Balloon Juice - 2026 Activism Archives

It’s Time to Step Up, Time to Take Action

We haven’t seen the likes of this before on U.S. soil.
It’s simultaneously shocking, and not shocking at all.

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Running in the Red: Amanda Bell Aims to Flip Wisconsin-6

by TaMara| April 11, 20265:00 pm| 35 Comments

This post is in: 2026 Activism, Politics, Proud to Be A Democrat, Running in the Red

From TaMara: What a year this week has been. I am committed to focusing on the good things, mostly Artemis II to the moon, and of course, our brave candidates running in red states and districts. On the homefront, gardening and critters. I am also making an effort to get out in the community more to make sure those who feel as I do, know I’m out here with them.

If you need some feel good vibes, here is Nora (my duck) having a spa day: Duck Zen Nothing brightens a day like a duck taking a shower.

We have a new candidate! And she has critters!

And because both MazeDancer and I think time is of the essence, and we can all use some feel-good stories, we are not limiting ourselves to primary winners. Especially with late-in-the-summer primaries. We aren’t picking favorites, either. Any Democratic primary candidate is welcome to join our little adventure.

Finally, a reminder: this is an opportunity to reach out to those souls running in deep Red Districts or Red States and learn what their experience has been. Is there a shifting landscape? Are they finding support from unusual people? What made them run?

What this isn’t. We are not endorsing any candidate, we just want to learn about their journey. Of course, if later we find out they are a closet Nazi-racist-transphobe-rapist, we’ll deal with that appropriately. We don’t play here. FAFO

***

From MazeDancer:

Running in the Red – Amanda Bell Aims to Flip Wisconsin-6

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In the movie “Network”, when news anchor Howard Beale shouts out “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore”, he could have been raging for almost every Democrat – and increasing amounts of GOP – in our upcoming votes-instead-of-pitchforks midterms.

Wisconsin-6 Congressional District may be no exception.

According to Amanda Bell, a fierce candidate for the right to represent Democrats in the battle to unseat GOP incumbent Gregg Grothman, people in her district are worried, upset, and angry.

”The cost of living is crushing people.” Amanda reports. “People are working hard and still falling behind.”

And on top of soaring prices everywhere, “They’re telling me they don’t want this illegal war.”

Amanda describes her potential GOP opponent as “bending over backwards to make Project 2025 come true, and I cannot stand by and watch it happen. Glenn is not well liked in the district and right now he is even more vulnerable.”

Further, WIsconsin voters are “worried that the people in power won’t face any consequences for what they’re doing to our democracy.”

The wants and needs of people in Wisconsin sound like Americans everywhere.

Amanda lists, “Affordable childcare, support for public schools, and making sure their parents and grandparents can access elder care with dignity. These aren’t partisan. issues. These are kitchen table issues, and they’re what this campaign is about”

Maybe it’s the smell of GOP blood in the water, but there are 8 Democrats vying in the WI-6 primary. But Amanda is “the only woman in this race, the only scientist, and the only candidate with federal leadership experience.”

Amanda grew up on a dairy farm. Worked multiple jobs to put herself through college and, eventually, made her way to a managerial position in the US Geological Survey

Only to have DOGE and the GOP destroy her life’s work. “I watched them fire employees without cause. People we had spent two years trying to hire.”

The Trunp/DOGE intentional stupidity was crushing, “I saw them removing federal publications simply because they contained words like “diversity,” which makes it nearly impossible to discuss the plants and animals in our rivers and lakes when you can’t talk about species diversity.”

The GOP response was infuriating. “And I watched our representatives do nothing, or worse, bend over backwards to help dismantle our public institutions while doing everything in their power to make themselves and their friends wealthier. I couldn’t stay silent. I had to act.”

Her front-row seat to the DOGE dismantling makes her uniquely qualified to hit the ground running in DC. ‘I am someone who has actually done the work, managed federal dollars responsibly, and led people through some of the hardest challenges our government has faced.

