I have been reporting on and writing about politics for 55 years, and I have never in all those years seen people so depressed about the state of our union, as they say. The Supreme Court is running wild, a lawless, corrupt gaggle that appears uncontrollable by any democratic institution or moral force.
Spot on, as usual. Couldn't agree more: buck up, stop the stupid circular firing squad and do whatever is necessary to get everyone to vote.
Buck up. I left the United States after W was re-elected because I thought he would ruin the country. When I look back on things now, W seems almost innocuous, and he was followed by 8 years of good government. Trump was nothing more than a big fat ugly orange accident of history.
Buck up. Where I live now in France, everyone has been freaking out because the "people in the know" wouldn't stop saying that the extreme right was going to form the next government. Well, that didn't happen and Le Pen has just been told in no uncertain terms to crawl back into her hole. That's because 68% of eligible voters managed to get themselves to the polls for a snap election in spite everyone being on their endless French summer vacations.
Buck up. When people love their country and feel it threatened, good things happen. It happened here, and it can still happen in the US. Voting matters.
I am a US voter living abroad, and belong to Democrats Abroad. We are reading Project 2025 in our group and going to use the information to recruit more Americans Abroad to our org, and assist them to vote.
Likely it was. From what I understand Labour and Lib-Dems worked together "tactically voting" to shut out the Conservatives. So it wasn't as much about turnout and vote share as it was # of seats. And it worked.
Actually, I was just talking with a British Poli Sci major who is in Germany for the European Soccer Championships with a friend. We started talking politics. It sounded like there was a big turnout relative to before, but lower than France's.
Rory Stuart and Alistair Campbell talked about the low turnout on their excellent podcast about UK and world politics. Both the Guardian and the Independent reported that the turnout was one of the lowest in UK history if not the lowest in modern times. Some are attributing it to Starmer is weak but others think people were just so sure of the outcome based on the polls that they didn’t bother. Whatever the reason it should worry the Labor leaders and anyone who cares about democracy.
I want to know how many people were turned away for not having the proper ID — like Boris Johnson was in a recent election. He was the guy pushed for IDs to lower turnout of poor and younger voters but didn’t have his. Seniors who usually vote Tory can use bus passes but students can’t use student IDs or bus passes. The Tories took this straight from our Republicans’ democracy-destroying policies.
Dead on. This election is now in the hands of the many previous drop outs. The Ds need to find ways to reach and motivate (IMHO scare the hell out of!) the 1/3 of our eligible electorate which chronically stays home.
The problem is the state-by-state, winner-takes-all Electoral College. Only the swing states matter. Why bother to vote when the polls tell you who's going to win your state? THAT'S why the "world's oldest democracy" has one of the lowest voter turnouts for elections in the world. Gaming the system is baked into the cake.
Trump lost the popular vote in 2016, and still won the EC vote. Beating him again is vital, but that's not the end of the struggle. The authoritarians won't give up - we can't either.
Thank you for the wonderful pep talk, Lucian. Your wisdom needs to get out there because it's true and it will calm millions of us.
I came to a conclusion yesterday: it doesn't matter who the Democratic nominee is if we focus on Trump's weaknesses: Project 2025 and the fact that he's a felon. Reasonable people aren't going to like either one of those things and will vote for whoever our nominee is. In fact, Field Team 6 has just modified their voter postcard scripts to mention both points. I am sending out hundreds myself. If everyone pitches in it will make a huge difference.
I haven't seen anything about that specifically but some scripts advise people to make a voting plan. I haven't written to every state, though, so I might not have seen such a message. What state is it?
That's interesting because most of my postcards are going there. Postcards to Swing States has a couple of messages about making a plan and reminding others to vote. I think Field Team 6 has something similar but I've mostly focused on the economy and now Project 2025. I highly recommend that you contact these organizations and suggest they add a message about voter ID. Field Team 6 is very responsive. I emailed them with a suggestion and they answered almost immediately. This is obviously important!!
The organizations I've written postcards for tend to target registered Democratic voters who infrequently vote, so they assume the voters are already familiar with their state's ID laws. I've written letters with Vote Forward targeted at likely Democrats who are unregistered, and those included detailed instructions on where and how to register and vote in their particular state.
I agree: "Reasonable people aren't going to like either one of those things and will vote for whoever our nominee is." The problem is that there seem to be more unreasonable people than reasonable people, and it seems that, because of that, Trump will win. Pep talks are of little help.
