You may recall that we raised $25,000 for NCAAT in Action, and then another $25,000 for their ballot curing effort.
Here’s an update from them! Thought you guys might to see it?
Overall positive, but the intimidation they are facing makes me angry.
Dear Friend,
Happy Diwali to all who celebrate the Festival of Lights! Here at NCAAT in Action, we carry this hope for good fortune and prosperity as our team wraps up the last day of Early Voting in North Carolina and as we draw ever closer to Election Day.
I know our efforts wouldn’t have been possible without your support, and I want to express my sincere gratitude.
This is what we have been working toward all year, and it’s so close we can almost see the finish line!
Our canvassing team has been going strong and will finish knocking 100,000 doors this weekend! Throughout this season, NCAATIA has hosted numerous Community Canvass Days with local Community Partner organizations, all with the aim of mobilizing the progressive Asian American vote. On October 27th, we hosted a Diwali-themed canvassing event with music, lights, and plenty of fun! Over 70 folks from across North Carolina came together to help knock 2,000 doors in the Triangle area – an incredible effort!
We were joined by a number of elected officials, including Congressman Wiley Nickel, Congresswoman Debroah Ross, Representatives Ya Liu and Maria Cervania, Senator Jay Chaudhuri, Councilman Steve Rao, Mayor Pro Tem Satish Garmilla, Mayor TJ Cawley, and Councilwoman Anne Robotti. A major shout out to White House Domestic Policy Advisor Neera Tandan and public speaker and advocate Nina Devaluri for knocking doors alongside us!
Intimidation and Protection at the Polls
Unfortunately, one challenge we have faced during the Early Voting period has been stark and brazen intimidation targeting Asian American voters at the polls. This has included the appearance of people wearing “Asian MAGA” shirts, yelling derogatory things about transgender people, and fearmongering about non-citizen voting. Similar harassment has also targeted me directly, through phone calls and emails to my work and home lines. This election year is proving deeply personal on many levels, and the targeted harassment only strengthens NCAAT in Action’s resolve.
Although NCAAT (our c3 affiliate organization) had not intended to put on a full-scale election protection project, we have pivoted to provide poll protection throughout various sites in Wake County. In addition to looking out for incidents that may need to be reported, we have brought in musicians and distributed food to liven up the atmosphere. While this pivot has meant unanticipated expense and the stretching of staff capacity, I feel it necessary to protect our community.
Casting your vote should not only be protected, but it can and should also be fun!
H.E.Wolf
Thank you to WaterGirl for connecting BJ with NCAAT!
I admire NCAAT for their continuing focus on youth, as seen in these photos.
The sparkler image is glorious!
Baud
Heroes all.
Anoniminous
“President Elect Kamala Harris” has a nice ring to it.
Captain Picard says …
Juju
It’s so good to hear most of this. I’m sorry there are always those type of assh*les who feel the need to harass and intimidate, but it’s my inclination to believe they are doing it because they think their people are going to lose. At the very least, it’s my deepest wish as to why they are behaving that way.
Maxim
@Anoniminous: “Access denied” — no hotlinking allowed.
Elizabelle
Reposting this request, since at end of previous long thread:
Jackals: a request for some links: met an undecided voter at the doors yesterday; she’s concerned about the economy, rising prices, cost of living. We talked a bit; she was still on the fence (and seemed like she might think Trump was better for business, but an open mind too):
Anyway: got her email address and would love to send her some good articles from “nonpartisan” sources on Kamala and the economy (or Kamala and anything!) If they’re lengthy; I’d be happy to read them and do an “executive summary” for her. Usually I have a stock set of articles to share, but did not do that this year, and hope you all will have some accessible links on why Kamala is a great choice. She is not going to believe the campaign website.
Many thanks in advance; I’ll be out all day, but will be checking back in.
This experience made me wish we had something like that great site some college kid put together in 2004, “John Kerry is a douche but I’m voting for him anyway.” That site was so helpful for “independent” voters, especially since it did not come off as partisan. I was sad he took it down.
(Thinking about that reminded me that Kerry lost, but have always wondered since, did he really? Looking at you, Ohio…)
Anyway, thank you!! Good luck to everything you are doing to finish this race successfully.
