Balloon Juice - This Fight Is For Everything Archives

Postcard Patriots – Write Postcards for House Campaigns (Open Thread)

by WaterGirl| October 2, 20222:30 pm| 33 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Political Action, Politics, This Fight Is For Everything

Postcard Patriots has a new postcard campaign.

Postcard designs by MazeDancer!

Download designs, print and write postcards.

PostCardPatriots.com is back with their Hold the House! Postcard Campaign

Postcard Patriots Postcard Writing Campaign

Write postcards for these house races:

Yadiro Caraveo, Susan Wild, and Emilia Sykes, and more.

Sign up here.

Writing postcards can make a difference!

MazeDancer:

The GOP only has to flip 6 seats to take control of the House. Democracy is more than in peril, it is teetering on the edge.

That’s why, this year, PostCard Patriots is determined to help “Hold the House!”

Born in 2018, at Balloon-Juice, PostCard Patriots has helped Dems every two years since. We even have addresses for sending PostCards to 3 of the BJ Purple District Candidates: Yadiro Caraveo, Susan Wild, and Emilia Sykes.

If you have any questions, let us know in the comments.

I will also put up a post for Postcards to Voters later this week. Sooner if one of the postcard writers (hint-hint) wants to write something up for me.

Postcard Patriots – Write Postcards for House Campaigns (Open Thread)Post + Comments (33)

Volunteer for Wisconsin (thru Voces de la Frontera) from the Comfort of Your Own Home!

by WaterGirl| September 23, 20222:45 pm| 36 Comments

This post is in: Political Action, This Fight Is For Everything

Raise your hand if you want to see Ron Johnson elected for another term in the Senate.

Bueller? Bueller?

That’s what I thought!

WASHINGTON, DC – SEPTEMBER 14: Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) questions U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Capitol Hill. Blinken was questioned about the Biden administration’s handling of the U.S. withdraw from Afghanistan. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

We have two ways opportunites for you to help bring home wins in Wisconsin.

Participate in the Voces de la Frontera Relational Voter Program

Participate in a Balloon Juice phone bank through Voces de la Frontera

Voces de la Frontera Relational Voter Program

Voces de la Frontera Action would like to invite interested members of the Balloon Juice community to participate in our Relational Voter Program (RVP) for the fall election and beyond. The only requirement is that you have to have family, friends, or other folks in Wisconsin who you can contact and urge to register and vote for Tony Evers, Mandela Barnes, and Josh Kaul (for Attorney General). There’s no limit to the number of people you contact and you can do all of this in your free time, from home.

The RVP works through a phone app that helps you to reach out to your Wisconsin contacts by phone or text message, and record their responses to your appeal. Recording contact responses is important because looking at the recorded results allows us to track the progress of voter mobilization, and direct resources to the places where they are needed the most.

Jose Rivera, our RVP Volunteer Coordinator, will work with you to download the app to your phone, train you in its use, and provide you with coaching as necessary.

If you’re interested in participating, please join us on a Zoom call at 7:30 PM on Wednesday, September 28, where they will answer questions and provide additional details. (If you were part of the recent zoom with Voces, you have already metJosè, who is coordinating this program.)

If you are interested in participating, but you do not do zoom calls (I’m looking at you, Omnes!) the training can be done by phone or though a powerpoint presentation.

If you would like more information before you decide, or you just want to learn more about it, join us for a Q & A Balloon Juice post on Monday at 8pm.

Balloon Juice Phone Bank

For the phone bank, you don’t have to live in Wisconsin or even know anyone in Wisconsin.

If you are interested in learning more about the phone banking, that will be covered in the Q & A Balloon Juice post on Monday at 8pm.

Please send email to me (WaterGirl) if you would like to attend the zoom next Wednesday.

Volunteer for Wisconsin (thru Voces de la Frontera) from the Comfort of Your Own Home!Post + Comments (36)

We Have Agency, Pilot Program, 7 States

by WaterGirl| June 26, 20213:05 pm| 69 Comments

This post is in: Political Action, This Fight Is For Everything, We Have Agency

Repost from Thursday evening:

The two previous ‘We Have Agency’ posts laid out an idea and asked for volunteers who are interested in participating. We got something like 50 volunteers. So great to see!

Both of those posts can be found under this link in the sidebar. Going forward, all posts related to this project will be available at that link.

