Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Everybody saw this coming.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

It could be worse. Vance could have said “post-menopausal sows.” Waiting for that audiotape to surface.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Let there be snark.

Nikki Haley, who can’t acknowledge ‘slavery’, is a pathetic shill.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

If marriage is the equivalent of selling yourself into slavery, women with self respect should reject the offer.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Joe Biden can go out like FDR, not by dying in office, but by crushing the fascists.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

You are here: Home / 2024 Activism / Boots on the Ground, and Out In the Field, Nelle Style!

Boots on the Ground, and Out In the Field, Nelle Style!

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Nelle is an inspiration to me, and I’ll bet that we can all use some inspiration right about now, so I asked if Nelle could talk to us about how she talks to her neighbors, and even strangers on the street.  Because we all need to be doing that this tine around!

I did that all the time in 2007 and 2008.  I very much felt that it was my job to get Barack to the caucus in Iowa and prove to everyone that he could win.  I talked to everybody.  In the elevator.  In line at the grocery store.  At the train station.  Everywhere.  I wore my Obama hope pin, or my Obama necklace, or wore an Obama button on my jacket.  I was an Obama evangelist!

I always carried extra Obama buttons with me, and if someone commented on something Obama that I was wearing, my reply would include, “would you like a button?”  I don’t think anyone ever said no!

I bought the buttons in batches of 300, and I’ll bet I bought them at least 5 different times!

That was a different time.  I had SO MUCH HOPE.  Now we all have to learn how to do that again, this time perhaps more motivated by FEAR than by HOPE.  Or maybe I’m wrong about that last part?

In any case, let’s hear from Nelle who somehow manages to put herself out there all the time, now, in 2024.

Talking to People

by Nelle

I’m focused on building community, both within and beyond political connections.  I’ve moved a lot, mostly due to my husband’s refusal to change scientific data to suit government officials (he’s a water quality specialist).  I have had to build a sense of community over and over (eight states and two countries in our 44 years of marriage).  I don’t have time to waste, waiting for others to come to me.  I usually had a list of ten or twelve things to do the first two weeks in a new place.  I would discard what didn’t work.

I moved to Iowa less than a year before Covid.  Two things made a difference.  We moved into a suburb that has sidewalks on both sides of the streets, so during lockdown, neighbors walked a lot.  We also bought a house with a big front porch. We sat on that porch during lockdown and chatted with people across the lawn as they walked by on the sidewalk.  I put up a sign for a Democratic candidate for Senate.  A couple walked by and asked me about it.  It turns out that they are a retired couple who pretty much spend full time getting out the vote for Democrats in our suburb.  They immediately recruited me to do what I could (summer of 2020).

This is the more formal part of what I do.  The suburb is divided into turfs, neighborhood areas.  Each turf has a leader who is charged with getting out those registered Democrats to the polls.  I’m the turf leader for my neighborhood – there are 75 or so registered D’s in this neighborhood.  I used to do the next one too, but then one of my neighbors decided to step up and do that.  If he doesn’t rehab from surgery next week, I’ll pick that up again.

I do several rounds of the neighborhood to drop literature, for the primary and the general.  I ring the doorbells and try to talk to as many as I can.  Since I’m on my fifth year of doing this, most of them know me by now.  One thing that I notice is that I have several new registered Democrats in their late teens and early twenties, all newly eligible since the last presidential election.  A number of them are the only registered D in the household.  I had one mother, a registered R, remind me to be sure to bring the literature around for her 19 y.o. daughter so that she also could read it.  For the mom, reproductive health issues are paramount and she indicated that she needed D literature for herself to read.

We track absentee ballots too (the organizing couple give us updated spreadsheets throughout the voting season).  When I see that some of my neighbors have requested absentee ballots, but not turned them in, I contact them to see if they have questions I can help with.  By now, I also know who likes to vote in person.  I carry out reminders to vote the week before the election for those who haven’t recorded votes during early voting.

Informally, I walk the neighborhood for exercise but also for chatting.  I know that an older couple is in ill health and check to see if we should organize a meal train.  I know that my neighbor’s father, on the West Bank, had brain surgery and he had to fly back to move his father to Jordan.  We talk about the situation there for Palestinians.  Since the 1970’s, Iowa has been welcoming to refugees and there are about ten Bosnian families, three Vietnamese families, one Cambodian family in our neighborhood.  I look for informal ways to connect with them, despite some language challenges.

I also talk to some of my Republican neighbors, particularly some who call themselves “people of faith.”  That’s how I sometimes find the cracks in what they are thinking.  One was upset about immigration.  The Bible, she said, teaches us to welcome the stranger and she was upset at the anti-immigrant message from her party.  That will be a little crack that I’ll try to widen over the next two months.

