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Organize, Energize, Mobilize (Progressive Political Activism in Trump's America)
LoisLane
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
We lost.
Trump will be our 45th president and is set to rollback the many hard-fought political wins that the left have gained over the last decade. So what can you do? This is what this thread is about.
1. Organize.
a. Look around at the volunteering organizations in your town/county/state. They don't even have to be political as there is going to be a need for charity organizations as the social safety net is undone.
b. Donate when you can and where you can. Talk your friends into donating. Support causes that are going to be the most imperiled under the new administration.
ACLU- https://action.aclu.org/donate-aclu?ms=web_horiz_nav_hp
Planned Parenthood- https://www.plannedparenthood.org/
Undocumented Immigrants- https://catholiccharitiesnewyork.nationbuilder.com/donate
(Post your own so I can add it.)
c. Sign-up for newsletters. No, seriously. Many organizations hand out newsletters so you can see what they're doing and opportunities to help out close-by.
2. Energize.
a. Don't lose heart. This is just one election. One out of 45 that we've had as a nation. Trump might be insane but it will take more than him to break us. There's nothing wrong with taking a step back from time to time to regain some faith in humanity.
b. Call your Senators/Representatives/Mayors/etc. Make your voice heard even if you're in a red state. Go to their events, send them letters, and get everyone around you to do it too.
c. Squash bothsiderism wherever you can. We are not the same as Republicans/rightists.
3. Mobilize.
a. VOTE! For the love of every deity and humanistic principle VOTE!. Choose the lesser of two evils if you must but fucking VOTE!. No Democrat/Left-Wing party on the ticket? Vote anyway. A moderate fiscal republican is better than a hardline religious extremist Republican. People in red states can push the Republican party left vote by vote if they can just push themselves into a decent force. This is where joining organizations come in handy. Talk up your preferred candidate where you can. Put them in a good light even if you mostly hate them.
a2.
b. Join party organizations, especially partisan organizations. Democrats or Republicans, whatever. You can be a radical in the Democratic Party and a moderating influence in the Republican Party. Are you an Independent? Then pick whoever you hate the least and campaign for them. Politics is built in yards not touchdowns. Push for the world you want to see.
Overall:
What else can we do to fight Donald Trump? How do we get the Democratic party to actually show up at midterms? Who can we look to lead us out of this insanity? I don't fucking know but maybe some one here has the answer.
Trump will be our 45th president and is set to rollback the many hard-fought political wins that the left have gained over the last decade. So what can you do? This is what this thread is about.
1. Organize.
a. Look around at the volunteering organizations in your town/county/state. They don't even have to be political as there is going to be a need for charity organizations as the social safety net is undone.
b. Donate when you can and where you can. Talk your friends into donating. Support causes that are going to be the most imperiled under the new administration.
ACLU- https://action.aclu.org/donate-aclu?ms=web_horiz_nav_hp
Planned Parenthood- https://www.plannedparenthood.org/
Undocumented Immigrants- https://catholiccharitiesnewyork.nationbuilder.com/donate
(Post your own so I can add it.)
c. Sign-up for newsletters. No, seriously. Many organizations hand out newsletters so you can see what they're doing and opportunities to help out close-by.
2. Energize.
a. Don't lose heart. This is just one election. One out of 45 that we've had as a nation. Trump might be insane but it will take more than him to break us. There's nothing wrong with taking a step back from time to time to regain some faith in humanity.
b. Call your Senators/Representatives/Mayors/etc. Make your voice heard even if you're in a red state. Go to their events, send them letters, and get everyone around you to do it too.
c. Squash bothsiderism wherever you can. We are not the same as Republicans/rightists.
3. Mobilize.
a. VOTE! For the love of every deity and humanistic principle VOTE!. Choose the lesser of two evils if you must but fucking VOTE!. No Democrat/Left-Wing party on the ticket? Vote anyway. A moderate fiscal republican is better than a hardline religious extremist Republican. People in red states can push the Republican party left vote by vote if they can just push themselves into a decent force. This is where joining organizations come in handy. Talk up your preferred candidate where you can. Put them in a good light even if you mostly hate them.
a2.
