RED ALERT: It’s Time to Do the Work. Here’s Why — and How.
I’ll admit it: despite being a former campaign field director and holding multiple degrees in politics, I absolutely hate phone banking (and pre-pandemic, knocking on doors). But whether it be over the phone or other avenues like text banking and writing postcards, we have to do it. We have no other choice.
You need to start getting out the vote. Now. Everything we hold dear is on the line.
Adapting to and combating climate change. Overcoming COVID-19. National leadership on Black Lives Matter. Babies separated from their parents at the border. Letting immigrants of any kind come to America. Women being allowed to control their bodies. Nominating RBG’s successor to the Supreme Court. And the freaking USPS.
Then there’s We Don’t Know How to Warn You Any Harder. America is Dying, written by survivors of authoritarianism alarming us because this is exactly how it happens and is happening here.
Historian Heather Cox Richardson, in her famous Letters from an American, says the same.
Basic self-care aside, the binge watching, baking, gardening, sun bathing, creating/imitating TikTok dances, and watching/reading the news (but doing nothing but worry or post about it in your social media echo chamber) can all wait. It’ll all be there on the other side of this election.
Why? Because if you — especially if you’re like me and have a job, a roof over your head, and don’t have kids — don’t start doing the work to get Biden in the White House, we’re looking at unfathomable consequences.
If you think your daily life has fundamentally changed because of Trump’s failure to curb COVID-19, it’s just the tip of the iceberg of the consequences if we don’t stop him in November. The chaos won’t end, and I can promise you that even if you feel protected by money, privilege, or other forms of security today, they will not keep you safe after authoritarian forces chew through the other underdogs of our society.
Trump Is Provoking Paramilitary Violence To Steal The Election
Trump’s aides publicly shared that they hope to see more chaos as part of their election strategy, including what just unfolded in Portland between pro-Trump and anti-Trump demonstrators. It’s straight out of the Nazi playbook. As my friend and Biden campaign Voting Rights Counsel Adam Sieff wrote:
The worsening street fights in Portland recall similar provocations in Berlin during the Weimar period. Like Portland today, 1920s Berlin was a cosmopolitan and decidedly left-wing city host to some far-left groups and surrounded by some of the most conservative parts of interwar Germany. To destabilize the Weimar government, local Nazi party officials organized partisan paramilitary fighters from just outside Berlin to rally inside the city. The intent was to incite partisan street violence through confrontation with far-left paramilitaries, discredit the center-left (i.e., social democrats, liberals), and generate a national crisis sufficient to force elections in a context that would advance the Nazi party’s electoral standing.
Although there are also many material differences that make any analogy imperfect — Berlin was Germany’s cultural and political capital, and the Nazis did not already control the government — both episodes involve the strategic use of violent provocation by far right-wing parties on the streets of far left strongholds to damage center-left parties and create a kind of chaos that (at least superficially) advantages the far right-wing party’s national electoral chances.
We’re not trained to analyze contemporary American political events in these terms because we have been lulled to assume that ours is a mature institutionalized democracy where these kinds of extralegal crises cannot happen. But the institutions that underlie our republic have been unraveling for decades, and this is actually happening. If America is to remain a liberal democracy ruled by laws and the Constitution, we have to acknowledge just how precarious this moment is, speak plainly about events, and gird ourselves for the possibility that we will need to make unfamiliar sacrifices — like supporting and participating in general strikes and mass street protests, and perhaps tolerating a period of reduced economic output and disrupted government service — in order to prevail. (Emphasis added)
We’re also seeing a similar strategy impacting voters following the protests in Kenosha after the brutal shooting of Jacob Blake. With a marked decline in support for Black Lives Matter among whites in Wisconsin and elsewhere, Wisconsin voters are viewing the protests as chaos and increasingly believing that a Democratically-run country would be even worse — even though these protests are happening under Trump.
Trump’s Closing the Enthusiasm Gap
Michael Moore raised alarm bells with the yawning enthusiasm gap between Trump’s supporters versus Biden’s. In Michigan and Minnesota, polls are tied or tightened within the margin of error.
“I’m warning you almost 10 weeks in advance. The enthusiasm level for the 60 million in Trump’s base is OFF THE CHARTS! For Joe, not so much,” Moore said. “Don’t leave it to the Democrats to get rid of Trump. YOU have to get rid of Trump. WE have to wake up every day for the next 67 days and make sure each of us are going to get a hundred people out to vote. ACT NOW!” Moore stated on August 29.
Love or hate Michael Moore, he was right in 2016.
To top it all off, the Trump campaign defies COVID-19 safety and knocks on 1 million doors a week (the Biden campaign and Democrats are putting public safety first with a sophisticated, entirely socially-distant campaign strategy). And there’s the rampant voter suppression in the form of overt laws, threats of law enforcement at voting sites to scare away people of color, and more.
Put Your Despair to Action: Let’s Do the Work!
Trump knows he is losing, and that he can’t win if a large percentage of Americans are able to vote. We know he’s willing to abuse his powers to stay in office and working with allies to make it harder for people to vote. We can beat him if voters step up!
Plan to Not Just Vote, But Vote Early
My friend Adam Sieff from the Biden campaign shared the following with me for making sure we’re on top of our voting game:
Registration: Make sure everyone you know is registered to vote, and double check your own registration. In most states, you can register and check your status online. Each state has a different registration cutoff, so time is of the essence. Do this today.