I set up a biweekly coffee gathering at the local coffee shop for a group of about eight women, several who are older and live alone.  We chat about politics, yes, but also about other challenges that face our families.  We’ve gotten to know the young people who work there and they sometimes take their breaks with us, sitting down to tell us what is important to them.

As I’ve noted previously on Balloon-Juice, I have another informal project to talk to young people, to reach across the fifty-year divide between them and me, to find out their issues.  This is not quantifiable and less partisan, but more of a desire on my part to know what they wish their elders would address.  I do a lot of this at that coffee shop, but really, most anywhere I might run into them.  I’m genuinely interested in listening, not recruiting as such.  I think most of them pick up on that.

Then there is porch wine.  As I mentioned, we have a big porch and I invite others that I’ve gotten to know through my GOTV work to come and chat.  Through these last weeks, we’ve needed the comfort of each other to sort out the confusion of feeling as bewildered by the Democrats as we have been by the Republicans. We had such a gathering late afternoon today, and there was a request that we do this every two weeks for now.  They are feeling betrayed by Democratic behavior.

I find myself in the role of comforter/cheerleader.  The propagandists, the ones playing the game for power, will be delighted by our despair.  I refuse to give it to them.  I’m not the daughter of a WWII veteran, the wife of a Vietnam veteran, who is willing to ignore the suffering that they went through to protect democracy.  I act in honor of their legacy.

My message to my neighbors right now is to ignore the individuals at the top of the tickets.  We have no power over that.  It’s above our pay grade.  What we do know with blinding clarity is that there are two teams in the running.  One wants to protect democracy.  One wants to dismantle democracy.  It is that simple.  We’re on team Democracy and we resolve to do what we can.

Reader Interactions

111Comments

  4. 4.

    CaseyL

    Thank you, Nelle!

    This is terrific, textbook “how to do neighborhood outreach.”

    I think the key is starting and/or continuing throughout the year, not just during election cycles.  I love the different activities you set up and keep going.

  6. 6.

    cmorenc

    My message to my neighbors right now is to ignore the individuals at the top of the tickets.  We have no power over that.  It’s above our pay grade.  What we do know with blinding clarity is that there are two teams in the running.  One wants to protect democracy.  One wants to dismantle democracy.  It is that simple.  We’re on team Democracy and we resolve to do what we can.

    This.  Exactly.  Whether we wind up with Biden, Harris, or some wild card D nominee, the most important thing is to be in it to win it.  The must-dump Biden folks need to get over it if he resists the chorus of people wanting him to drop out.  The must-stick-with-nominee Biden need to get over it if he winds up dropping out and getting replaced by Harris.  Likewise if the nominee winds up being a wild card like Gov Besheer of Kentucky.  No I’m going to pout and sit it out if the nominee doesn’t wind up being who you think it should be – almost any D is vastly better than Trump.  Even in the extraordinarily unlikely possibility it’s Manchin (let’s hope not, but you get the point).

  7. 7.

    WaterGirl

    @CaseyL: Yes, Nelle has the honor of being the second entry in our new “Reports from the Field” section of the new 2024 Activism area that’s in the main menu up top.

    The first one was yesterday’s awesome report on the Leadership School.

  11. 11.

    Mousebumples

    @J. Arthur Crank: I agree. I’m sure he’s with us all when we need a little extra oomph for organizing this year.

    @Hungry Joe: thanks for your regular updates!

    Thanks, Nelle, for all your efforts, and WaterGirl for front paging this!

  12. 12.

    Nelle

    @WaterGirl: Thank you for asking me to do this.  Building community is so important to me and a part of what comes naturally for me.

    I guess all those years of teaching made me comfortable with talking to strangers, too.  I’m thinking about how this applies to people who have discomfort with the prospect.  One is to follow the advice from Walt Whitman, recently highlighted on Ted Lasso.  “Be curious, not judgmental.”  People sense when you are genuinely interested in what they have to say when you ask them what issues are they concerned about.  Then listen.  I’m reticent about telling people who to vote for, but quite willing to ask them questions that might lead them to see the contradiction of saying that they value character but are going to vote for T.

  13. 13.

    Nelle

    @rikyrah: It would be an honor to have you come sit on my porch.  I can offer cold water if you don’t like wine.

    If you are driving through Iowa and need a porch sit, come on by!

    I need to step away for a walk around the block.  If I straight walk it, it takes ten minutes.  Depending on who is out, it has taken up to an hour.  But I’ll check in right when I get back..

