Understand that when your goal is blocking things, you somstimes do things you know will almost certainly fail. Republicans have used this playbook for ages to block the Democratic party
Make them get tied up in as many pointless tasks to distract them from their other goals. Sometimes you'll even occasionally win a long shot challange
In fairness, the group talking about this (Run for something) has existed since 2017 and elected about a thousand progressives in local and state government. They haven't been idle before this, just seems like there's more people interested now
We need everyone we can get now to fight back. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today
Be a part of that change. Run for local office and or encourage other progressives around you to do the same
Change quite often starts locally and flows up. Those in the national party very usually come from state offices and work their way up. Make that pool of people as progressive as possible
Make no seat uncontested
Organize in every place you can. Beyond just elections, organize for unions, organize to protest, organize to stand with your community, do not given in to the complacency that the far right wants you to have
Power is not be given freely, you have to fight for it. That fight lives on and is worthwhile. Things will get worse before they can get better. But we can lay the groundwork for the future to be better
After you vote, you can also volunteer to phone bank for last minute get out the vote calls!
Find your polling location. Go vote!
Your ballot will be deciding much more than just the president. Even if you did theoretically think both presidential canidates were equal in all regards (they aren't), then vote for the down ballot races!
Keep your local school boards from having insane people on it that will ban books and harm your kids or your neighbors's.
Vote for the constitutional ammendment questions and ballot initiatives. For instance, many states have either pro and anti abortion questions on their ballot.
They already killed it for Supreme Court nominees when it suited them. If they really wanted something they'd kill it for that
By 2017, roles had reversed — Republicans held the majority in the Senate, and President Donald Trump sat in the Oval Office.
After Senate Democrats, now in the minority, filibustered the confirmation of Judge Neil Gorsuch — Trump's first nominee to the Supreme Court — McConnell engineered his own "nuclear option."
The Republican-controlled Senate voted 52-48 to reduce the vote threshold for confirming nominees to the Supreme Court from 60 to 51, per The New York Times.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/22122373
https://www.rockthevote.org/how-to-vote/same-day-voter-registration/
map from: https://www.axios.com/2024/10/31/voter-registration-election-day-2024
Another note that New York is currently even weirder having only allowed same day voter registration on a single day of early voting rather than the entire period unlike North Carolina
Note that Harris has called for eliminating the Filibuster should dems get a trifecta
Harris says she would support ending the filibuster to bring back Roe v. Wade
https://www.npr.org/2024/09/23/nx-s1-5123955/kamala-harris-abortion-roe-v-wade-filibuster
We can do a bit better than just hope, there is still time to volunteer to help get out the vote today and tomorrow on election day!
Easily pushed around by dictators and billionaires, not so easily pushed by average citizens
Harris is more able to be influenced by public pressure which is what John Oliver is trying to get at
Huh, turns out the Republican earlier BS claims of stolen valor for Tim Walz were just talking about the wrong Tim all along
There are also still opportunities to volunteer in person and online - including on election day!
Start at the local level and build up. It's a lot easier to have strong progressives run in races that might not really be all that contested in the first place. And make even small primaries count
That kind of power starts to add up. The local politicians tend to flow up the party. Obama first rose from the Illinois state senate. Tim Walz first rose from an unexpected flip in a deep red house district in Minnesota
Power doesn't always flow top down. It also flow from the bottom up