Chop Wood, Carry Water 5/3
Deep breaths.
Hi, all, and happy Friday!
Hope you’re all hanging in there. It’s been a stressful week—even at a time when every week is crazy this one feels like a particular doozy!
I know we’re all watching the student protests, the situation in the Middle East, and the firestorm around all of it with great anxiety. It’s a lot.
I’m not going to try to take away anyone’s feelings, but I will simply remind you that we still have six full months until the election. That’s half a year! Heck, in MAGA-time it’s basically decades!
A lot can and will happen in six months, most of it utterly unforeseen. The election will be affected by all of it, but we have no idea how. We just can’t predict the future, no matter how hard we try. So let’s stop trying.
Because the election will also be affected—deeply—by us. So instead of winding ourselves up into nervous wrecks, let’s do what we know how to do: take deep, slow breaths, turn off the cable news, get off of whatever social media platform we’re on, and get to work.
We may be powerless over the Presidential election results today, but what we for sure have power over is:
The phone calls we make to Congress
The important information we help amplify
The people we recruit to help win the fight for democracy
The money we donate
The phonebanks, texting, postcarding, or letter-writing campaigns we sign up for
The Resistbots we send
As for the rest of it? Let’s try to let it go. In so doing, we can comfort ourselves by remembering that the odds of the things we can’t control going our way later will become exponentially higher if we focus on the stuff we can control now.
Make sense? Good! Let’s get to work!
Call Your Senators (find yours here) 📲
Hi, I'm a constituent calling from [zip]. My name is ______.
I’m contacting the Senator regarding the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women. Murder is the third leading cause of death for Indigenous women, yet barriers in recruiting and retaining Tribal law enforcement officers on reservation lands undermine efforts to address this violence. Please ask the Senator to support the the Parity for Tribal Law Enforcement Act (S. 2695) and equip Tribal governments with critical public safety resources. Thanks! [H/T]
Call Your House Rep (find yours here) 📲
Hi, I'm a constituent calling from [zip]. My name is _______.
I’m calling to ask the Congressmember to support public banking at ALL levels of government by supporting HR 6775 the Public Banking Act and HR 4052 the National Infrastructure Bank Act. These bills establish a robust federal regulatory framework, grant programs, and financial infrastructure to promote public banks and ensure their success. Public banks are uniquely able to address the economic inequality and racial wealth gap exacerbated by the banking industry’s predatory practices and discriminatory policies. We need to promote them! Thanks.
Extra Credit ✅
THE PERFECT GIFT FOR GRADUATES
As the season of high school and college graduation arrives, many of us may be looking for the perfect gift for our favorite graduate. How about a heartfelt invitation to register to vote?
Let’s use resources like this or this or this to find and print out a mail-in voter registration form (or to find a link for online voter registration), and enclose it with a card to our beloved graduate with our warm, personal message about why voting matters to us and our wish that they will join us in uplifting our communities and country with their votes. Brilliant! [H/T
]Get Smart! 📚
On Wednesday, May 8 at 7:00 PM ET, PBS senior correspondent Judy Woodruff and The Bulwark Founder Sarah Longwell are joining BigTentUSA to discuss what’s driving American polarization.
Judy will highlight her findings from her PBS show, America at a Crossroads, while Sarah will share insights from her unique focus groups, shedding light on public opinion and what issues are shaping political dialogue.
Please use this link to register and share with friends and family.
Spread the Word! 📣
Please share the below blurb about Swing Left San Gabriel Valley’s new "Well then, do something!” Guide on your social media! It’s a great little resource! Unlike many of mine, it’s both nice to look at and concise!
Unsure of what you can do personally to prevent an unthinkable second Trump term? The "Well then, do something!” Guide, created by Swing Left San Gabriel Valley, offers a lightning quick and refreshingly simple summary of opportunities so even the busiest among us can make a contribution in stifling Trump's bid for authoritarianism. Give the guide three minutes, and it will ensure you won't wake up on November 6 regretting you didn't do more.
Give 💰!
New York state will likely decide control of the US House of Representatives, and the Environmental Voter Project is eager to run their most robust NY campaign ever. They need sufficient funding to begin speaking with their targeted voters before NY’s June 25 state primary, so they’re holding an early fundraiser.
Executive Director Nathaniel Stinnett will talk about their voter turnout plans in New York in 2024. Should be great! No donation required to attend.
Please join them this Tuesday, May 7, 8pm ET / 5pm PT.
Win Races! 🗳
The recent primary in California’s 45th Congressional District was by far the most competitive election in a swing House district in California.
Derek Tran has officially topped the field of Democrats, and he moves on to November to face off against anti-abortion extremist Rep. Michelle Steel, an original co-sponsor of the Life at Conception Act. Now Tran needs our help.
Activate America has launched a new phone bank to boost Tran’s name recognition. They’re calling infrequent, low-information voters to remind them that Derek Tran is the only candidate in the race who will work to protect reproductive rights and the environment and fight to lower healthcare costs.
Interested? SIGN UP HERE to join them at one of their weekly phone banks on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 3-5 PM, or SIGN UP HERE to make calls on your own time.
Chop Wood, Save the Planet 🔥
Cornell University’s Civic Ecology Lab invites you to join their **NEW** 4-week online course starting May 20, 2024! It’s called Climate Advocacy: Making Policy Change. It’s a 4-week course for educators, university and high-school students, community leaders, and volunteers. Learn from Cornell University instructors, guest speakers, and diverse participants and receive a Cornell University certificate. The course will consist of asynchronous lectures, readings, and assignments, as well as optional live webinars with experts and instructor “office hours.” They ask students to pay $70 to help cover expenses. But every student is admitted regardless of ability to pay. Sounds amazing!
Resistbot Letter (new to Resistbot? Go here! And then here.) 💻
[To: all 3 reps] [H/T The Hartmann Report] [Text SIGN PCZQMI to Resistbot at 50409 or via Apple Messages / WHATSAPP / MESSENGER]
I understand that Republicans in Congress have just rolled out a new proposal that cuts fully one-sixth of the budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This, at the same time that the H5N1 “bird flu” is ripping across America, decimating bird flocks and even infecting a few humans and other mammals.
Cutting public health spending at any time is stupid, but to do so when a highly transmissible, rapidly mutating, and extremely deadly flu has now been found in 920 counties across all 50 states? Shockingly and even breathtakingly irresponsible.
Fully fund the CDC. Fully fund the Pandemic Preparedness Office. Fully fund public health. Otherwise we will all live—if we’re lucky—to regret it.
OK, you did it again! You helped save democracy! You’re amazing.
Talk soon.
Jess
“we can comfort ourselves by remembering that the odds of the things we can’t control going our way later will become exponentially higher if we focus on the stuff we can control now.”
I love this. Thank you for this.
Thanks for link to the Swing Left pamphlet. It has some great ideas and doesn't make it intimidating. I have tried to enlist friends to get more active and it is easy to overwhelm someone who is currently doing nothing.
But I do have to question one of the links in the brochure. It is near the bottom of the 6th page and starts with "You can find opportunities for all three activities at..." and then has a hyperlink for Vote Forward. I am pretty sure this was meant to be a link to Swing Left instead. I'm very familiar with bothg sites and Vote Forward has noting to do with phone/text banking or door-to-door canvassing.
Maybe you could get my feedback to whomever gave you the link? I suspect a copy and paste error that got through proof-reading. Darn you computer! You are supposed to know what I meant! :-)