We knew it was going to be like this, but that doesn’t mean we are short on surprises
A history of the birds of Europe :.London :Published by the Author,1871-1881..
I don’t know what to say about Donald Trump having COVID, and there are not enough cliches in the world to describe the sensation of this ongoing descent into political chaos that seems to have really picked up speed in the past oh 7-10 days and is not getting any calmer in the approaching months. We kind of knew it was going to be like this I guess, but that doesn’t mean we are short on surprises.
That aside, you know I don’t like to get political here crying laughing emoji, but I did want to send out an election issue CP at some point, and the fact that we are almost exactly a month out, and that earlier this week there were some real dark “what the fuck should we be doing right now” conversations in this household make the timing feel right today. This one will be heavy on links, because I strive to be of use to you.
But first, let’s see where do we stand right now. Election experts are concerned that this one could actually break America, with the incumbent taking concrete steps toward rejecting its outcome on the basis of illegitimacy. Republicans are about to further minority rule by hypocritically filling a Supreme Court seat during an election. Voting rights are under attack by that same party, millions of people have been protesting regularly since 2017, prompting violent police crackdowns and state laws making protest illegal. No justice for Breonna Taylor. I did not watch the debate, but I gather it was not awesome, although to be clear, there is nothing Trump showed us that he hasn’t shown us many times before, which has only built up his power and popularity in the party. And now, after downplaying and mocking and lying and putting us all at risk over and over and over again during this awful pandemic that has killed 2 million people and 200,000 Americans which is like 66 nine elevens, he has the disease himself, with somewhere between an 8% and 18% chance of dying from it.
And there’s an election in 32 days. So yeah, if you are like me and pretty much everyone I talk to lately, you are freaking out a little. I will take a quick minute here to note that this issue will really only be of use to readers who want to remove Trump from office and/or live in a democracy. It is possible you do not share this sentiment, and while I love all my readers, sorry we can’t really agree to disagree on this one. There are many valid and understandable differences of political opinion to be had, but this election honestly isn’t really about those differences. This election is about a cruel bigot, an assault on democratic practices, and a waning number of years to avoid irreversible climate catastrophe—non-negotiables around the old palace. I know it is very hard to vote against one’s own usual political alignment, but I really, really hope people take this reality into their hearts in coming weeks.
OK now that we got that out of the way, it can be difficult to know how to get involved even in a “normal” election year, because even for people who are engaged in some kind of activism or local politics, a presidential election is kind of its own thing. We donated in the primary and will give to the Biden campaign, but now that it’s rapidly approaching I find myself wanting to do more, and hopefully with broader impacts too. So over the week I have been doing some reading and I asked a few smarty pants friends who work in organizing and/or elections what they are doing, worrying about, recommending. (Thank you to Jen Kim, a tireless campaigner and organizer; radical activist and donor Farhad Ebrahimi; and Molly Danahy, ass-kicking attorney with the Campaign Legal Center.) And now I got a list of things you and I both can support and/or volunteer on.
The Biden/Harris campaign
This one is pretty straightforward but needs to be said. The outcomes of a Biden victory move us closer to, not further from, the country I want to live in, so that is the campaign I am throwing my weight behind. Just sticking to climate for now, Biden believes in and accepts the seriousness of climate change and his climate plan is actually pretty strong, having consulted with progressive candidates’ teams after the primary. As the New Yorker editors point out, Biden may lack progressive bona fides, but he brings a certain emotional honesty, empathy, and perhaps most importantly, he is engaged and movable on the issues I care about.
Multiracial organizing efforts
A presidential campaign can only go into so many communities, and maybe they fixate on swing voters gazing plaintively out a diner window in small town Ohio. In addition, they work wholly in service of one end (an important end!) rather than sustaining long-term power. Both things are necessary.
The Frontline & Election Defenders
The Frontline and Election Defenders are 501c3 and 501c4 efforts resulting from a collaboration between the Movement for Black Lives’ Electoral Justice Project and the Working Families Party. The two initiatives are enlisting and training volunteers for a combination of tactics to get out the vote and ensure that polling locations are safe, reliable, and accessible. That includes being a poll worker, protesting, doing voter turnout, providing people with accurate information, and preventing voter suppression. The idea is to engage as many of the 25 million+ people who have taken to the streets this year in electoral politics.
This one comes from Farhad, so I will let him say why:
My own personal assessment is that this is one of the smartest and most strategic efforts that we’ve seen to electorialize social movement energy in quite some time. The question is not how we get the folks who’ve been taking the streets to volunteer for the Biden campaign, but rather how we can support them to show up powerfully and charismatically in an electoral context in a truly movement-oriented way.
Movement for Black Lives
In addition to launching The Frontline initiative, M4BL’s Electoral Justice Voter Fund “marshals a cross-issue, transnational Black electoral-justice movement by building a network of local organizers and partners. We define electoral justice as encompassing accountability, interventions, dismantling, and building anew.” The fund supports voter participation and pays Electoral Justice Fellows generous stipends to lead civic engagement work.
