In the Homestretch of this Year's Campaign, It is Not About the Pundits, Polls and Political Theater. It is About What You Personally Do to Impact the Results.
If you are looking for an effective way to help the Kamala/Walz campaign, please go to www.VoteRiders.org. Vote Riders really needs volunteers to help voters in battleground states like Pennsylvania and Georgia that have confusing new voter ID laws. Many of the newly registered voters who registered after the Democratic National Convention (especially first time voters) won’t be able to vote if they don’t have the proper ID — VoteRiders volunteers reach out via letters and texting and also work one-on-one as Virtual Voter Assistance Volunteers to arrange for rides to the DMV or other agencies to obtain the proper IDs.
Since 2022, many states have made their voter ID regulations much stricter so please spread the word that everyone should check their voter registration at www.Vote.org. Don't assume that you are registered even if you are a long-time voter. It is also important to vote on Day 1 (as Simon Rosenberg has been urging in his Substack newsletter Hopium Chronicles)...this will take you off of the public lists of people who have voted so that campaigns can focus on contacting lower propensity voters during the last two weeks of GOTV (Get Out the Vote) before Nov. 5. Those two weeks are a crucial period to volunteer with the Harris/Walz campaign (www.kamalaharris.com) to remind voters to vote.
Also, if you can give a week to go to canvass in a battleground state, go to www.turnoutpac.org (Progressive Turnout Project) - they pay $250/day for two three hour door-knocking sessions, which would defray your travel costs.
And if you have extra money to donate, the Voter Movement Project (www.movement.vote) is experiencing a funding gap. They are part of the grassroots ground game and they direct funds to local community groups who are trusted messengers reaching low propensity voters in communities of color in battleground states year-round.
The more people learn about Project 2025, the more they decide to vote blue., so spreading the word about it will help the Harris/Walz campaign. Here is a Resource Page on Project 2025 that I helped to compile for Swing Blue Alliance, a grassroots volunteer group in the greater Boston area: https://swingbluealliance.org/project-2025-resouces/ This Resource Page has easy-to-forward information, including one-pagers, about Project 2025 to pass on to your networks, as well as in-depth research on it by organizations like the Center for American Progress (CAP at www.americanprogress.org). Scholars there have studied the 922 page document and written 25 fact sheets about how it would affect our lives. An example is "Fact Sheets: The Harmful Effects of Project 2025, by State" (I looked up how it would affect residents of my state and it is shocking).
If you are on social media, the Resource Page above has a link to the terrific group of suburban women at Red Wine and Blue who have a page of items to cut and paste onto your Facebook, Instagram and X-Twitter accounts, including short interviews with Elizabeth Warren and Heather Cox Richardson about Project 2025. https://social.redwine.blue/toolkit/bbb2cadf-0d16-4fef-a4b6-037facbba64c
You are so right as usual.. I give as much money as I can afford. I have written 120 postcards to Georgia that I am to send on October 24.(so you still have time). If I was younger I would do more. Being 92 does drain my energy, but you young ones have so much more energy than I. So please do all that you can.
I seriously love this essay. Will be sharing widely, including with my Democratic precinct team here in red southwest Florida. This is just the essay they need to see as we pass the 60-day mark. Thank you!
Damn right it's personal, with the likes of Project 2025, Judicial traitors in the Supreme Court, Authoritarian Dictator Trump handing out revenge dictates and gutting the institutions that make us a democracy, with government employees losing their federal jobs and putting Trump lackey's in their place. ok, ok, it's enough again thank you DR,, we do need reminders, because the shock of this needs repeating it's a nightmare, vote Harris and Waltz(he is funny though)
I cracked up about "affect" and "effect" -- how many times have I corrected that in the manuscripts of writers most of whom should know better? But have another look at "pour" at the beginning of that para. <g>
So did I! Since I edit for a living, it takes a lot more than a typo to spoil something for me. And as a writer, I always hope hope hope that I've caught all the typos in a ms. before my writers group sees it. Sometimes I do, other times I don't.