  15. 15.

    dc

    Thank you, Nelle, what a great contribution you make to your community and to this blog.

  17. 17.

    Mousebumples

    @Nelle:   “Be curious, not judgmental.” People sense when you are genuinely interested in what they have to say when you ask them what issues are they concerned about. Then listen.

    Very true!

    I’m out of practice with small talk – no longer work on retail, and post Covid I’m much more of a homebody.

    However, people generally like talking about themselves, especially if you’re actively listening and asking logical follow ups.

  18. 18.

    Citizen Alan

     

    @cmorenc:

    Likewise if the nominee winds up being a wild card like Gov Besheer of Kentucky.

    The only thing that would make me not vote for the democratic ticket is if somehow dean Phillips or one of his fellow travelers ended up as the nominee. That would prove conclusively to me that putin and our homegrown oligarchs basically controlled both parties to the extent that I should focus more on emigration options than participating in a sham election.

  20. 20.

    eclare

    @rikyrah:

    It is a beautiful porch!  Unfortunately mine faces west, so it is unusable in the afternoon and evening from May through September.

  24. 24.

    eclare

    Nelle, thank you for this guide.  I’ll do my best to follow it as it will be an all hands on deck effort.

  26. 26.

    Scout211

    @Renie: 😢 Too many sad things this morning

    President Joe Biden said he is stepping aside from the presidential race in a letter posted to X.

    “It has been the greatest honor of my lift to serve as your president,” he wrote. “And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term.”

    Biden said he will speak to the nation later this week “in more detail about my decision.”

  30. 30.

    Scout211

    Nelle, thank you so much for all you do to reach out to the community.  You are an inspiration.

  31. 31.

    SiubhanDuinne

    WaterGirl, you might want to consider putting up a fresh thread for this breaking story. It is absolutely not my intention to derail this thread about the important work Nelle is doing.

  34. 34.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Scout211: I am immensely irritated at the party that wouldn’t back him up. If he’s out, though – he’s out. And I’ll support whomever the nominee is wholeheartedly.

    For party unity purposes, it really should be Harris. Though I have a lot of doubts about a black woman scaring off a lot of squishy people – Vance was already out calling her a welfare queen (in effect) yesterday.

  39. 39.

    Drunkenhausfrau

    JOE IS OUT.  Now what?!?!?!  Gonna start day drinking a bit early today…

  40. 40.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @SiubhanDuinne: No, I didn’t take it that way at all.  I am just saying I am not going to fight with anyone about who was right or wrong at this time, but I am going to have no patience with anyone who pushes anyone other than Harris.

  50. 50.

    Mike in NC

    Well this is some terrible news. I have no desire to live in Trump’s fascist dictatorship, which doesn’t seem to bother a lot of people in this country.

  51. 51.

    Mousebumples

    Can we not talk about who’s on our ticket in this post? I get that there’s news, but it would be nice to not hijack this thread about Nelle.

  52. 52.

    bbleh

    @Omnes Omnibus:  The loyalists will.  The ones that worry me are (1) the vultures and attention-grabbers (looking at you Joe Manchin) and outright saboteurs (hello Marianne Williamson), who will create chaos and confusion, and (2) the latently bigoted among the normies who will be confused &/or offended by a woman of Black and Asian descent presuming to run for President of the You Ess Ay.

  57. 57.

    zhena gogolia

    I guess I have to prepare to spend my twilight years in a Trumpian dictatorship. Thanks, New York Times!

  59. 59.

    Betty

    What a disgusting way to treat this man. I don’t want to hear any one of them tell us how much they love Joe. Traitors. If they don’t back Kamala, the Dems will be in big trouble because the Black voters are furious about this.

  62. 62.

    cmorenc

    @Citizen Alan: Nope, joe did a great job as president, and i sincerely wish he did not inadvertently pick the one most crucial night to have a bad moment – else none of us would have had a moment of doubt about him.

  64. 64.

    zhena gogolia

    @Westyny: He can’t endorse Harris. It’s not up to him. It will be the clusterfuck we all anticipated. Thanks, everyone! Great work!

  67. 67.

    Steve LaBonne

    Thank you for your remarkable accomplishments, Joe. I’m not sure this country deserved them. I will of course support the nominee 200% no matter who it is, but I hope that in his speech Joe strongly urges the delegates to support Harris. The alternative is unthinkable.