“ I know how Washington works because I worked it, and I know exactly what’s being destroyed right now because I watched it happen up close.”

When asked if she has noticed any shifts or changes in GOP voters, Amanda replies, “Yes, and it’s significant. People are realizing they were lied to…The promises aren’t being kept. The pain is real. And people are paying attention in a way I haven’t seen before.”

The current Congressional Representative won in 2024, with 61% of the vote. And we know that voters have lopped off bigger percentages than that across the country. At last report, GOP incumbent Grothman has half a million cash-on-hand. This is before the Billionaire Bucks show up once the primary is over in August.

The entire field of 8 Dem prospects has a combined cash-on-hand of less than a fifth of that. The two men with the most to spend have about 32K each. Amanda’s contributions are way below that. She may not, now, be rich in donations, but she is abundantly blessed with fighting spirit.

“I’m someone who will show up, listen, and fight like hell for the people of this district. That’s not a talking point. That’s how I’ve lived my entire life.”

Reporting on key Balloon-Juice concerns, Amanda has two dogs. “Copper, an Australian shepherd and blue heeler mix who has decided his true calling is herding our lawnmower.”

The other pup, Veta, a livestock guardian, “takes her job very seriously, protecting our goats and property from anything that comes around, whether it walks on two legs or four.”.

Yes, goats!

“We have 17 of them on our hobby farm in Pardeeville. And they are, simultaneously, the most entertaining and most stubborn creatures I’ve ever encountered, which, honestly, makes them good practice for Congress.”

Amanda further notes on the goats,“They each have their own personality, they have strong opinions about everything, and they will absolutely find the one gap in the fence you forgot to check. But they’re ours, and we love every chaotic one of them.”

Amanda was brought to Running in the Red by BJ commenter Trivia Man. Having run for Congress in WI, himself, in 2000, Trivia Man knows what it takes to represent the district well.

He gives Amanda Bell high grades. “I was impressed with her passion and grasp of the issues. I think Grothman is particularly vulnerable, he is an empty suit that only has I AM REPUBLICAN as a resume.”

We look forward to following Amanda out on the trail.

Amanda’s website

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Now it’s your turn! Bring us your candidates. We want to meet such warriors and say hello.

We are welcoming primary candidates to Running in the Red. We are open to any Democrat brave, or foolish, enough to step up to bring the GOP down.

Contact either TaMara, at the Balloon-Juice sidebar link, or MazeDancer at PostCardPatriots at g-mail or BlueSky

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TaMara again: I’m really looking forward to hear more from Amanda’s campaign experiences. Let’s make this an activism open thread. Let’s hear about efforts in your community or your own personal efforts. How are you maintaining your sanity?

Running in the Red: Amanda Bell Aims to Flip Wisconsin-6Post + Comments (35)

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

by WaterGirl| April 8, 202611:57 am| 50 Comments

This post is in: 2026 Activism, Political Action, Politics, Reports from the Field

Nelle is always an inspiration to me, and I’ll bet that we can all use some inspiration right about now, so once again 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 as much motivated by FEAR as by HOPE.

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

Voting, Community, and Porch Wine

Neighbor to Neighbor is a localized, focused effort for getting out the vote for Democratic candidates. A neighbor in a specified area establishes an identity in that neighborhood by going door to door, handing out candidate and proposition information, by being available to answer questions, by being a very local go-to person for each election. Behind the scenes, there is also data collection on likelihood to vote, to vote Democratic, to volunteer, etc. I was startled recently to see Indivisible touting Neighbor to Neighbor as a program that they invented in 2022; I’d been doing it for two years by then.

I am going on my seventh year of being my neighborhood N2N person. The opportunity walked by my house in 2020, when I was out on my porch. During the Covid lockdown, much of my visiting occurred from my porch to passing neighbors as they walked by. A couple I hadn’t seen before stopped to ask me about my sign, promoting Admiral Mike Frankin for US Senate. “Do you really like that guy?” I went into my reasons. They said that they lived on the other side of the main street that set our little neighborhood apart. “Do you know if there are other Democrats around here?”