Well said. I talk these issues up at every opportunity. I am a blue dot in a very red area of my state, so, it takes a lot of patient listening and meeting people where they are. I have found across the board we have more in common than not and I base my connections on those commonalities. I love the democracy we live in and want to see it thrive and grow. ❤️
That is what I am doing but I am also angry that we as a county are even being given the choice to vote for Facism, corruption, a King instead of a President who will burn the constitution and the rule of law to the ground with no impediments. Cause the immeasurable pain, suffering and death to millions.
We have had other Klan and mobsters run for office. None of them were normalized and succeeded in making it to the WH.
After all the horror, the criminality, the assault of Jan 6th, the stealing and sharing of our nations top secrets, the death of a million Americans, his alliance and allegiance to our enemies , the hatred and disrespect of our military. Just the mere fact that
he is even on the ballot as a " choice" is Anti- American in itself and sheer insanity.
The reason we're being given this choice is that too many of us have been taking "democracy" for granted for decades -- at least since Reagan and probably longer. By "us" I mostly mean middle-class-and-up white people. You know that very famous quote from the German pastor Martin Niemöller, the one that begins "First they came for the Socialists, and I was not a Socialist -- so I did not speak out"? It's like that. You can find the whole thing (it's short) here, along with enough about Niemöller's life to make clear that he was talking about his own trajectory. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller-first-they-came-for-the-socialists
I love your Need To Know pieces. As I read them I can hear your voice after hearing it many times on Stand Up With Pete Dominick. You state it all succinctly and truthfully. I feel better inside after reading this. Still terrified if DT manages to rig a win.
Thank you, David for always telling us ‘like it is.’
One of the steps I took is writing the following blog in the Times of Israel: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-postscript-to-my-jewish-family-and-friends/ .
The correct link to Andra Watkins’ article on Christian Nationalism is http://open.substack.com/pub/project2025istheocracy/p/christian-nationalists-and-their?r=7pik8&utm_medium=ios
If you are looking for an effective way to help the Kamala/Walz campaign, please go to www.VoteRiders.org. Vote Riders really needs volunteers to help voters in battleground states like Pennsylvania and Georgia that have confusing new voter ID laws. Many of the newly registered voters who registered after the Democratic National Convention (especially first time voters) won’t be able to vote if they don’t have the proper ID — VoteRiders volunteers reach out via letters and texting and also work one-on-one as Virtual Voter Assistance Volunteers to arrange for rides to the DMV or other agencies to obtain the proper IDs.
Since 2022, many states have made their voter ID regulations much stricter so please spread the word that everyone should check their voter registration at www.Vote.org. Don't assume that you are registered even if you are a long-time voter. It is also important to vote on Day 1 (as Simon Rosenberg has been urging in his Substack newsletter Hopium Chronicles)...this will take you off of the public lists of people who have voted so that campaigns can focus on contacting lower propensity voters during the last two weeks of GOTV (Get Out the Vote) before Nov. 5. Those two weeks are a crucial period to volunteer with the Harris/Walz campaign (www.kamalaharris.com) to remind voters to vote.
Also, if you can give a week to go to canvass in a battleground state, go to www.turnoutpac.org (Progressive Turnout Project) - they pay $250/day for two three hour door-knocking sessions, which would defray your travel costs.
And if you have extra money to donate, the Voter Movement Project (www.movement.vote) is experiencing a funding gap. They are part of the grassroots ground game and they direct funds to local community groups who are trusted messengers reaching low propensity voters in communities of color in battleground states year-round.
The more people learn about Project 2025, the more they decide to vote blue., so spreading the word about it will help the Harris/Walz campaign. Here is a Resource Page on Project 2025 that I helped to compile for Swing Blue Alliance, a grassroots volunteer group in the greater Boston area: https://swingbluealliance.org/project-2025-resouces/ This Resource Page has easy-to-forward information, including one-pagers, about Project 2025 to pass on to your networks, as well as in-depth research on it by organizations like the Center for American Progress (CAP at www.americanprogress.org). Scholars there have studied the 922 page document and written 25 fact sheets about how it would affect our lives. An example is "Fact Sheets: The Harmful Effects of Project 2025, by State" (I looked up how it would affect residents of my state and it is shocking).