Gawd, I wish Steeplejack was still here. For many reasons.
cmorenc
Where exactly in Wake County, NC (where I live) are these MAGA intimidation actions allegedly happening? Which polling sites? I’ve put some shifts handing out D voter guides at polling stations in Wake County, and if there’s been a voter interaction problem from my R/MAGA counterparts, it’s been how disarmingly polite and neghborly-friendly the fascist supporters are. It’s in the outlying red counties around the Triangle areas where I would suspect the risk of intimidation by rabid MAGAs is significantly higher.
Belafon
@Elizabelle: Deporting half of the farm workers and adding tariffs to existing imports, which will be passed to consumers, in fact makes Trump the opposite of good for the economy.
Ksmiami
@Elizabelle: Krugman, Bloomberg, financial times. Tell her the MSM has been basically lying about the economy for four years
dc
The Economist has an article on how bad a Trump presidency would be for the economy, but I can’t read the whole thing as it’s paywalled and I don’t want a free trial: economist.com/leaders/2024/10/31/a-second-trump-term-comes-with-unacceptable-risks
dc
@Elizabelle:
I linked an Economist article above.
Ksmiami
@Belafon: not to mention Elon blowing up Medicare and Social Security … and the government which is the largest employer
M31
@Elizabelle: here’s a CNN article about Nobel Prize winning economists endorsing Harris:
cnn.com/2024/10/23/politics/nobel-prize-economists-harris-economic-plan/index.html
““While each of us has different views on the particulars of various economic policies, we believe that, overall, Harris’ economic agenda will improve our nation’s health, investment, sustainability, resilience, employment opportunities, and fairness and be vastly superior to the counterproductive economic agenda of Donald Trump,” the economists write in the letter obtained by CNN. “
Mousebumples
@Elizabelle: I feel like there was a financial analysis by an economist about how Dems are better for the economy. I’ll see what I can find… I want to say Bart Starr, Jr., who is a conservative, historically.
dailykos.com/stories/2024/10/18/2277562/-Is-the-U-S-economy-better-under-GOP-or-Dem-presidents-Bart-…
Not sure if dkos is too partisan, but it’s hopefully picked up elsewhere, too.
Anoniminous
@Maxim:
well …..
damn
Scamp Dog
@Maxim: I got through to the image, on an iPhone using the Safari browser. What are you using?
JCJ
@Mousebumples:
Essentially the same as the kos article
wispolitics.com/2024/harris-campaign-icymi-bart-starr-jr-son-of-legendary-packers-quarterback-and-li…
jonas
Those are some courageous kids. God bless ’em. Two of my voting-age spawn have voted already and were excited to cast their ballots for Harris and for sanity and for a future they’d want to live in. I’ll be doing my democratic (large and small D) duty tomorrow in the old-school fashion, as is my wont. I was out in some serious rural backwoods this weekend and of course the tacky Trump swag was out in force, as you might expect, in a lot of yards, but there was also the occasional Harris/Walz sign in front of a farm here and there, which gave me hope. I never saw that in 2016 or 2020.
Mousebumples
@JCJ: thanks!
Upon further review, I think the dkos article has more of an economic breakdown (with charts!), but the wispolitics link is much more high level. But hopefully one or both will be useful.
Elizabelle
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Keep ’em coming.
Definitely discussed tariffs with her, that gas prices are down, and that I was terrified for my retirement investments if Trump gets back in; he will sink the economy. She seemed to accept that.
Also some discussion of all the roadbuilding due to Biden’s infrastructure funding, and the economic benefit to all those jobs and safer roads and bridges.
HinTN
Just added a C note to the NCAAT thermometer. Ballot curing or whatever they deem necessary, it’s money well spent.
rk
It’s really strange sometimes to think about how different people are. I saw Donald Trump in 2015 and despised him. I never saw the apprentice so never appreciated the celebrity power. Did not think he could win because he was such an obvious ass and a fraud. Yet, he won.
Nine years later he’s still here, much much worse, and it’s a close election (supposedly). Tomorrow I go vote against him for the third time. Even if he loses, I’m not sure how I’ll get over this. The absolute dislike of my fellow humans. I saw a neighbor yesterday, who’s a really nice helpful guy, but he hated Obama and is a Republican and I’m sure is pro Trump. I just turned away without saying hello. I don’t see myself changing and going back to the pre Trump era of niceness. They’ve done too much damage, too many people have died and they’ve caused too much mental anguish and suffering. I have no forgiveness in my heart.