  69. 69.

    stacib

    I know I’m white-hot angry right now, but I’ve thought about this over the past three weeks. I’ve voted since I was first eligible, and I’ll be 65 this year.  This black woman will never vote for a Democrat again.  To think “they” whoever “they” are, can pull this bullshit at this point in the election and expect everybody to fall in line – I’m so done.

  70. 70.

    JMC

    The desire for Biden to not run has been widespread and ongoing for months. I hope the Biden stay people realize it wasn’t a conspiracy of elites. I won’t tell disappointed Biden supporters to get in line but I do hope and ask that you’ll at least vote for the D nominee.

    I want Harris and will be calling my congressperson and ask for an endorsement of her.

  71. 71.

    Citizen Alan

    @cmorenc:

    Twenty bad minutes in a debate for a democrat is worse than a lifetime of debauchery, criminality and treason for a republican. God, are we just live in a shithole country, now, don’t we. Just an absolute shithole.

  73. 73.

    Bupalos

    Being on a college campus is a good place to remind myself of the upside here. It’s probably primarily my exposure to teh young’s that had me marginally favoring the risky environment we’re heading in to over the risky environment we’re leaving.

    3 registrations filled in the last 2 hours… we’re going to need a bigger boat.

  74. 74.

    zhena gogolia

    The donors and the MSM have gotten their scalp. Harvard president was small change compared to this.

  78. 78.

    Fake Irishman

    Nelle is doing great work for Dems. Now we’re going to have to do some more too. Whomever the nominee is. Let’s start trusting each other again. And let’s start trusting our party leaders. This isn’t a palace coup. Sherrod Brown doesn’t do those.

  80. 80.

    wenchacha

    I am swearing as hard as I can right now.

    I DO NOT KNOW how this will turn out. None of us knows.

    But I am heartbroken that it came to this.

    It feels like Big Money won this round. I hope they didn’t lose the election and democratic Republic in the bargain.

    We still need to GOTV. But goddammit.

  81. 81.

    bbleh

    @zhena gogolia: unclear.  Recent stories have suggested a good deal of behind-the-scenes work to smooth a switch to Harris.  But there will be some trouble (1) because the media want to find some (2) because the camera-hungry don’t care what they break in their rush to get on screen and (3) because there will be a LOT of ratfking from the Republicans, the Russians, and probably some donors who of course know everything better than anyone.

  83. 83.

    Eolirin

    @hueyplong: If they’re ecstatic that tells you everything you need to know about why this was a terrible idea. You don’t celebrate your opponent getting taken out if you think he’s weak and his replacement will be stronger.

  84. 84.

    dww44

    @zhena gogolia: more than any other entity  they deserve “credit” for this.  They didn’t try to derail Trump ever….if they had maybe they’d have more credibility as an objective news reporting outlet.  They had an  anti -Biden and anti Democratic agenda and it truly pisses me off.

  85. 85.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Fake Irishman: No, not whoever. Without Biden there is one acceptable answer. Let’s learn our lesson and stop playing their game.

  89. 89.

    cmorenc

    Get over it and get to work!  It’s a gamble him being replaced, and i am as nervous as standing at the top of a no-fall-zone double-diamond ski slope with no alternate path down, but gotta commit.

  91. 91.

    dc

    What a shit show. I can’t believe Biden would do this unless his health really is wavering. He as much as anyone knows the stakes.

  92. 92.

    Nelle

    Back from my walk with only two stops, only to find this out.  I too am furious.  We have a constitutional plan of succession should he not be able to perform his duties.  I was fine with that.  The most successful president of my life and shoved out by inuendo, rumor, and media stoking panic.  Of course, I will support the replacement, but I. voted. for. Biden. when I had the chance to vote, not some unknown, who hasn’t done the work.

    It reminds me when the DC Dems chose Theresa Greenfield to run against Joni Ernst.  She was female and rural so they apparently thought she was the perfect person to take on Ernst.  She was an awful candidate, but she had DC money behind her.  I guess I’m still smarting over pushing Franken to resign.  Will Dems really have the back of women and minorities?  Where is there spine?  Their loyalty?  How can they not see that they were being stampeded?

    Meanwhile, I have a passport from another country.  I’m staying here because of my grandchildren, but their father also has permanent residency in that country.  We’re going to be doing a hard think after the next election.  (We left in 2005 when this country returned W to the office.  We seem unable to smarten up.)

  94. 94.

    Nelle

    @Mousebumples: I don’t really mind if this topic takes over.  It is huge.  I appreciate the consideration, but, as I just posted, it is hard to hold back.

  95. 95.

    Eolirin

    @dc: He can say he backs Harris’s bid but the delegates are only bound to him and if he releases them they can go where ever they want. There’s no mechanism to transfer them to someone specific.

