Teach Yellow Dogs new tricks
Even if a Democrat wins the White House in November 2024, we could a year from now be sitting on pins and needles wondering if Coup 2.0 is in the works. Watching the January 6, 2021 insurrection unfold may have been the most harrowing day in the lives of ordinary Americans who’ve never served in combat. One wonders if Trump country watched with beer and pretzels as if it was the Super Bowl halftime show. In any event, the Department of Justice, D.C. and Capitol Police, and nearby national guard units, will be anxious as well, and better prepared.
There’s a lot to do between now and then.
You help keep me/us sane by reading our daily rants. Thank you so very much for that and for your support. I don’t say it enough, thank God for readers:
[T]his blog’s proprietor, began writing here New Year’s Day 2003 after attracting a following at Atrios’s blog. She wrote that being invited to write by Atrios was “kind of like having Eddie Van Halen invite you up on stage to join him in a guitar solo.”
That’s how I felt when Digby invited me to join her in August 2014. (We’d met at a conference in 2009.) I began writing occasional commentaries for the Asheville Citizen-Times in mid-September 2003, got named an official (unpaid) “community columnist” in 2005, and finally started up my own blog in March 2006. (It’s still out there gathering electrons.) Eventually, a local rabble-rouser invited me to join Scrutiny Hooligans (R.I.P.) before Digby asked me to fill in over a weekend. The weekend never ended. The Citizen-Times’ then-editorial editor, a Digby fan, greeted me at an event, smiled broadly, shook my hand and said, “My friend, you have arrived.”
Behind the scenes, I’ll be plugging away trying to teach Yellow Dogs new tricks. In North Carolina. In Arizona. Maybe even in Pennsylvania. In states where voters register by party, Democrats and aligned nonprofits might, with access to the right data and the capacity to think outside the box, turn out many more of those unaffiliated voters they’ll need to win races in November.
Amateurs talk strategy. Professionals talk logistics.
– attributed to Gen. Omar Bradley
Smaller, under-resourced, and less-experienced Democratic county committees may not get trained in the mechanics and logistics of turning out the vote for their candidates, especially those down-ballot candidates that constitute the farm team. State parties lack the budgets and bandwidth. So I do it.
For The Win, 5th Ed links will go out in a month or so to over 2,000 counties. (I’m essentially a spammer.) This county-level GOTV cookbook is still a lead-a-horse effort. But for county chairs open to learning new tricks, I can show them how to play like the big leagues on little league money.
Democrats tend to be policy liberals and campaign conservatives. Now is no time to go into a defensive crouch. If we mean to defend this republic from neighbors bent on turning it into an autocracy or worse — possibly much worse — we’ll need to stop listening to the Axelrods and Carvilles who stopped learning new tricks decades ago. Gen Z is bringing new energy to the table and gaining a foothold. Voters under 45 (you’ve seen the graphic) are where Democrats have the most potential for increasing voter turnout. Take risks.
Mansplaining to independents why they should vote Democrat is not the way to make that happen. Don’t ask them to do something for your party and candidate. Tell them why voting is doing something for themselves.