We Have Agency, Let’s Use It

Nyms of the people who volunteered a week or two ago are listed in the first comment on this post.

If you are on that list and are still interested in participating, the simplest way to start is for you to send an email to me. Then I can reply, I’ll have your best email address, I can add you to the list, and we will go from there.

If you are interested but you are not on that list, please chime in with a comment, and then send me an email.

⭐️ ADOPT-A-STATE

We are starting with a pilot program for these seven states. A proof of concept, if you will.

Arizona
Florida
Georgia
Michigan
Ohio
Pennsylvania
Texas

Starting with these states will accomplish two things: 1) get a jump-start on action in critical states, and 2) work out the kinks early, before we move forward with a large number of states.

⭐️ WHAT ARE WE ASKING PARTICIPANTS TO DO?

Decide to get involved. Take action.

We can form a team for each of the 7 high-priority states.

Different people have different skills and interests, so we are not asking every participant to do all of these things. You can make a difference by choosing to do even one of these things – choose the activities that best suit your strengths and your interests.

Decide to adopt a state.

Nyms with a ? indicate that the person has volunteered for one of the 7 states in the pilot project.

Choose your state(s) carefully.

State teams will allow people who don’t live in states under consideration to play an important role.

If you are going to make contact with elected officials, adopting a state where you live is best – elected officials will care less about you than they might about one of their own constituents.

But for other research and roles, out-of-state is fine. Maybe you want the role of compiling your team’s information once it has been gathered – you most certainly don’t have to live in-state in order to do that!

Once you have chosen a state (and hopefully others have chosen your state, too!)

We are asking you to to the following (collectively, within your state team).

collect and share information
research anti-democratic efforts to limit access to voting in any way
research anti-democratic efforts that allow the will of the voters to be overturned
research anti-democratic efforts that will serve to intimidate voting officials
use social networking if that’s your thin, and be the “eyes and ears” of the project
identify elected officials to contact
establish contact with elected officials
establish contact with state and local Democratic party chapters
identify potential organizations to contact
establish contacts with other organizations/activists
share that information with the blog in whatever way suits you (and we will enter it into a spreadsheet)

This is most definitely not a one-person job, particularly because time is of the essence.

show full post on front page

We Have Agency, Pilot Program, 7 StatesPost + Comments (69)

Voces de la Frontera Action – Ask Them Anything

by WaterGirl| June 16, 20217:35 pm| 108 Comments

This post is in: Political Action, Political Fundraising 2021-22, This Fight Is For Everything

Voces de la Frontera is Wisconsin’s leading state-wide immigrant rights organization, and the advocacy arm of the group is Voces de la Frontera Action.

Because they are one of the primary groups we are looking to support this year, we asked them to participate in a Q & A with us on Balloon Juice.

Voces de la Frontera Action

show full post on front page

Voces de la Frontera Action – Ask Them AnythingPost + Comments (108)

‘We Have Agency, Let’s Use It’ Follow-Up

by WaterGirl| June 12, 20213:00 pm| 150 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Political Action, This Fight Is For Everything, We Have Agency

This is a follow-up to the post earlier this week: We Have Agency, Let’s Use It

⭐️ PARTICIPANTS SO FAR

These are the people who expressed interest on that post or followed up with an email. Definitely enough interest to move forward!

*Almost Retired
*AM in NC
*Argiope
*Avalie
Benw (data)
*Blue Galangal
BlueGuitarist
brantl
cain
*Cameron
*Capri
Capricorn
CaseyL
*ceece
*Chetan Murthy
*Chief Oshkosh
*Dahlia
*dnfree
Dr. Fungus
Faithful Lurker + husband
featheredsprite
*Feathers (data)
*FelonyGovt
*HinTN
hitchhiker
*ian
*Josie
*Kathleen
*km
*Madeleine
*Martin
Nancy
*neldob
*O. Felix Culpa
Omnes Omnibus
*prostratedragon (data)
Raflw
Rocks
*sab
*schrodingers_cat
Subsole
*SiubhanDuinne
*Suburban Mom
Sure Lurkalot (data)
surfk9
terraformer
*Torrey
*UncleEbeneezer
*zhenia goglia
WaterGirl
*Woodrow/asim (not available for a few weeks)

*indicates that the person stepped up in today’s thread.