WaterGirl
@cmorenc:
It sounds like you’re suggesting that they might be lying about this?
schrodingers_cat
@rk: Yep I cut off my dear friend of over 10 years after she started making Trump friendly noises in early 2017 and told me that her husband voted for Trump. She was a Stein voter.
Redshift
I strongly agree with them in that my hope for “turning the page” is that we will begin to make it unacceptable to act horribly toward other people, revoke the “permission” TCFG had given them to act in their worst impulses.
A couple of weeks ago while canvassing, a MAGA type yelled at me for us not to come back, “especially not for that Jamaican whore!” I’m a big white guy, so I could laugh it off and make it a great campaign story, but on Saturday I ran into another canvasser who had one tell something I can’t even repeat about what he hoped an “illegal” would do to her.
I know it’s not going to just stop, but I’ll hope if it’s not working for the GOP, they’ll stop encouraging it and it will slowly die off.
Chet Murthy
@Redshift: My mom can’t walk the sidewalks of her town (where she’s lived since 1992, the same area since 1975) b/c some MAGAt comes out and screams at her that she needs to go back where she came from, she’s not wanted here, etc, etc, etc. It’s been going on for probably a year now.
If we win (and esp. if Texas turns Blue), maybe he’ll be chastened and STFU. I know he won’t get better, but maybe he’ll be scared into going silent.
dc
@Chet Murthy:
He’s threatening her, can the police be involved in her favor?
Chet Murthy
@dc: It’s Texas, and Tarrant County. You bring the cops in, they’re gonna do nothing, but you -will- enrage the asshole, and maybe he has a gun. As things stand, unless he’s followed her back home (knock wood) he doesn’t actually know where she lives.
It is what it is. It’s why I never go back there.
rk
@schrodingers_cat:
I cut off my best friend of 30 years because she voted for Trump the second time. She called a few months after the election to mend fences, but I did not respond and blocked her number. She said something along the lines of forgetting political differences. I don’t see voting for Trump as a political difference. I look at it as a fundamental character flaw. One that I can’t tolerate in anyone I know. If my spouse was a Trump supporter I’d have divorced him for sure. But he’s despised Republicans far longer than I have. I was the one who used to be the let’s all get along type.
Jackie
This, from David Frum of The Atlantic, spoke to me:
Anoniminous
@Tony Jay:
(If you are still around)
I credit Harris’ campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodriguez for the nuts and bolts. She is the granddaughter of American labor leader Cesar Chavex and American labor activist Helen Fabela Chavez, her parents are Linda Chávez Rodriguez and Arturo Rodriguez both full time volunteers for the United Farm Workers of America. As Ms. Rodriguez says, when other people went to church on Sunday they went to the picket line. Ms. Rodriguez knows what we are up against, how to organize, and how to get a message across in a hostile media environment.
mali muso
On the topic of not letting support of fascism just be a friendly disagreement, I found the latest piece from A.R. Moxon to be on the nose. <excerpt, but go read the whole thing>
Belafon
@Jackie: As the Jason Isbell song says: Be afraid, be very afraid, but do it anyway.
Ramalama
@Elizabelle: Not sure this will help but this video of George Conway talking with Sarah Longwell, two former Republicans, on what will happen if Trump wins is pretty direct. Especially talking about what happens with the US dollar and how markets will implode in the US.
“There’s going to be human and financial capital fleeing once it becomes clear that the USA is no longer this place of relative political stability. ”
Also some great points on immigration and Americans no longer wanting to be in the US. Overall the whole thing is worth a listen.
Loathe the man all you want (I did) but I find he’s been consistent supporter of women abused by men, esp those in power. He was key in E Jean Carroll going to Robbie Kaplan and suing Trump.
And he’s a very good explainer of things.
RevRick
Just read some good news from Montana. A final poll has Tester up by four in a state Trump will win handily, and Native Americans are turning out in big numbers in early voting.
Ramalama
@Elizabelle: Tim Miller writes a very good appeal to specifically Haley voters here.