Organizing in Arizona’s Latinx communities
This category I arrived at because I have a particular stake and interest in Arizona politics. I grew up in the state and consider it my home in many ways and I have watched it become simultaneously more retrograde—draconian immigration policy written by a white nationalist from Kansas, the rise of Joe Arpaio on the national stage—but also more dynamic and progressive.
Arizona is also an important bellweather in US politics, with complex demographics and values that are ever-shifting. In the last election, moderate Democrat Kyrsten Sinema won Jeff Flake’s Senate seat, in large part due to a huge Latino organizing effort and turnout. This year there’s another Senate seat in play, and if the state turns against Trump, it would send a powerful signal.
Groups I am looking at are:
miAZ – a coalition of organizing groups
Voting Rights and Election Integrity
Aside from GOTV and swinging the outcome of the election, there is a lot of important work to be done to protect the franchise and defend against threats to a just 2020 election.
Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC)
This is an amazing grassroots organization working to end the disenfranchisement of formerly convicted people. In 2018, Florida voters overwhelmingly passed Amendment 4, restoring voting rights to people with felony convictions. FRRC led the campaign, and now runs a fund that helps returning citizens pay off outstanding fines and fees so they can complete their sentences and regain their voting rights.
Restore Your Vote/Campaign Legal Center
Similar to FRRC, Restore Your Vote works to help people with felony convictions nationwide learn how to restore their right to vote. CLC is running several other voting rights programs and you can donate to them here.
This initiative is recruiting and training poll workers, of which there is a shortage due to the coronavirus pandemic. That link takes you right to a form where you can sign up to volunteer wherever.
Election Protection (866ourvote.org)
A national election protection coalition that provides a wide range of information and assistance to voters at all stages of the voting process. They need lawyer and non-lawyer volunteers, and you can also donate at the link.
A voting rights organization working in Indian Country, Four Directions protects Native American voting rights in court, but also runs GOTV operations and voter registration drives.
So there you go. I wish I could say I have things remotely figured out or that I think everything will work out. But we start somewhere and do what we can. I will give to maybe three groups in the next few days and volunteer with one or two in coming weeks. But there are many organizations and many ways to get involved, and I always recommend people follow their hearts to some extent and always start locally if there are opportunities where you live. Yip yip.
Watching
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Links
- “Trump’s mishandling of the coronavirus defines his presidency. He downplayed the severity of the disease, misled the country repeatedly about it, tried to pin the blame on local governments, did not ‘take responsibility at all’ for the anemic American response, held massive rallies against scientific advice, hammered on states to reopen before it was safe, rejected easy safety measures, and undermined trust in our public-health institutions. Trump was never going to protect the country from the virus. But ultimately he could not even protect himself.”
- We are not collectively mourning COVID-19 victims, because that would require a reckoning.
- The case for calling climate change “genocide.”
- “We are all living in Schlafly country now.”
- When wildfire came to Santa Cruz.
- A fringe Facebook group called the “Patriot movement”—teeming with racism, homophobia, and crackpot theories, certain that we are being taken over by Muslims, and “obsessed with pedophilia”—has become a force in Arizona politics.
- How libertarianism made Arizona a COVID-19 hot spot. Brutal details in this article.
- The language used in media coverage makes cyclists seem like a more of a road hazard than they are and shifts blame away from drivers.
- A massive “climate park” in Copenhagen can capture more than 6 billion gallons of rainfall when the sewer system is being overwhelmed.
- Salt Bae, who is famous for the way he put salt on something, opened a restaurant in Boston but it was shut down on its opening weekend for repeatedly violating COVID-19 rules.
Listening
I will be honest I’m a little fried today because I had to do some consulting work this week that involved rewriting a lenghty climate change-related thingy that I had originally written in March 2019 so you know, some things have changed that needed to be reflected. There are two things that were striking during this process. First, there was a ton of basic information about climate change, the science of it, even the intersectional nature of the problem, that I found could be cut way back because it felt kind of no duh at this point. So that’s a good thing, as it feels like people get it way more than they used to, albeit for sad reasons like experiencing its impacts.
But the other thing was that there was a certain tone of dogged optimism in the original draft that I had to largely strip away, because it just didn’t feel credible anymore, like an attitude from a different era. “Avoiding catastrophe” became more like “caring for each other in the face of adversity” that kind of thing. I had a difficult moment while taking a pause in writing to let it sink in just how much darker our day to day lives and our outlook for the future have become, in the span of only 18 months.
People adapt so well, which is an incredible strength, but we can also lose sight of what is happening to and around us. The harm that is being done that becomes just the state of things. We don’t need to think about it constantly, but maybe keep it within arm’s reach so it can be of use, when it’s time to go vote or take to the streets or knock on our neighbors’ doors.
Tate
PS I wanted to give a big thanks Britta Shoot for the very kind shoutout on Twitter the other day and for sharing the newsletter with friends! You too can share Crisis Palace!