Benw has stepped forward to be the google sheet guy. (Yay, Benw!) I believe one other person offered to help with that, but I don’t recall who that was. So if that was you, please chime in below!

Interested in being part of this? Chime in below. And please mention what state you’re in, and the states you are interested in. And of course say something if your name has been added in error. What follows begins first with an analysis of the political situation, and then the strategy follows from that.

⭐️ ANALYSIS

The right wing has discovered key weaknesses in the US governance model and is exploiting these weaknesses to consolidate their own power. Specifically:

Republican-controlled legislatures are giving themselves the power to override electoral outcomes on unproven allegations of fraud, should Democratic candidates win more votes than Republicans.Their goal is nothing less than “legislative nullification” of elections.
They are putting in place criminal sentences and fines meant to intimidate and scare away poll workers and nonpartisan administrators.
They are seeking to restrict access to the ballot, and to make the election process itself inaccessible, especially to voters of color.
They are working this time at the state, rather than the federal, level. This is consistent with their 50+ year strategy of taking control of state levers of power first, before using them to isolate and neutralize federal governmental institutions. Like it or not, we should recognize that this approach has served them well.

The right wing has assessed that changing voter demographics mean that their program cannot reliably win enough elections to maintain their power, if elections are carried out under the existing governance model.

Rather than changing their program, they are seeking to legally overthrow the model.
Their goal is to subvert, rather than participate in, a democratic model of electoral politics in which the state acts as a neutral guarantor that everyone can vote, and every vote counts.

We are faced with a slow-motion, state-based, insurrection carried out by the right wing through the political party that they have come to dominate.

They are doing this legally and completely out in the open
They are confident of their success and confident that nobody will make a serious attempt to stop them.
So far, this assessment has proved correct.

This means that for the left, a response that involves only electoral politics will not be sufficient to stop an enemy which is not playing electoral politics by the old rules any more.

Instead the left has to add counter-political warfare and civic action to its strategy set.
It also means that for the left, a focus on national-level politics and federal solutions is inadequate.
Instead the left has to focus on a fight for power at the state level because that’s where our enemies are operating.

⭐️ OVERVIEW

We are asking interested people to:

collect information
do research
establish or renew contacts with other organizations/activists, both on the left and in the center
and share that information with the blog

What we are not asking people to do is enter data (unless that’s your thing) or organize demonstrations.

Tangible benefits:

information is power.
the information we collect can help lead to better choices for what to focus on.
we can support collective actions to fight abuses.
it helps fight the discouragement and sense of hopelessness that can spring up in the face of everything that’s going on, and in the face of setbacks at the federal level, such as Supreme Court decisions that have decimated a level playing field.
we can model optimism, as we fight for the idea that we can make this a better situation if we try.

About what we do with the information:

Always and everywhere, we want to follow the lead of the local people and organizations, and support their actions when we can.

⭐️ STRATEGY FOR ACTION – USE CROWDSOURCING: GATHER INFORMATION / ORGANIZE / ACT

We do have agency if we are willing to use it.

About the threats: We can begin by creating a spreadsheet where the rows represent states:

There are 23 states where the Republicans hold a trifecta. We can do the research, and then the information can be evaluated for people to determine priorities.

States where Trump lost.These will be the most critical, they have to get these electoral college (EC) votes back, if they can’t do that they have to flip other states to compensate. That’s a harder lift.
States where Trump won narrowly.They have to hold onto these.
States where Trump won bigly.Less likely they will spend resources here rather than elsewhere but we can’t take it for granted.

There are 15 “mixed-fecta” states. We can do the research, and then the information can be evaluated for people to determine priorities.

States with 1 Democratic-controlled chamber in the Legislature.Sometimes Democrats flake off, ask Joe Manchin
States with 2 Democratic-controlled chambers in the Legislature.
States with Democratic governors.

About the threats: We can organize the, with the columns represent threats of the sort described above in the “Analysis” section. We can categorize them by:

Changes to the process by which a state certifices its election results.
Administratively or legally remove or threaten election administrators or supervisors.
Voter disenfranchisement / interference in the voting process
“Culture war” tactics meant to drive right-wing voters. (These often appear as referenda or ballot initiatives. They can show up anywhere, even in Democratic-trifecta states.)
Additional categories are possible of course. What might they be?