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I told them that we had only moved there the year before, so, especially with the lockdown, there were a lot of people I hadn’t met. “But,” I said, “I know that six houses at this end of our long block are sympathetic to Democrats.”

Before I knew it, I was recruited to “work” the neighborhood. They were right in sensing that I like to talk to people and that I am not intimidated about approaching people I don’t know.

What we have in our suburb in this couple likely isn’t present in many places. The couple, let’s call them A and M, have chosen, in retirement, to serve the furtherance of democracy and to work within the Democratic party to do so. Many weeks, they do it more than full-time. They have organized the precincts into neighborhoods, most covered by a dedicated volunteer. A and M also register voters, hold fundraisers, and encourage volunteers.

Before each election, I get a list of Democratic and No Party registered voters. I visit all those houses, less for primaries and special elections and usually, at least three times for general elections. I hang bags of basic voter information and candidate brochures on door knobs and I talk to residents who answer their doors. I know less about the data collection end of things. Tech and I are not getting along lately. But I ask my questions, turn in my handwritten notes, and let A do his thing.

In addition, I walk a lot in the neighborhood and chat with anyone wanting to slow down and chat on the sidewalk. This is mostly a warm weather activity. Right now, more people are coming out of the cold weather hibernation.

At a decent stride, it takes me ten minutes to walk around my block, but when others are out, it can take thirty to sixty minutes. How is Bobby, our oldest resident at 87, doing after his last surgery? He’s graduated from walker to cane. What is that wonderful smell coming from Hariz’s backyard? A lamb on the spit, roasting, celebrating the end of Ramadan. One of the three Andrew’s at my end of the block has finally gotten work after being laid off over a year ago. Saed is back from taking his father from the West Bank to Jordan for healthcare, escorting him through many Israeli checkpoints. There are eighteen boys rapidly growing up on this street. Even they will sometimes chat a bit with me.

By now, people come to me with voting questions. A son moved to Minnesota and is it too late for him to register up there or should he come back to Iowa to vote? Can a snowbird get an absentee ballot from Iowa while in Arizona for winter months? One woman quietly asked me if I could keep dropping the information at her house, even though her adult daughter, the only registered Democrat in the household, had moved out. “I’m learning a lot,” she said later, as she stepped out onto the porch and pulled the door shut. Did she not want her Republican husband to hear? (That is one of my happy stories – she and her husband are no longer registered Republicans.)

I influence people on a very small scale. I also need community and I don’t generally have time to be shy about building it around me; we’ve lived in seven states and two countries in the 46 years that we’ve been married. I learned early enough to jump in and befriend people. Here in Iowa, I started a women’s coffee group, gathered from Democratic meetings, that meets often.

We bought a house with a big front porch and porch wine just sort of evolved. Like-minded neighbors began coming over in warm weather when I text “Porch Wine at 5:00.” Some actually drink wine, some water. Plates of appetizers are brought and passed around. Conversation can be light or it can turn serious, as in a discussion of who has what skills and assets to share if things get rough in terms of civil unrest. We take cookies to each other and to Bobby, who loves them homemade. I know what kind of beer two neighbors like as I take them gifts when they help us deal with snow clearing (my 82 year old husband insists on shoveling it, with my help). The younger men on the street often come over and help us finish what we’ve started.

Tomorrow, the coffee group will gather at A and M’s house to put together bags of information for the primary in June. I’ll start hanging them on doors shortly. I’m not sure how long I can keep climbing up and down the porch steps, but I’m good for this year. And I’m casting my eye about for who can take over when the time comes.

So, yes, I’m volunteering to help. But, as with so many volunteer actions, I receive as well as give. There’s commiseration these days, of course, There s also laughter and generosity. A neighbor brings a bouquet of flowers from her garden. Another has tried a new dessert recipe and want to know if I like it. As Minneapolis has shown us, we save democracy neighborhood by neighborhood. Neighbor by neighbor. Vote by vote.