Bring friends to the polls with you, please. No, a call or text message is not sufficient; no, an 'I'll do it later' is not good enough - you close that fucking deal. Get them in the car with you and head down to the polling station together. If you don't drive, go together on the bus / walk together / bike together / whatever.
GOTV is a collective effort - a party's central or field office can only do so much, and their resources are usually stretched thin (especially on E-day). Not everyone can be an activist, but everyone can get the butts of the people they know & love to those polls. This is especially important in areas with shitty polling locations & long lines; your friends are going to need an incentive to stay in that God forsaken line. Be their incentive.
You are only one ballot, but you can be responsible for getting many other ballots just like yours into that box. Get out there & do so.
b. Join party organizations, especially partisan organizations. Democrats or Republicans, whatever. You can be a radical in the Democratic Party and a moderating influence in the Republican Party. Are you an Independent? Then pick whoever you hate the least and campaign for them. Politics is built in yards not touchdowns. Push for the world you want to see.
Overall:
What else can we do to fight Donald Trump? How do we get the Democratic party to actually show up at midterms? Who can we look to lead us out of this insanity? I don't fucking know but maybe some one here has the answer.
LoisLane on
+11
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
If I can request a Part 2 to this:
Bring friends to the polls with you, please. No, a call or text message is not sufficient; no, an 'I'll do it later' is not good enough - you close that fucking deal. Get them in the car with you and head down to the polling station together. If you don't drive, go together on the bus / walk together / bike together / whatever.
GOTV is a collective effort - a party's central or field office can only do so much, and their resources are usually stretched thin (especially on E-day). Not everyone can be an activist, but everyone can get the butts of the people they know & love to those polls. This is especially important in areas with shitty polling locations & long lines; your friends are going to need an incentive to stay in that God forsaken line. Be their incentive.
You are only one ballot, but you can be responsible for getting many other ballots just like yours into that box. Get out there & do so.
You're in a red state? Push for democratic politicians. Aren't any? Then push for the last bad Pub. They all suck? Fuck it, put yourself on the ballot - it's easy to make sure your rep votes your way when you're the rep in question!
You're in a blue state? Congrats, but your work ain't done. Is your Dem rep doing their job? Are they rolling over for the pubs in congress? Are they too weak to take a stand? Then ride their ass until they do better. If they won't do better, primary them.*
We're in a fight for our country right now, and we need a warrior class.
*That said, also be practical. Maybe don't punish your congress critters just because they aren't pushing for universal health care and open borders, or whatever your personal unicorn is.
These are question that I don't feel can realistically be answered until next year. What I would suggest if Trump intends to run Trump's Crazypants Presidential Bonanza: Just Like It Says On the Box! is entirely different than if this is just GWB 2.0.
In the meantime: here is a bit of food for thought. Try not to be put-off by the language of the document; it is a serious model used by left-wing political organizations to get shit done on a shoestring budget.
Fundamentally it focuses on having personal narratives, not policy, as the foundation for activism, engagement & recruitment. It also focuses on using empowerment within an organization's structure as an incentive to keep people actively involved (since, y'know, most grassroots activists don't have a warchest full of cash they can use to create a payroll incentive).
Think about why you are politically involved. Is it more because of some really abstract, cold & hard policy initiative, or is it more because of impetus brought on by personal experiences you had? I think for most people it is the latter - so share that story. You would be surprised, I think, at how much more effective that is (even if it sometimes feels too self-indulgent / narcissistic) than just saying you support [X] policy for [Y] reasons based on [Z] data.
A lot of people on these forums changed party affiliations from Republican to Democrat in the relatively recent past, for example. Tell people why - and I don't mean in terms of policy. What is the personal story behind that change? I bet it was interesting / sad / uplifting / rage inducing / something. Crank the feels on - it's not like the feels are fake or shameful, they're the damn reason we got involved; share them!
Part of the problem is that every time I approach a local party with the same question, I get the same answer:
- Sit in this calling center for 4 hours a night for 2 months.
- Go door to door every weekend for 2 months.