Note you / your new buddy can click ‘continue reading’ on the drop down sign-in thing to keep reading
Two other really good videos:
Sister Joan Chittister talking with Mary Trump.
Heather Cox Richardson talking with Tom Nichols.
dc
@Elizabelle:
Pete Buttigieg pursuading a bunch of “undecided” voters: youtu.be/YE1f3n_n9UA?si=dvWVimaGz0ajRZxo
Ksmiami
@rk: yep. The Republicans are garbage people at this point. Win or lose they can foad.
nevsky42
I just threw another $25 to NCAAT via ActBlue as a thank you…
And data analysts can be the most annoying people in the world to talk to because it’s always “now this doesn’t mean it WILL happen” but goddammit to shit if data points aren’t breaking Kamala’s way. The only one that’s hard to parse is the increased Republican turnout but if some of that are men and women breaking to Harris because of Dobbs then it might be a quick night. I read it as being just as likely a Harris landslide as Trump threading the needle to win, and I’ll settle for a Harris squeaker in the middle.
Really do want that asswhuppin’…
Anoniminous
@nevsky42:
I’m convinced by this time on Friday we’ll be talking about “Harris Republicans.”
gwangung
@Elizabelle: I’d cite the undeniable stuff:
Low unemployment
Higher stock market
Higher GDP
Higher air travel
Higher tourist travel (more disposable income)
Higher small business starts
Admit the higher prices, but tell ’em you can’t deny the other stuff.
Maxim
@Scamp Dog: Safari browser on my iPad.
Sure Lurkalot
@Elizabelle:
archive.ph/2024.10.15-204150/https://www.economist.com/special-report/2024/10/14/the-american-econom…
As has been noted in previous comments, the legacy media has played their part in people’s opinion that we’re in a recession when Biden’s economy has been nothing short of miraculous by many metrics.
hueyplong
@gwangung: While you’re admitting prices are higher, you might note that they typically drop only in recessions and depressions.
I mean, milk ain’t a nickel anymore.
Chief Oshkosh
@gwangung:
Actually, the higher prices are a sign of a healthy recovery. It’s the literal price we pay for having an economy that heated up enough to bring the earliest and most prosperity back after the pandemic, compared to any other country. Yes there was lots of profiteering that drove part of inflation, but until we get rid of all the old Republican bullshit wrt regulating industries, that was just part of the reality.
So, far from admitting the higher prices, you can honestly state that they were the literal cost of success
ETA: And other countries saw a lot of inflation without as much success, so.
Maxim
@gwangung: Most of those metrics are unimportant, and all but meaningless, to working-class folk.
Dick in Bull City
@cmorenc: I’m surprised and upset that this is happening here. I’ve been a Democratic poll watcher for 30 years, including this year, and hadn’t seen any problems so far in 24. Where was this going on, and were there poll watchers present? This year the party has sent me mostly to Person and Granville Counties, and everything has been fine.
PAM Dirac
@hueyplong:
My grandfather was a butcher and had to support a family through the Great Depression. In the 60s when people would complain about hamburger being a whole dollar a pound he would insist on pointing out that a hell of a lot more people could afford that dollar a pound today than could afford the 10 cents a pound back then.
Sure Lurkalot
@Chief Oshkosh: @Elizabelle:
cepr.net/three-additional-points-on-the-ny-times-piece-on-blah-voters/
This article points out that higher prices do result from wage gains and most have exceeded the rate of inflation. Though I do wish the blurb would have acknowledged the price gouging that has also contributed to higher prices. It’s fine to admit that some people are still struggling and certain sectors are problematic (housing esp) and that Trumps tariffs will be disastrous.
Ramalama
@dc: This is GREAT.
cmorenc
@WaterGirl: No, all I am saying is that in *this* particular county, which is solidly blue overall, these sorts of incidents are likely more outliers than typical – whereas the reported MAGA intimidation behavior would more likely be happening more often at more voting sites in the outlying red counties. I am originally from one of those red counties and the politics and MAGAs are much more feral out there. Here in urban blue WKe County, the more common MO of GOP partisans-at-the-polls is to present a disarmingly friendly, civil next-door-neighbor schtick – think of the way movie charactersHannibal Lechter or German NAZI officers in WW2 away from the battlefield are depicted as disarmingly civil until you dig into actually what their actual agenda is underneath the neighborly polite front.