I don't think that's the case, Henry. There's a very loud minority that follows Trump. There are many more of us who are reasonable and turned off by his extremism. Look what just happened in France. When people realize what could really happen if extremists take over they do the right thing. We just need to get the word out.
I think that emphasizing abortion and project 2025 in detaill will go a long way to scaring enough people away from the trumpies to take the election. Adding that the religeous conservatives want to ban contrceptives to the mix could make it a historic tidal wave. But it will take aggressive advertising and promotion to make sure the message gets out. And not polite messaging either-get tough!
Thank you, Lucian: Trump will be defeated by his inability to tell the truth, by his complete misunderstanding of our constitution, by his utter vacuousness. There is nothing to the orange dumpster fire. He is the personification of the empty suit. The sun rises in the east, rivers flow to the sea, and the American public will not be duped. Let’s keep working for a democratic victory in November.
Thank you! Also important to keep in the public eye is IVF !! The desire for ivf crosses political lines in important ways. Abortion is a strong issue but republican women who are anti choice are desperate to have IVF rights!!
The emphasis in my opinion is that women's health has been negatively affected. No longer can a woman expect the best medical care, even when their lives are at risk. This is unforgivable. As it is medical care in the US is not up to par compared with other liberal democracies. But prior to Dobbs, at least we could expect doctors to follow the Hippocratic Oath. No longer, especially in red states. But blue states are as well affected as the decline in training on abortion in the US shows.
Boy I needed that! Now do Dem Congress. Tell Schumer and Jefferies to get behind Biden Harris with ALL of their members. Mark Warner should be shunned. He is also the one who hatched the tik tok ban with freaking repuks.
I think Schumer being a New York old school politician gives him a lot of weight he has earned. He has been elected by arguably the toughest state of people in the country. New York is hard as nails. Schumer is in the street in his community. Merrick Garland is a Federalist society lawyer. He hides behind the bench. Schumer takes the heat while Garland does not. Jack Smith and Christopher Wray are doing the heavy lifting for Garland.
I agree 100% that there will be MASSIVE RESISTANCE if Trump wins --- however, many of the things Project 2025 wants to accomplish can be done via a Presidential Order --- and there will be a Triumpian Supreme Court to validate it --- this could even happen in the case of birthright citizenship. A smart lawyer can say that the whole point of the 14th amendment was to make FORMER SLAVES into citizens -- that Congress clearly did not "intend" to let "illegals" have children who would become citizens. I know this is a lousy argument but maybe the Supreme Court would buy it.
BEST TO BEAT TRUMP -- not to plan on post-election resistance
Amen. The fact that they so desperately feel the need to cheat means they are afraid of us - they KNOW they can’t win. Unless we keep on bickering over perfect candidates and policy. Then they do.
One thing about the courts though - unless we can stack SCOTUS, we’ll keep seeing the big red thumb on the scale. That bunch will keep on couping til they can’t coup no more.
What you say in your last paragraph is what’s keeping me going - we live in the best country in the world, we are a good people and there are more of us than them.
Spot on, as usual. Couldn't agree more: buck up, stop the stupid circular firing squad and do whatever is necessary to get everyone to vote.
Buck up. I left the United States after W was re-elected because I thought he would ruin the country. When I look back on things now, W seems almost innocuous, and he was followed by 8 years of good government. Trump was nothing more than a big fat ugly orange accident of history.
Buck up. Where I live now in France, everyone has been freaking out because the "people in the know" wouldn't stop saying that the extreme right was going to form the next government. Well, that didn't happen and Le Pen has just been told in no uncertain terms to crawl back into her hole. That's because 68% of eligible voters managed to get themselves to the polls for a snap election in spite everyone being on their endless French summer vacations.
Buck up. When people love their country and feel it threatened, good things happen. It happened here, and it can still happen in the US. Voting matters.
Turnout wil beat fear any day. You are so correcy. Are you keeping up with the foreign voters? There is a lot of organizng in France.
I am a US voter living abroad, and belong to Democrats Abroad. We are reading Project 2025 in our group and going to use the information to recruit more Americans Abroad to our org, and assist them to vote.
From what I am hearing the UK had very low turnout despite the terrible mess the Tories got their country into. At least they lost but…..
I'm going to guess that a lot of the people that didn't turn out were Tories. What a depressing party to be a member of.