About the response to the threats: We can collect and organize information on groups that are responding to threats.

Electoral responses are all well and good, but we need to remember that our enemies are not playing electoral politics any more.
We need to target the “boots on the ground” (BOTG) groups who specialize in counter-political warfare, civic action, demonstrations, and political media strategies.

⭐️ Note: Capricorn has fleshed out more specifics for things we can do – but there’s only so much information that can be put into a single post, so we will save that for the next one.

‘We Have Agency, Let’s Use It’ Follow-UpPost + Comments (150)

Stacey Abrams: Call Your Senator Every Single Day in June (Yes, You!)

by WaterGirl| June 10, 202112:37 pm| 98 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Political Action, Political Fundraising 2021-22, This Fight Is For Everything

Stacey Abrams and Fair Fight Action has launched what she is calling Hot Call Summer. In order to pass the For The People Act, she needs our help to make sure our Senators know how important this legislation is to you.

Call 888-453-3211 to be connected to your Senators now.

Stacey Abrams:

We can’t wait any longer for Congress to protect Americans’ freedom to vote, which is why we need Senators to pass the For The People Act (HR1/S1). With voting rights under attack in 48 out of 50 state legislatures across the country, the moment has never been more urgent, and it will take all of us to ensure that Congress passes the voting rights protections our country and democracy desperately need. No matter where you live—blue state, red state, or somewhere in between—we need to make sure that EVERY U.S. Senator is hearing from their constituents about the urgent need to pass HR1/S1.

Today I’m launching Hot Call Summer— because in order to pass the For The People Act, we need your help to make sure our Senators know how important this legislation is to you.

Here’s what you can do right now:

No matter where you live, no matter what your Senator has already said, I need you to call your US Senators every day in June to demand that Senators pass the For The People Act to protect our freedom to vote.

Call 888-453-3211 to be connected to your Senators now – and don’t be afraid to call them daily to keep the pressure on.

Join Fair Fight Action’s text bank days of action on June 11, 16, 17, 18, 21, 22 and 23 to ask voters in key states to call their Senators about the For The People Act. If you have not already attended Fair Fight’s text training on our new text platform, Impactive, sign up for a training here for everything you’ll need to join one of these text banks.

Join me and special guests throughout June for virtual events across the country to share the importance of passing the For The People Act.
Southern Town Hall
June 10, 8pm EST/7pm CST
With Congresswoman Nikema Williams and special guests
REGISTER

Northeast and Midwest Town Hall
June 14, 8pm EST
With special guests TBA
REGISTER

Southwest Town Hall
June 17, 9pm EST, 6 pm MST, 6 pm PDT
With Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, Nevada Assembly Speaker Jason Frierson and special guests
REGISTER

Sign up, call, and share with your networks — together, we can ensure that the For The People Act is passed, and that voters across the country have their freedom to vote protected from Republican attacks.

Thank you for all that you do,

Stacey Abrams

Come on guys, let’s do this. Every single day.

If you call, you get to watch this beautiful video.

Open thread.

Update from dww44 in the comments:

According to Lauren Groh-Wargo on last night’s LOD show, Stacey’s former campaign manager and the CEO of Fair Fight Action, our calling is to counter the volume of anti We the People Act calls that all the Senators are receiving. To let our Senators know that we support passage of the bill.

Stacey Abrams: Call Your Senator Every Single Day in June (Yes, You!)Post + Comments (98)

We Have Agency, Let’s Use It

by WaterGirl| June 8, 20217:00 pm| 148 Comments

This post is in: Guest Posts, Political Action, This Fight Is For Everything, We Have Agency

One of our Balloon Juice peeps read Betty Cracker’s post last week about the Republican attempts to change the law in several states to allow the legislature to override election results they don’t like, and he wrote to me with an idea that I will share with you later on in the post.

Here’s another good article on the subject: Republicans want to change state election laws. Here’s how they’re doing it.

In the comments on Betty’s post, and in Adam’s post the previous week, many readers were grateful for the posts, but seemed not to know what to do in the face of these strategies. I was one of them! Some were discouraged, some felt powerless, and some were looking to possible legislative changes on the federal level to prevent these strategies from going into effect. I am hoping that the DOJ can fight some of the changes, but can we count on Washington to save us?