And four elections later, you know what that has taught me? That both are completely ineffective uses of time and don't actually put my skills to use. You can only get the door slammed in your face, hung up on so many times before the next time you go to the party and offer your assistance, and they present you with the same tired options, you go, "You know what, not this time. Sorry. I did your dog and pony show for this many years, and it has had no effect." Even in Obama's elections. Door to doors and phone calls simply. don't. work. You can "get out the vote" all you want, but a phone call isn't going to get a single mother of 2 to the polls, she's going to yell at you for calling her while she's changing a diaper. This action has to start early.
It comes from a basic disorganization at a local level. The battles we need to be fighting are elsewhere.
I'm taking a different approach this time. I approached my teaching union to ask the same question. Now I'm having lunch with my state senator once a month to discuss educational issues. My union is paying for two sub days a year so I can go speak in front of my State Legislature.
And what it comes down to is my union is more organized. They have systems in place so that when members come looking to act, they have tasks that need done, they aren't just parents inventing busywork for their children.
left-wing parties need systems like these. young progressive people need to get their foot in the door and help their parties begin to build these systems on a local level
Door to door canvassing does work. We have empirical data, if you like, that demonstrates the efficacy of it - but it isn't magic.
You should get about 10-12~ people on your side for every hundred that you contact. That probably seems like a shitty ratio (especially when you're the one beating your feet on the pavement, and you realize that on average you'll hit about 10~ doors an hour, and of those 10~ doors you actually talk to perhaps 4~ human beings) - but it's what we have to work with. Whomever can come up with the superior alternative to this gets a million dollar prize, because everyone wants an alternative to it... but there just isn't one.
what do republicans do? like, if you're a young republican who shows up saying "i want to volunteer", what kind of work do they give you?
1. What can I do to help out in areas that will need help as a result of Trump's shitty policies?
2. What can I do to get more progressive politicians in office?
Call centers and canvassing are great for election season, but for the time in between, there are other ways to make a difference, either in terms of getting politicians to do good things, or actively helping out in your community.
I also think they can be a good way to get people involved in politics. I know various people whose first significant political participation beyond voting was participating in the signature gathering campaigns for getting gay marriage, minimum wage, cannabis legalization, or ranked choice voting on the ballot, all of which passed under a governor who is basically Mainer-Trump and a legislature sometimes partly controlled by the GOP. My anecdotes are not sufficient data, but I think it can be easier to get people to collect signatures for a cause they know they support than it is to convince them to rally behind a candidate and canvass for them and such.
In Maine you only need to gather signatures equal to 10% of the votes cast in the previous gubernatorial election, which isn't that hard, but I'm not sure how it compares to ballot initiative laws in other states. Our governor wants to change the law so that we'd have to gather the signatures proportionally from each county, which would basically stop us from doing so in the future as gathering in the sparsely populated and more conservative north/west would be extremely difficult.
An arguable downside to putting resources into ballot initiatives is the they might not help build your political party as an organization in as lasting a manner as finding and electing good candidates, but passing progressive policies under GOP state government is still fun.
And on that note, I have a question: I don't think it's wrong to say that a lot of people have the wrong idea of how to divy up responsibility and/or blame between the President and Congress. And even if Congress is identified as the source of trouble, there's a phenomenon of exempting your personal representative from responsibility. So what's the best way to draw attention to specific people, in what they have done, and what they have failed to do? I think getting more people to think critically about what their Representatives/Senators actually do is an important part of any electoral strategy.
You can implement your wishlist at the state level! It's doable! Government can do things!
Yes, it will not cover all states, which does suck, but it will at least help some states.
You can't save those who want to doom themselves, but you can save yourself.
If your state is remotely blue, you can make progress. You can have universal healthcare, good education, a real social safety net, real protection for workers, and do quite a lot to protect the right of minorities at the state level. Yes, you can even do it in one state.
We do most of that at the provincial level here, and province do not have anything near the power of states!
FFS, California alone has more people than my entire country! New York City has about the same population as my province!
You have the people and tax bases to solve those problems even with a hostile federal government!
You just need to stop giving up without even trying.
College Campuses? I don't fucking know. The richest cities in America are liberal-leaning but we have less funding than the poor rural areas.