If you are on social media, the Resource Page above has a link to the terrific group of suburban women at Red Wine and Blue who have a page of items to cut and paste onto your Facebook, Instagram and X-Twitter accounts, including short interviews with Elizabeth Warren and Heather Cox Richardson about Project 2025. https://social.redwine.blue/toolkit/bbb2cadf-0d16-4fef-a4b6-037facbba64c
A very worthwhile Substack newsletter devoted to Project 2025 is Andra Watkins' How Project 2025 Will Ruin Your Life: https://project2025istheocracy.substack.com/p/project-2025-new-start-here. On August 1, Scott Dworkin has a great interview with her: https://open.substack.com/pub/dworkin/p/project-2025-investigator-exposes?r=7pik8&utm_medium=ios Andra Watkins is a NYT best-selling author who has been writing her Substack newsletter since January 2024 to educate people about Project 2024. She grew up in a Christian Nationalist family and gives many insights into understanding Project 2025 from that perspective and why Christian Nationalists are deperate to impose their definition of morality upon society. http://open.substack.com/pub/project2025istheocracy/p/christian-nationalist-and-their?r=7pik8&utm_medium+ios
Damn, David Rothkopf, thank you.
You are so right as usual.. I give as much money as I can afford. I have written 120 postcards to Georgia that I am to send on October 24.(so you still have time). If I was younger I would do more. Being 92 does drain my energy, but you young ones have so much more energy than I. So please do all that you can.
I seriously love this essay. Will be sharing widely, including with my Democratic precinct team here in red southwest Florida. This is just the essay they need to see as we pass the 60-day mark. Thank you!
Damn right it's personal, with the likes of Project 2025, Judicial traitors in the Supreme Court, Authoritarian Dictator Trump handing out revenge dictates and gutting the institutions that make us a democracy, with government employees losing their federal jobs and putting Trump lackey's in their place. ok, ok, it's enough again thank you DR,, we do need reminders, because the shock of this needs repeating it's a nightmare, vote Harris and Waltz(he is funny though)
I cracked up about "affect" and "effect" -- how many times have I corrected that in the manuscripts of writers most of whom should know better? But have another look at "pour" at the beginning of that para. <g>
I saw "pour", too. But I totally loved this essay!!
So did I! Since I edit for a living, it takes a lot more than a typo to spoil something for me. And as a writer, I always hope hope hope that I've caught all the typos in a ms. before my writers group sees it. Sometimes I do, other times I don't.
Well said. I talk these issues up at every opportunity. I am a blue dot in a very red area of my state, so, it takes a lot of patient listening and meeting people where they are. I have found across the board we have more in common than not and I base my connections on those commonalities. I love the democracy we live in and want to see it thrive and grow. ❤️
Our freedom is at stake.
That is what I am doing but I am also angry that we as a county are even being given the choice to vote for Facism, corruption, a King instead of a President who will burn the constitution and the rule of law to the ground with no impediments. Cause the immeasurable pain, suffering and death to millions.
We have had other Klan and mobsters run for office. None of them were normalized and succeeded in making it to the WH.
After all the horror, the criminality, the assault of Jan 6th, the stealing and sharing of our nations top secrets, the death of a million Americans, his alliance and allegiance to our enemies , the hatred and disrespect of our military. Just the mere fact that
he is even on the ballot as a " choice" is Anti- American in itself and sheer insanity.
The reason we're being given this choice is that too many of us have been taking "democracy" for granted for decades -- at least since Reagan and probably longer. By "us" I mostly mean middle-class-and-up white people. You know that very famous quote from the German pastor Martin Niemöller, the one that begins "First they came for the Socialists, and I was not a Socialist -- so I did not speak out"? It's like that. You can find the whole thing (it's short) here, along with enough about Niemöller's life to make clear that he was talking about his own trajectory. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller-first-they-came-for-the-socialists
Ah, Rocky and Bullwinkle! Your first foreign policy education!
I love your Need To Know pieces. As I read them I can hear your voice after hearing it many times on Stand Up With Pete Dominick. You state it all succinctly and truthfully. I feel better inside after reading this. Still terrified if DT manages to rig a win.
Check voter registration here: https://www.nass.org/can-I-vote/voter-registration-status
On my way to my County Democratic Office to pick up Yard Signs today and see what else I can do to help!
Thank you for stating this so plainly. Now I have 100 postcards to write.