  97. 97.

    Bupalos

    @Citizen Alan: this country has it’s downsides, but no. It’s one of the better countries on the planet and it’s our responsibility to make it better.

    I’ll only push back on the 20 minutes thing to hope it can make you feel better. That’s not what it was. It was a string of age-related communication failures that ended in that higher profile one and was followed by an inability to formulate or deliver messaging that could get his prior support back on board. The party isn’t that stupid. Ultimately Joe made this decision.

  99. 99.

    bbleh

    @Hungry Joe: yes this.  Harris: young mixed-race woman former prosecutor.  Trump: old White male felon, fraudster and sexual assaulter.  And btw also Dobbs, deportation, and Dominionism.  (Hey, I just thought of that!)  Donate, volunteer, vote!  There are way more of us.  Aux barricades!

  100. 100.

    Martin

    This seemed inevitable after the BET interview. That did more damage than the debate did, IMO. A lot of the recent ‘I back Biden’ sounded more like ‘I back Biden’s right to make a decision here’, not ‘I only want Biden as the candidate’. There’s a difference.

    I sure as shit hope there’s a plan, but it doesn’t really sound as though there is one. The donor call on Friday that the Biden campaign set up seemed to coalesce support for Harris, but it wasn’t a call to explore that hypothetical and donors were confused. Pelosi, Jeffries, Schumer, Biden have to get their shit together and present a plan tomorrow. Biden will surely have a message for his delegates. If there is consensus, and it’s articulated clearly, this might not be horrible. That’s not really what we’ve gotten thus far, though.

    We’re along for the ride on this one, I’m afraid. Try to not let it tear you up. When it’s over there’s a candidate that’s going to need our support.

  103. 103.

    Bupalos

    @Nelle: I’m on a campus doing registration…I was in the middle of typing a reply that your post was inspiring and extending comments on the young folk. we’ll get back to it.

  106. 106.

    Starfish

    @dc: The letter that he released was the appropriate one, letting people know that he was out. Biden and Harris must control the message, and they do that by releasing bits and pieces as appropriate.

    It doesn’t make sense to release big news about Harris until the week begins, and it makes sense to leave Harris in charge of her own message. Then it can be the news of the week.

    Biden did do a Tweet that he endorses Harris.

  107. 107.

    Bupalos

    @zhena gogolia: It’s not a great time to be doing predictions. For everyone who thought Biden was the better bet, I can only say I know it doesn’t feel good in this time of real crisis to think your allies are not helping the way you think they should. We all feel a little powerless here.

    my hope is young people feel a little more powerful here, I’m on campus right now…I can’t emphasize enough as much as we feel Biden makes sense as president a lot of young people think it’s almost surreal that someone that old and in some obvious decline was running. You’re feeling the downside and there are downsides and maybe more than I’m calculating. Remember there are upsides and maybe more than you’re calculating.

  109. 109.

    Martin

    @Bupalos: I didn’t see anyone here comment on the BET interview, which was telling to me. There’s a degree of denial happening. It’s not so terrible for me to forget the name of the Sec of Defense. But Biden is a politician, and one of the core skills of a politician – to the degree that they train this skill – is to remember people’s names. It’s one reason why name-dropping in public speaking feels stilted, because they’re doing a technique to never fuck that up. Biden used to be incredibly good at it – better than almost anyone. There are untold stories of him talking about some random voter that reached out to him that he remembered, like 30 fucking years later and could name drop. Speaking not just to Joe being an amazing guy, but also almost photographic in his ability to recall names.

    So Joe forgot Lloyd Austins name, big deal. Well, it was a BET interview where naming black individuals he appointed was part of his mission. So the list he needed front-of-mind was limited. He didn’t need to rattle off Sonya Sotomayor, just Katanji Brown Jackson and Lloyd Austin, etc. Not having that name front of mind wasn’t just an uncharacteristic mistake for him, it was contextually alarming. And when he couldn’t pull the name, got frustrated with himself, his recovery was terrible. When it happens to me (all the time) I express annoyance with my memory out loud (‘Why can’t I remember their name’) and maybe I pull out a description (‘the 4 star general cabinet member’). But he went to ‘the black man’ on BET, that was a terrible, almost inexcusable recovery in that context.

    Had Trump done that, we’d have been ALL over him. Silence here. It was part of a pattern, and part of a pattern that I’d guess people who are interacting with him in private are seeing more of than when he’s ‘on’ in the interviews that we see.

    Its hard. It breaks my heart. But he’s not running to be my dad, he running to be president. Very different standard.

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