We don't vote, don't turn up for elections, and don't run for office. Liberals enjoy burying their heads in the sand.
It isn't a coincidence that progressive support among the working-class base has declined simultaneously with the erosion of labor unions.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
How do you find out about activist opportunities?
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
It's been a bit of a two-way street on that though. The erosion of labour unions is also a result of declining support among the working class for progressive issues because they benefited women and minorities, leading to more conservative governments who married social policy with anti-labour policy.
California actually is making good progress towards many things like that. It's amazing how functional the government becomes when liberal democrats can allow their ideas to compete with fiscal conservative democrats and produce real solutions.
Krugman has discussed this a bit, with his discussion of what he termed "hardhats" - socially conservative union workers who aligned with conservatives over social issues.
Aye. I keep bringing up the death of the New Deal coalition in threads about this year's election because of this. You can see some of the same issues hitting the Labour party in the UK too. Labour union support can be tricky because of the traditional makeup of the workforce.
That said, labour unions are still important for worker's rights both at the low level where they are directly negotiating for them and at the political level where they provide support for progressive labour policy.
When I was on the progressive side literally the only thing we did in the community was protest. No friendly neighborhood get-togethers for name recognition, nothing. And no one knew who we were at the protests either- we'd be one of a dozen almost-identical groups.
I think part of what we need to do is better focus our message. Going into a deep red state and railing against the politician who wants to restrict abortion access isn't going to have a positive effect (assuming you're a progressive).
So what you need to do is figure out what a given constituency wants, then figure out how a politician is failing at that. This is what Trump did - went to the place where the jobs were absent and made a big deal about it, blaming it on the "establishment".
We're not going to win votes by fighting a culture war. We need to appeal directly to the people based on what's important to them.
This matches my experience. My most politically-active progressive friends march a lot. And picket a lot. And picket and march.
And then they complain that local journalism either didn't cover their march at all or covered it poorly.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I have a number of friends who basically grew out of marching and picketing because they sort of collectively realized there are a lot of people for whom "protest" is a hobby or a lifestyle and not about making mindful decisions to further dialogue or political change. In the past few days there have been a number of articles about white people showing up at the Dakota Pipeline camp and treating it like fucking Burning Man. Same thing happened during the Occupy movement. At some point, it all starts leaving a bad taste in everyone's mouth and even people who are progressive get irritated by joiners. Honestly, I really hope with the Dakota Pipeline, they start throwing out people who are there to hang out and eat donated food, smoke some pot and then play guitar at a campfire.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Which would be easy if we had a fucking network but apparently we don't. What state are you in and how much do you need?
On top of all this, the petitions must be signed in the 15 day filing window. For 1000 signatures, that's 67 signatures per day, signed in person by eligible voters within the county (for Minnesota, which is lenient). Assuming I could get 10 signatures per neighborhood per day, I'd need about 8 part timers on schedule per day, probably 24-35 in total for guaranteed coverage, assuming they're all able to drive themselves and can work for at least 5 days.
So running for office isn't a small deal. It's a relatively easy process (compared to stuff I file as part of my job), but without actual boots on the ground doing a relatively simple task, and a person they're all willing to work for, it's a huge hassle.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
$300 OR 1000 signatures, or $300 AND 1000 signatures?
If all you need is $300 then the Democratic party should just give you that money and say "Go for it!" if your running against someone who would be otherwise unopposed.
The entire system is designed to ensure the fat floats to the top. The compressed timelines and initial investment seem to be a pretty standard way of making sure that it takes a lot of organization and cash to clear the first hurdle even if actual filing costs are relatively low. I'd say without the name recognition of having been on a city council or involved in some other process beforehand, getting to the House of Representatives from a standstill would be a hard thing to do. I plan on trying to at least invest the time in learning about the local offices and such since I'm fairly new to this area. We need to find a way to make local stuff just as sexy and exciting as POTUS.
If its just $300 then try to start a gofundme on here. I'm sure we'd all love to fund it.
Minnesota is already blue, but many other states, especially ones past a certain electoral vote count, require both. State legislature positions are more feasible but still require a bunch of people.