Vote Early: Once registered, if there is an option to vote early in your state in-person at a regional vote center, and safe for you to vote in-person, do it. Make a plan *now* and invite your household/quarantine pod to join you. Pick a date and time. Commit to it. Bring others in your household.
If voting in-person is not safe for you, and if your state is not planning to mail every voter a ballot, request a mail ballot *now*. It can take several weeks for your request to be mailed, received, and processed and Trump is interfering with the Postal Service to make it worse. The cutoff to request a mail ballot is different in each state that requires such a request. Time is critical. If you can’t vote in person, and if you don’t know whether you’re already going to get a ballot in the mail, make this request now.
Vote that ballot immediately. Make sure to follow instructions carefully. Fill out all the requested information clearly. Use the correct kind of pen. Fill in your ballot selections with care. Sign your name and check any required boxes, and place the ballot in the return envelope as instructed. And if you have to pay for return postage in your state, use a first class mail stamp.
Make sure the ballot return envelope is postmarked at least 7 days before the election, so not later than Mon Oct. 26. If you can, deliver your mail ballot directly to a post office or an approved ballot dropbox location set up by your state. If that’s not safe for you, hand it directly to your mail carrier or make sure it is collected by your mail carrier. Because of postal service cuts, service boxes are not being tended to regularly and some have been removed.
Once you vote your ballot, use your state’s resources (if available) to make sure your ballot was received. If not received within 10 days (or by Election Day), contact your local election board ASAP.
Do The Work
Whether phone banking, text banking, or writing letters and postcards, there are so many ways we can do the work from the safety of our homes right now!*
Below is a living list of opportunities to join that I’ll keep updating as needed. And if you’re in a position where you’re working 24/7 and can barely give time, then please consider giving/increase your current support to any of the campaigns below. Let’s win this thing!
Biden for President 2020: Make phone calls, text bank, and more. I’m in a group of phone bankers that meets over Zoom once a week to call into Arizona. It’s great to do with friends! (Donate)
2020 Victory: This page has hundreds of Biden campaign volunteer events. Sign up for one of their Text Team Trainings so you can be ready to join any of their efforts. In addition to the national effort, I recently joined text banks for Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Grassroots Democrats HQ: This fantastic group is phone and text banking into key swing states, as well as target Senate and House races. They also have a fantastic postcard writing program that I’m regularly participating in. I love their postcard program so much that I was interviewed on a podcast for it!
Vote Forward: Send letters to low-frequency voters in key swing states. I personally love this program because you can get to work immediately with a printer, envelopes, and stamps!
Open Progress: The Open Progress Text Troop is a diverse community of committed volunteers from across the country who are engaging in candidate and issues-focused conversations with voters via person-to-person text messages.
Resistance Labs: Text out the vote from home.
Vote Save America: Adopt one or multiple swing states in a great program created by the Pod Save America crew.
Indivisible: They hardly need an introduction, but Indivisible started as a the Indivisible Guide Google Doc and is now a national movement with local chapters mobilizing to replace Trump in the White House, flip the Senate, protect the House, and restore our democracy.
Flipping the Senate: We need to not just kick Trump out of the White House, we need to take back the Senate! Please volunteer for and donate to any of the following campaigns: Dr. Al Gross (AK), Mark Kelly (AZ), John Hickenlooper (CO), Theresa Greenfield (IA), Dr. Barbara Bollier (KS), Jon Ossoff (GA), Rev. Raphael Warnock (GA), Amy McGrath (KY), Sara Gideon (ME), Steve Bullock (MT), Cal Cunningham (NC), Jaime Harrison (SC), MJ Hegar (TX)
Vulnerable Democrats in the Senate: Doug Jones (AL), Gary Peters (MI)
Moms Demand Action: Join text and phone banks, as well as postcard efforts and more for Biden, Senate, and House efforts with this inspiring gun control organization.
Movement Voter Project:Movement Voter Project identifies and funds grassroots NGOs with relationships inside of communities who have the most on the line this election — organizations that know how to reach people whose voices are most crucial right now, will work to secure their votes — and then harness the power of these relationships after the election to make lasting change. By focusing especially on communities of color and youth in battleground states, MVP shifts power into the hands of people who’ve historically been denied it, all while consistently turning out reliable voters over time in the places that matter most.
Reclaim Our Vote: This nonpartisan group focuses on empowering voters in states with voter suppression laws. Its partners include State Voices, Black Voters Matter, Virginia Poor People’s Campaign, DemLabs, Mi Familia Vota, Progressive Coders Network, VoteRiders, National Coalition of 100 Black Women, American Ethical Union, Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism, UU the Vote, Rapid Resist and others.
Sister District Project: Help flip state legislatures, which are critical to drawing Congressional districts from the 2020 census, building strong GOTV in key swing states from the bottom-up, *and* sustaining stronger alternatives to Trump’s fascism locally.
Become a Poll Worker: With COVID-19 and now USPS under attack, we need young, healthy people to work the polls on election day!
Protect the Results: Join Indivisible’s project to mobilize if Donald Trump refuses to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election. This thing won’t be over on November 3rd!
*Please note that you don’t text from your own phone, but computer software. If you make phone calls from your phone, you can do *67 to block your number or get a Google Voice phone number. Postcards and letters are great because they help save USPS *and* reach voters in creative ways proven effective in the 2018 midterms!
