Dear friends,
It is pretty exhausting to live on the edge. Once again, Congress has passed a continuing resolution to fund the government before triggering a shutdown. Senator Charles Schumer expressed relief for
“No chaos, no spectacle, no shutdown."
I’m afraid that our chaos standards have changed forever. We are living with a level of disorder and confusion that causes many people to shut down, even if the government stays open and functioning.
Congress is barely able to legislate anything right now. They are staggering from one emergency measure to another to avert fundamental failure.
On Wednesday evening, I attended a webinar with the Environmental Voter Project (EVP) to learn what they have planned for the year ahead. My nervous system was becalmed by their plan.
The EVP’s unique model for saving democracy and the planet is to identify “Low Propensity Environmental Voters” and to mobilize them to vote. The project relies on big data to identify their audience and on behavioral science to craft effective, nonpartisan messages.
Then, EVP relies on volunteers and donors to get the message out to 4.8 million environmentalists who didn’t vote in the last election. Nathaniel Stinnett, the founder and leader of the EVP, showed the margins of past election victories when he showed the numbers of low propensity voters that the organization is calling and contacting with postcards.
It is a solid strategy. When the voters flipped a seat in the Florida statehouse from red to blue this week, the margin was small. EVP was there, getting out the vote.
Stinnett reminded us that we will not get another chance at these nine-and-a-half months. Because many states have presidential primaries and separate congressional and state primaries, all before November, we have the opportunity to make sure that November 5 is not our last election.
The webinar worked on me. I made a bigger donation than usual, and I’m awaiting a pile of postcards to write to folks in North Carolina.
Donate to the Environmental Voter Project and get involved!
Among the many things I like about the EVP’s approach is that most of the low propensity voters who care about the environment are young. That makes the investment in turning them into regular voters a long-term investment in democracy.
I recently read this piece, which gets right to a question that fellow voting activists and worried people keep asking me.
Are young people going to vote for Biden?
It’s a fair question. Young voters are particularly disenchanted with Biden’s policy with regard to Israel and they are less rosy about his climate achievements. And young voters are not the only ones who’ve soured on the president.
Reich dives straight into the fray. The chaos of this election year includes a number of third-party candidates and one man who is a dangerous demagogue with no respect for democracy. Biden is a surprisingly effective president who is, nonetheless, very imperfect and quite old.
Five months before Trump was elected in 2016, Reich warned viewers of Democracy Now! that if they did not support the Democratic nominee, we would be flirting with disaster.
If you do not support Hillary Clinton, you are increasing the odds of a true, clear and present danger to the United States, a menace to the United States. And you’re increasing the possibility that the United States will be changed for the worse.
There are no perfect candidates. We need to get over it. Now is the time for realpolitik. The practical objectives — to continue to have elections and maintain the rule of law — are primary.
A recent opinion piece delved into the fact that regardless of the crime rate, we are always spending more on policing. Policing seems to some like the best response to crime and violence and chaos, and this needs to be examined.
Read Simon Balto’s piece on rethinking policing.
The first bill requires that the police file reports on low-level stops. The Mayor insists that the latter bill will “handcuff” the police. Given the ugly history of racialized police stops by the NYPD, this might be a good idea.
NYPD officers disproportionately frisked and used force against Black and Latinx people, despite arrests and summonses being similar rates to white people. NYPD officers were also more likely to use force against Black and Latinx people than they were to use force against white people. . . .
Once stopped, the NYPD conducted frisks, issued arrests, and used force against children and adults at very similar rates. For example, 10–14-year-olds were frisked in 54 percent of stops and arrested in seven percent of stops. Force was used in 24 percent of stops.
The new legislation is an important step to create accountability.
The other reform bill is a ban on solitary confinement in city jails. The federal monitor who oversees Rikers has expressed some concerns about the bill.
The monitor, who is trying to restore a safe environment in the notoriously troubled jails, has asked the council to recognize a distinction between solitary confinement and restrictive housing, explaining that restrictive housing
“enables the Department to safely manage violence-prone individuals in a congregate setting wherein they also retain some access to privileges and programming.”
The council should consider the monitor’s concerns, without leaving the door open to the abuses of the past and present. Some of you remember the tragic deaths of Kalief Browder and Layleen Polanco.
Urge your city council rep to hold the line on necessary law enforcement reforms.
with love,
L