It's also hard to tell who's going to be unopposed for minor positions because there isn't exactly a newsletter telling who's running which county and who's got no heck of an idea
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I'm on a mailing list. The Australian Greens send me emails telling me that they're holding a meeting to discuss some local issue or a protest against something in this location at this time. There's also a Facebook group but I haven't joined it yet, I'm only just beginning to get involved.
My party is a lot smaller than the Republican party, obviously, but we have parties and movie nights and training sessions and fundraisers and opportunities to meet people. Like, I know my city councillor and a lot of the people in his office. I've met one of our senators. I guess it's more informal, like there isn't really a system of internships designed to give young people political experience. I'm just thinking out loud here, but maybe we need to be more willing to capitalise off ambition? We might find it easier to get volunteers if we could at least suggest that one day they'll be doing more than just grunt work.
"We should hold a picket outside of the grocery store to protest how they treat farmworkers!"
"Steve no one knows who we are. How about a documentary night at the local college campus? Maybe get some new people in?"
"No this is an urgent issue. The store manager will give in to our demands!"
"It's a chain and like five people show up to these things"
"Customers will ask who we are and join us"
etc.
Every time the most unrealistic, pie-in-the-sky expectations possible and then they'd complain at the next meeting about poor results.
I don't want to turn this into a bitchfest about bad activists, but yeah. I know these people.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I have such mixed feelings about this.
Part of the problem with volunteerism in general is that unskilled labor too easily makes a mess of things, and most people with the time and energy to volunteer don't have in-demand skills.
For example, every protest and activist group I've ever been tangentially involved has been starved for two big skillsets: medical (even EMT or CPR) and legal (even paralegal). Similarly, I've seen a number of groups involved with the Dakota Pipeline protests put out bulletins that say, basically, if you're not a lawyer or medical professional, then expect to be washing dishes or picking up trash. If you're not okay washing dishes and picking up trash, then don't come, because we don't need more useless people. (I'm paraphrasing this, of course.)
On the other hand, I keep thinking about Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. Rule 2 is "Never go outside the experience of your people. When an action or tactic is outside the experience of the people, the result is confusion, fear, and retreat. It also means a collapse of communication, as we have noted." Rule 6 is "A good tactic is one that your people enjoy. If your people are not having a ball doing it, there is something very wrong with the tactic."
We already have a very powerful set of tools that (rule 2) are well inside the experience of our people and (rule 6) our people enjoy: the Internet. Laugh all you want, but the Internet-fueled fundraising of Howard Dean and Bernie Sanders each set precedents. Much ink has been spilled about the power of the alt-right - a community borne from the bowels of the Internet - in this campaign. Trump's strategy advisor is a documentarist turned webmaster, for all intents and purposes.
The struggle is turning Internet slackvism into real-world results. It's easy to share a Vox thinkpiece on social media, but that doesn't bring people to the polls. There's gotta be a certain amount of "suck it up buttercup" - Internet denizens have to get out of their comfort zones and occasionally do some canvassing, or phone banking, or picking up trash. But it shouldn't be all that. I perceive a huge gulf between the chattering digerati and the boots on the ground, and I'm trying to figure out the best ways to bridge that gap.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I tried looking stuff up on my county's Democratic website, and while the site itself isn't terrible there was very little in the way of "new people go here." There was an ancient recurring meeting for "young Democrats" on the calendar but elsewhere that didn't show up.
I feel like every county having an official Facebook page that posts updates and has comments is a good start, but I think each one should have a more social page as well that freely lets people post things. Moderation would be an issue, but we need to give people a quick and easy way to connect.
These would be the local hubs that meetings and whatnot are organized through. They would connect to the state level pages, which have their own social/official hubs. And same for the national level (tho by then there would probably need to be subgroups or something).
At every step of the way, there should be clear info on who is running for office, what positions are available, what the current projects/plans are, etc. I shouldn't just be checking The Stranger but up until this minute I hadn't even thought to check my local website (it simply lists recommendations with no explanation).
I feel like there has to be some potential there.
Also I found out Ken Bone is running for mayor next year as an independent, heh
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.