group organizes “LGBTQ+ Chicagoans to volunteer for Democrats in Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan. Q Force is an organization and community for queer and allied Chicagoans fighting to embolden Democrats and defeat Republicans. We educate, we agitate and we activate people to volunteer to create a more progressive America. We come together to fight authoritarianism, push Democrats to be bolder and to demand a better, progressive future.”
One of the big changes for Q Force going forward is that they will be active year-round, not just during election cycles.
Speakers at the event included Q Force Co-Chairs Coco Soodek and Greg O’Neill; former Q Force Co-Chair and current Wisconsin State Chair Jin-Soo Huh; and Q Force Community Action Lead Mony Ruiz-Velasco.
Soodek said to the packed house of attendees, “This is the first event of what we hope will become a fixture of Chicago LGBTQ+ and Democratic/Progressive politics in the city of Chicago … We all understand right now that the world is a little surreal. The first and best place for us to start, though, is to come together here to support each other, commiserate and make real plans for us to act and make change because we cannot take this lying down.
“We didn’t make this problem overnight. Trump is not a guy who just sprang up out of nowhere. This is a 50-year crusade from conservative and plutocrats crusade and for 50 years the Democratic party has sat down and let it happen … We have to do something about the Democratic party … We have emergencies and we also have this long-term condition where we don’t have strong leaders. We don’t have fighters. And long ago, the Democratic party stopped standing for real change, the kind that makes life better and easier and more possible for regular people and started promoting the interest of the big and the rich. That’s just the way it is right now … But, this guy in the White House is going to burn the country down and we need to rebuild it from the ashes. But if we don’t know what we stand for and what we want, we can’t demand better from our Democratic electeds. So that is why we are here tonight.”
Huh, who is also a Victory Fund Co-Chair and emceed the No Kings Rally in Grant Park this past fall, gave a recap of Q Force’s history, including their work to help Democrats win their races over the past few election cycles.
O’Neill said the goal for Q Force is to create a strong community that can be deployed during campaign seasons. He added that each month will feature a new theme that will be decided based on the feedback from this first meeting.
Ruiz-Velasco said that every meeting will end with ways to take real, effective action, coordinated action plans and a call for community announcements for opportunities to get involved. She spoke about how critical activism is to Q Force’s mission. Ruiz-Velasco also provided several ways for people to serve and support people against the invasion by ICE/Border Patrol.
Some of the issues raised during breakout sessions included the idea of what it means to be an American; how to properly message progressive values; what does the progressive movement stand for; strategies for how people have defeated authoritarian governments in the past; the political left owning patriotism; and political messaging without spending money.
O’Neill said that next month’s meeting topic will be a community discussion to jointly determine the core common threads that make people vote for Democratic candidates.
The next meeting will be Tuesday, February 24 at 6:30 p.m. The location has not yet been determined.