According to the Economist (and others I have read):
“ Labour’s share of the vote, at 34%, is the lowest level for a governing party since at least the first world war (see chart 1). ”
https://www.economist.com/britain/2024/07/06/how-shallow-was-labours-victory-in-the-british-election
From what I have read turnout was low all around. Some think it was because people felt the outcome was certain.
Likely it was. From what I understand Labour and Lib-Dems worked together "tactically voting" to shut out the Conservatives. So it wasn't as much about turnout and vote share as it was # of seats. And it worked.
Actually, I was just talking with a British Poli Sci major who is in Germany for the European Soccer Championships with a friend. We started talking politics. It sounded like there was a big turnout relative to before, but lower than France's.
Rory Stuart and Alistair Campbell talked about the low turnout on their excellent podcast about UK and world politics. Both the Guardian and the Independent reported that the turnout was one of the lowest in UK history if not the lowest in modern times. Some are attributing it to Starmer is weak but others think people were just so sure of the outcome based on the polls that they didn’t bother. Whatever the reason it should worry the Labor leaders and anyone who cares about democracy.
I want to know how many people were turned away for not having the proper ID — like Boris Johnson was in a recent election. He was the guy pushed for IDs to lower turnout of poor and younger voters but didn’t have his. Seniors who usually vote Tory can use bus passes but students can’t use student IDs or bus passes. The Tories took this straight from our Republicans’ democracy-destroying policies.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jul/06/keir-starmer-labour-cabinet-meeting-uk-general-election-conservatives-leadership?page=with%3Ablock-6688f2d18f08a83a9aecd7bd
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/voter-general-election-low-turnout-b2559156.html
Absolutely
Dead on. This election is now in the hands of the many previous drop outs. The Ds need to find ways to reach and motivate (IMHO scare the hell out of!) the 1/3 of our eligible electorate which chronically stays home.
The problem is the state-by-state, winner-takes-all Electoral College. Only the swing states matter. Why bother to vote when the polls tell you who's going to win your state? THAT'S why the "world's oldest democracy" has one of the lowest voter turnouts for elections in the world. Gaming the system is baked into the cake.
Trump lost the popular vote in 2016, and still won the EC vote. Beating him again is vital, but that's not the end of the struggle. The authoritarians won't give up - we can't either.
Vive la France!
That's a pretty cool comment. May I have permission to copy and paste to my fb page?
Thanks Susan, you can copy and paste wherever you like. So thoughtful of you to ask!
Thanks, I needed that.
We *all* needed that, Hoss!
Same, whew.
me too...indubitably!
Thank you for the wonderful pep talk, Lucian. Your wisdom needs to get out there because it's true and it will calm millions of us.
I came to a conclusion yesterday: it doesn't matter who the Democratic nominee is if we focus on Trump's weaknesses: Project 2025 and the fact that he's a felon. Reasonable people aren't going to like either one of those things and will vote for whoever our nominee is. In fact, Field Team 6 has just modified their voter postcard scripts to mention both points. I am sending out hundreds myself. If everyone pitches in it will make a huge difference.
Field Team 6
Postcards to Swing States
Blue Wave
Moms Rising
Postcards to Voters
Vote Forward.
The goal at hour house is 1000 cards by third week of Oct. On track so far.
That's fantastic, Ann! I'm aiming for 600-700. So far I've done almost 350.
I’m doing 400 postcards and Vote Forward Letters.
I used to do them listening to MSNBC but I have emailed them to say Goodbye‼️
😀
We're currently at 700, and counting.
😀
What do those postcards say? My state now requires ID and I wonder if they mention that in states requiring it.
Depends on the organization and the goal. Every group provides a script. I sometimes reword for clarity.
I haven't seen anything about that specifically but some scripts advise people to make a voting plan. I haven't written to every state, though, so I might not have seen such a message. What state is it?
North Carolina
That's interesting because most of my postcards are going there. Postcards to Swing States has a couple of messages about making a plan and reminding others to vote. I think Field Team 6 has something similar but I've mostly focused on the economy and now Project 2025. I highly recommend that you contact these organizations and suggest they add a message about voter ID. Field Team 6 is very responsive. I emailed them with a suggestion and they answered almost immediately. This is obviously important!!
The organizations I've written postcards for tend to target registered Democratic voters who infrequently vote, so they assume the voters are already familiar with their state's ID laws. I've written letters with Vote Forward targeted at likely Democrats who are unregistered, and those included detailed instructions on where and how to register and vote in their particular state.