Boots on the Ground, and Out In the Field, Nelle Style!Post + Comments (50)

Guerrilla Political Messaging: Introducing the Card Campaign for Democracy

by WaterGirl| April 1, 20264:01 pm| 44 Comments

This post is in: 2026 Activism, Political Action, Politics

The post-war German bestseller Every Man Dies Alone, by Hans Fallada, was a lightly-fictionalized account of the real-world exploits of Otto and Elise Hampel in Nazi-era Berlin. What did they do?

From 1940 to 1942, the Hempels handwrote over 287 postcards urging people to refuse to cooperate with the Nazis, to withhold funds, to evade military service, and to overthrow Hitler. The postcards – which were riddled with spelling errors and grammatical mistakes – were left in mailboxes and stairwells all over Berlin.

Could such guerilla political messaging be effective? The Nazis thought so. Authorities assembled a team to find and stop the campaign. It took them over two years to catch the Hempels. The Nazis were so rattled that the Hempels were executed by guillotine in 1943.

We at Balloon Juice can do the same sort of guerilla political messaging with much less risk of decapitation. Meet THE CARD CAMPAIGN FOR DEMOCRACY.

The Card Campaign provides downloadable digitals files of cards targeting the issues of most concern to Americans – ICE raids, inflation, safe protesting, the march towards fascism, etc. They upload new cards and templates in PDF formats every two to four weeks. Participants can 1) download them, 2) print them out at home, or 3) have them printed at a print shop.

Next step: release them into the wild!

The Card Campaign’s website provides An Introverts Guide to Card Distribution. They suggest leaving a few cards on shelves at grocery stores, retails outlets, office supply stores, etc, “but not so many that you piss off a store employee or manager.” They also suggest dropping off cards at bookstores, on public transit, and on parked cars (but not on the windshield). For more ideas, check out the Introverts Guide to Card Distribution yourself!

They also have guides for extroverts and the in-betweens as well on their website.

Some sample cards – there are over 30 to choose from.

What say you? I think this sounds like fun. If the German Nazis were rattled by a similar campaign, I can only assume our home-grown Nazis will feel the same way. If there’s interest, we’ll put up a post so we can share our card-distribution experiences.

Will it change the world? Probably not. But it’s a low-cost/no-cost chance to fight back, inspire others, and maybe change some minds. As the Card Campaign says: “Saving Democracy one card at a time.“

You get to choose the cards for the issues that are most important to you!

Guerrilla Political Messaging: Introducing the Card Campaign for DemocracyPost + Comments (44)

Ruckus on Thursday Morning Open Thread (Apr 23, 2026 @ 9:50pm)

Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq) on Thursday Night Open Thread (Apr 23, 2026 @ 9:49pm)

lowtechcyclist on Thursday Night Open Thread (Apr 23, 2026 @ 9:34pm)

Mr. Bemused Senior on Thursday Night Open Thread (Apr 23, 2026 @ 9:30pm)

Ksmiami05 on Thursday Night Open Thread (Apr 23, 2026 @ 9:29pm)

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

Is trump is trying to break black America over his knee? signs point to ‘yes’.

Bark louder, little dog.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Keep the Immigrants and deport the fascists!

Dear legacy media: you are not here to influence outcomes and policies you find desirable.

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

Running in the Red: Amanda Bell Aims to Flip Wisconsin-6

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

Voting, Community, and Porch Wine

Guerrilla Political Messaging: Introducing the Card Campaign for Democracy

2026 Activism

It’s Time to Step Up, Time to Take Action

We haven’t seen the likes of this before on U.S. soil. It’s simultaneously shocking, and not shocking at all.

Voting, Community, and Porch Wine

We haven’t seen the likes of this before on U.S. soil.
It’s simultaneously shocking, and not shocking at all.