Help save democracy, no calls required.
SPECIAL MONDAY MESSAGE. How to boost turnout without, ick, talking to strangers.
Dear readers,
I’m going to do something uncharacteristic and be practical & useful today. I promise to return to world-historical griping and mission-driven oversharing next week. (That said, I may also dive into the old memoir draft and share a personal story tomorrow on my usual Tuesday 8:05am Eastern schedule. Let’s see how the workday goes.)
I doubt I need to rehearse the reasons that every eligible voter who wants the USA to remain a somewhat functioning democracy needs to vote blue on November 8, no matter what their most urgent political priorities might be. But if you or someone you know still doesn’t get it, please read “A majority of GOP nominees deny or question the 2020 election results” published in the Washington Post last Wednesday, October 12.
In the weeks before the 2020 presidential election, my then-husband admirably rose out of his hatred of the phone to call voters around the nation on behalf of the Biden campaign. I, who am about 10x more comfortable cold-calling total strangers after 35 years of doing so professionally, couldn’t bring myself to it. Husband was encountering many technical breakdowns through the online phone-banking system he’d joined, and was facing a lot of wrong numbers, blue-voter indifference, or hostility against libruls when he did get through to people. The process depressed him, and he’s a guy who’d never been depressed in his life before the Trump presidency. Differently built, I knew I might end up in a serious funk after the first few people who yelled Sleepy Joe and hung up on me. I’m very glad my non-participation didn’t matter in the end.
Here’s the antidote to fear-of-phone and fear-of-assholes-on-said-phone. In the 2018 midterms, I joined some friends to write messages of encouragement and reminder to likely Democratic voters only in tough contests around the nation, via the excellent organization Postcards To Voters. I’ve decided to do it again and urge you to, as well. Check out the website today and get a bunch of friends together this weekend or next for a rousing session of democratic salvage via the written word.
Postcards To Voters shows you what kind of things to say, vets your chosen message, and gives you batches of names and addresses, as many as you can handle. You bring some free time, some fast-writing pens, some stamps, and some postcards (BYO or see the ones available at Etsy).
Every two years we tell ourselves There has never been a more important election in our lifetimes because every two years it’s increasingly true. So much of the problem is simply getting people to get off their asses and vote. How do I know this? Up until 2017 I frequently forgot to go vote during midterms unless there were urgent ballot races in my city or state. Like most Americans, I am so instinctively distracted by the shiny object called Who’s In The Oval, I’m apt to ignore the fact that any President is only as powerful as the House and Senate allow or enable them to be.
People: we know we absolutely can’t let the GOP take back the House and we have to try to hold onto the Senate, too. Here’s a great although a bit outdated Vox article from September explaining what’s at stake.
ALL 435 House seats and fully 35 Senate seats are on the ballot. Responsible but never infallible polls outfits seem to think the House will go red and the Senate will stay blue. This would be bad enough, but obviously not as bad as Democrats losing both chambers. Here’s a good recent Guardian article about key races.
Write 10 postcards, write 100 or 1000. Let’s not let us forget, and let’s not despair. Turn yourself out and get others to turn themselves out. Sane people are the actual majority. Here’s Michael Moore from his Midterm Tsunami Truth #20:
70% of all eligible voters right now are either women, people of color or young (18-35) — or some combination of the three. Add in the 1/3 of older white men who support women’s rights, civil rights and believe we are truly killing this planet, and you suddenly realize you already belong to a massive, crushing majority of people who want to save this country.
Please share this post with midterm-avoidant friends and family members who need to hear it.
~S
I wish it were as simple as voting. That's certainly a good part of it, but a big chunk of the problem (which I've been saying the 90's) is there's an audience, that is support, for the radicalization and demonization that’s been growing and growing. In a healthy, educated society, capable of.. oh I don’t know.. plain old common sense shall we say?... we’d smell the stink and reject – instead of embracing – the hate so many peddle.
George Carlin talked about the relationship between the state of the populace and the state of the government they elect. You’ve probably heard it. I think he nailed it.
Did my voting from afar recently. It’s a small part, but it’s what I’ve got. I hope enough people realize where we’re heading and get out there to save the ship.