I agree: "Reasonable people aren't going to like either one of those things and will vote for whoever our nominee is." The problem is that there seem to be more unreasonable people than reasonable people, and it seems that, because of that, Trump will win. Pep talks are of little help.
I don't think that's the case, Henry. There's a very loud minority that follows Trump. There are many more of us who are reasonable and turned off by his extremism. Look what just happened in France. When people realize what could really happen if extremists take over they do the right thing. We just need to get the word out.
Doing Postcards to Swing States here. Let's get 'em!!
😀
Not one step back! This is my
country too! Take it to them.
Don't give Trump and crew an
inch!
That's what I say, Victoria! I live here, too! This is my country; imperfect, but striving for RIGHT!🇺🇸❣️💙🇺🇸❣️💙
That should be our rallying cry. Not one step back!
That's from the Poor People's Campaign: Two steps forward; not one step back!
I think that emphasizing abortion and project 2025 in detaill will go a long way to scaring enough people away from the trumpies to take the election. Adding that the religeous conservatives want to ban contrceptives to the mix could make it a historic tidal wave. But it will take aggressive advertising and promotion to make sure the message gets out. And not polite messaging either-get tough!
Postcards to voters!
They also want to do away with no-fault divorce.
Thank you, Lucian: Trump will be defeated by his inability to tell the truth, by his complete misunderstanding of our constitution, by his utter vacuousness. There is nothing to the orange dumpster fire. He is the personification of the empty suit. The sun rises in the east, rivers flow to the sea, and the American public will not be duped. Let’s keep working for a democratic victory in November.
Thank you! Also important to keep in the public eye is IVF !! The desire for ivf crosses political lines in important ways. Abortion is a strong issue but republican women who are anti choice are desperate to have IVF rights!!
Reproductive rights, such as abortion, IVF, and contraception affects Americans who are either male or female.
The emphasis in my opinion is that women's health has been negatively affected. No longer can a woman expect the best medical care, even when their lives are at risk. This is unforgivable. As it is medical care in the US is not up to par compared with other liberal democracies. But prior to Dobbs, at least we could expect doctors to follow the Hippocratic Oath. No longer, especially in red states. But blue states are as well affected as the decline in training on abortion in the US shows.
Boy I needed that! Now do Dem Congress. Tell Schumer and Jefferies to get behind Biden Harris with ALL of their members. Mark Warner should be shunned. He is also the one who hatched the tik tok ban with freaking repuks.
He is Joe Manchin. Schumer needs to shut them up!
I mean Schumer needs to shut them up publically not privately. The debate is going to go on like it or not. Not circling the wagons is a problem.
People day he's effective but to me Schumer is the Merrick Garland of the Senate.
I think Schumer being a New York old school politician gives him a lot of weight he has earned. He has been elected by arguably the toughest state of people in the country. New York is hard as nails. Schumer is in the street in his community. Merrick Garland is a Federalist society lawyer. He hides behind the bench. Schumer takes the heat while Garland does not. Jack Smith and Christopher Wray are doing the heavy lifting for Garland.
Amen, and fuck trmp and his minions. Bravo Lucian. 💥⭐️💥
I agree 100% that there will be MASSIVE RESISTANCE if Trump wins --- however, many of the things Project 2025 wants to accomplish can be done via a Presidential Order --- and there will be a Triumpian Supreme Court to validate it --- this could even happen in the case of birthright citizenship. A smart lawyer can say that the whole point of the 14th amendment was to make FORMER SLAVES into citizens -- that Congress clearly did not "intend" to let "illegals" have children who would become citizens. I know this is a lousy argument but maybe the Supreme Court would buy it.
BEST TO BEAT TRUMP -- not to plan on post-election resistance
Yup. Never giving up. Never giving in.
As I recall, you've said something like that before. You can't say it often enough.
That's why we need him and read him regularly.
Amen. The fact that they so desperately feel the need to cheat means they are afraid of us - they KNOW they can’t win. Unless we keep on bickering over perfect candidates and policy. Then they do.
One thing about the courts though - unless we can stack SCOTUS, we’ll keep seeing the big red thumb on the scale. That bunch will keep on couping til they can’t coup no more.
Buck up. Abso goddam lutely.
My go to is absofuckinlutely....
What you say in your last paragraph is what’s keeping me going - we live in the best country in the world, we are a good people and there are more of us than them.
Look what happened in France! (so far)
Yes! Isn't that amazing? I'm giddy.