I watched myself these past 5 years, as I counted on one institution after another after another to put a stop to the illegal, immoral, outrageous, undemocratic and autocratic actions of the previous administration, and to hold them accountable. Surely, I said to myself every time, these things should not be possible in a democracy.

To quote Stalin: “It doesn’t matter who votes. It matters who counts the votes.” I never thought that would be true in America.

Yet here we are.

Even while holding the House, the Senate, and the Presidency, the should-be-illegal, outrageous, undemocratic and autocratic actions continue, particularly in the states. Just like with abortion, the states are where most of the action is taking place.

Maybe we need something now, to play the role of the women’s marches that helped energize and activate us. We did win in 2018, after all, in no small part due to that activism.

So I want to share with you Capricorn’s idea, in his own words. I think it’s a great idea, and I can’t wait to see what you guys think of it, too.

I am a long-time Balloon Juice reader, and like many of you, I am alarmed by all the attacks on our democracy.

We obviously need to keep doing what we have been doing: registering people to vote, canvassing, writing postcards, getting the vote out at election time. I am not suggesting that the actions proposed below would take the place of all those things, but instead would be done in addition to our usual efforts, to help stop the laws that allow voting results to be overturned.

There are additional actions that have the potential to help stop the Republican attempts to change the law in several states to allow the legislature to override election results they don’t like, and I believe that Balloon Juice is uniquely positioned to be helpful in that effort.

The key fights on this are going to be in states where the Republicans have a trifecta, and if we don’t pay attention to this stuff now, by the next election it will be too late.

There are differing degrees of urgency in different states, so it seems like the strategic move would be to do some research first.

There are 23 Republican trifectas. To begin with, we could ask readers to check with their Democratic elected officials and other organizations to find out if Republicans are moving these bills in those states.

After that, or at the same time if we have enough volunteers, we could identify the states that are not Republican trifectas, but have strong enough majorities in both houses to overrule a veto. Then we could also look at the 12 mixed-fecta states.

That would allow us to target our resources.

We could use the information gained to construct an action matrix, and plan on making it a permanent part of the site through at least the 2024 election. The rows of the matrix – imagine it as a spreadsheet – are the states, and the columns are the moves being made by the Republicans in each state to alter/undermine election laws and election administrative procedures. The Republican trifecta states are likely the most critical, but “mixed-fecta” states are important, as well, particularly in swing states.

Where the changes to the election laws are moving, one go-to response could be to mount large, public, peaceful counterdemonstrations that call out the Republican tactics for what they are. That will not stop the bills from moving but the publicity will be inconvenient for the Republicans and it will tend to motivate the Democrats in Washington. The key is building some kind of public pushback.

Mounting these demonstrations is not a job for the Balloon Juice readership. Nor is it a job for Democratic officials and Party people; at the end of the day they are not built for this kind of work. We could make a special effort to reach out to the “boots-on-the-ground” people that are good at it. Stacey Abrams in GA for example, and the people around her. I have connections to various organizations and can help a little with this once the list of states is built.

We should follow the lead of the local folks. They will be the experts on timing, and tactics. Whatever help they need, we could help them organize it through Balloon Juice. In particular, if they’re trying to spin up big demonstrations they will need money for buses and for a million other things as well. As soon as they get off the bus, everyone looks for the porta-potty. Those cost money. PA system for the rally? Costs money. Permits for the march? They cost money too. You can’t build demonstrations on timelines as short as these without money, it’s absolutely essential.

This effort could be critically important, and time is of the essence.

Who’s up for this?

~ Capricorn

Balloon Juice is already funding candidates and organizing groups, and many of us are politically active in real life. This is one more way that we as a group could take part in the fight. It gives us one more front in the fight to keep our democracy.

We have already identified what the problems are; we talk about that every day. In this thread, can we talk about about what to do about this and what actions we can take?

If you’re interested, we have already thought through more details that we can share, but the first step is seeing if there is interest.

I worked for a boss whose style was Ready, Fire, Aim, which never led to the desired outcome. That’s why I particularly like Capricorn’s suggested approach of doing the research so we can focus on the most critical states first. That takes time and effort, but it seems like the focus we would gain from the research would make it worth the time.

What are your thoughts about this approach? Have you seen other group approaches that should be considered?

Are you up for this or some other collective effort on Balloon Juice?

We Have Agency, Let’s Use ItPost + Comments (148)