Sometimes the sheer banality and seeming civil ordinariness of fascist evil is a problem in convincing people that these people are fascists with a radical agenda.
Ksmiami
@cmorenc: yep. Good Germans who would shove us in the ovens following their masters orders
Anoniminous
@cmorenc:
And in their off hours they get together to sing wonderful Volk songs.
dc
@cmorenc: There are some areas around Fuquay-Varina and Wake Forest, for example, that might have some of these in-your-face openly violent Maga people. I’ve been canvassing for Grafstein and Jackson in the first area and Everitt and Hopkins in the other.
Betsy
Thanks for this awesome report!
One of the local officials named is a friend of mine. It really feels close to home!
Glad for the chance to be a part of supporting this good work.
dc
@cmorenc: From Fuquay-Varina, the Republican candidate and current state representative and her husband are harassing and intimidating poll greeters during early voting: indyweek.com/news/wake/poll-volunteers-accuse-nc-rep-erin-pare-and-husband-wayne-of-intimidation-at-…
tam1MI
So today, after literally weeks of text messages flooding my phone urging me to vote Dem, I got one lone text message trashing the Dem and urging me to vote Repug.
I blocked the number.
Geminid
@Anoniminous: Rodriguez also has an experienced deputy in Quentin Fulks. Fulks managed Senator Warnock’s 2022 relection campaign and oversaw a budget of $100 million. Before that he worked on Jay Pritzger’s 2018 campaign, and then in the Pritzger administration alongside Nikki Budzinski, WaterGirl’s new Congresswoman.
Quentin Fulks grew up in south Georgia and his high school history teacher happened to be Jimmy Carter’s niece. She liked to tell her students they could be anything, and used “Uncle Jimmy” for an example. Fulks was working on a Masters Degree at George Washington University when he first worked for Pritzger’s future campaign manager. I think she was running Emily’s List at the time. When Pritzger hired her she brought Fulks along.
I have a hunch Fulks will return to Georgia and run for public office before too long. Fulks is only 35 years old, and he could have a bright future ahead of him.
Melancholy Jaques
@rk:
I feel the same way, but I’m conflicted as to how to respond. when I find out someone I know is a Trumpster.
Because some people are just not political or politically aware. Their support of Trump doesn’t have any real meaning for them. It’s an attachment that is less than which sports teams they go for or which TV shows they watch. I consider this irresponsible, but if I make that known, such people react with “why do you make such a big deal out of it?”
Chet Murthy
An answer: It requires a basic disregard for the well-being of other Americans, to vote for a candidate who will dispossess and oppress those other Americans. If you care so little about (for example) American women that you just don’t care that your candidate wants to send them back to a hellish version of the 50s, that says enormously bad things about you as a person.
Melancholy Jaques
@Chet Murthy:
I’ve tried variations of that and other angles. It doesn’t work. The kind of person I’m talking about is just never going to care about political matters.
Anoniminous
@Geminid:
Rodriquez has surrounded herself with first class people. That’s the test of a leader. A first class leader hires first class people. Second class leaders hire third class leaders. Third class leaders hires family members.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Chet Murthy:
@Melancholy Jaques:
Not that I’ve ever tried it, but I wonder if making it intensely personal and confrontational could make a difference?
“You’re going to fuck me over, do you understand that!?” And then give hard economic reasons why that will be, like the fact that Trump is a billionaire who has always screwed over working people, that he’s the reason why the NLRB, something that has protected workers for nearly a century now, could be destroyed, that he will gut Social Security/Medicare, and destroy the economy with his insane economic ideas. Bringing up the fact that Trump has blood on his hands wrt the abortion bans could also be done too and is responsible for so much suffering and will be if he’s re-elected; that this person won’t be unscathed.
If nothing else, it could be cathartic….
Probably not a good idea tho
cmorenc
Hmm…the D voter protection org has not yet given me an inside poll-watcher assignment yet – if they don’t by later on tonight, maybe I should volunteer to hand out D voter guides at the Hilltop-Needmore site, just in case the Parees show up trying their intimidation schtick. I have been a soccer referee for 27 years (most of them at competitive levels) and you don’t last that long without developing the skill to handle badly behaving assholes while remaining calm and civil yourself.