PLEASE check your ballot was counted if these apply to you, and everyone PLEASE share this information! We have til 5pm tomorrow (presumably EST), November 8, 2018!
You know, now that the ACA is safely guarded by a Democratic Congress, I want to take a moment to thank the people who saved it from the republicans who’d been frothing at the mouth for years to tear it apart.
You.
All the people who said ‘well I think the whole FUCK not’, and called and yelled and refused to shut up and be quiet about it. Who remembered that WE HAVE POWER TOO, and who used that power to look their representatives in the eye and say “buddy, you work for us, and so help us if you do this we will eat you.”
Remember that. We have power. Use that power. Don’t forget it.
I am going to tell everyone a secret, especially people in rural areas.
You…can do a slow social progressive takeover of your local Democratic party, probably. You just need to carve out some time for it.
“Renay”, you say, exasperated, “that sounds fake, but okay.” But I’m here to tell you that if you’re in a rural/red state (or even blue states), you have an excellent chance of infecting the Democratic Party in your area with some straight up radical empathy. And you can do it in sneaky ways. It’s a long game. Here is a list:
1. Find your county Democrats. You may have to start at state level, but eventually you should be able to track down the chair of the county party and find out where and when they meet. Start attending meetings. If they’re not having meetings, hoooooboy. That’s a totally different thing. I spent two years fighting that battle, but if you want help, ping me.
2. At the very first meeting, if the group isn’t using a microphone, bring it up. Ask if the committee can invest in a portable PA system to bring to meetings to help people who have trouble hearing. If they balk (ables often will), don’t worry. Make the request once, and then make the request at every subsequent meeting, kindly, until they get so sick of you they cave and/or start empathizing with you. My position here: who cares why it gets done. Just get it done.
3. Keep going to meetings. Generally county parties meet every month.
4. If there are nametags at meetings, always use them and put your pronouns on them. Yes, even you, cis people. ESPECIALLY YOU.
5. At your third meeting, if the group is using sign in sheets, ask the secretary, or meeting chair if the former is unclear, if the sign in sheets could have a field for pronouns. It’s not about getting people to use it yet—that’s later—we just want it on the template so YOU can use it and set an example. Yes, you can make this request even as a cis person. In fact, it’s probably better that you do because it will cost you less. You can do the emotional labor instead of making trans and enby friends do the labor. This goes back to nametags: if you do it, you create a safe bubble for others to do it, or a social pressure situation for people to do it. Social pressure is sometimes toxic, but we can use it for positive things!
These are Very Simple things you can do to Increase Inclusion in local Democratic spaces and shove them left. This is just the start, too. There’s language scrubbing (kind of advanced because you need to have relationships with the people), requesting the committee invite guest speakers from marginalized communities, and becoming a delegate to the state party annual convention. This is Very Advanced because it generally means travel, but I plan to do it myself because in two years I’m going to make the Arkansas DPA adopt gender neutral language in their platform instead of this “he or she” business.
I mean, maybe you think of going to county meetings and go, “ugh I would rather eat glass” but you can always take an ebook on your phone or something (I do this…soon I will have time to knit again and I’ll be doing that). Take 3-4 hours out of your month and invest it.
What shoves the Democratic Party left? We do. A bunch of people taking small steps in their local communities. And then the candidates coming out of those committees get more progressive and thoughtful, too.
The world doesn’t change just because we want it to. We make it change.
Go do the work.
Additionally: show up to enough meetings and there’s a non-zero chance you could be running things, which is also helpful for the whole slow radicalisation process.
(in NZ if you show up to enough local meetings of a major political party you basically get elected to Parliament if that’s a thing you’re into, you think I’m joking but I’m not really, so I figure for the US ‘running things on a local level’ is totes achievable)
WILL BE BLOCKED BECAUSE of SOME OLD POLITICIANS “that know the youth and the internet the best then anyone else” IN THE SENATE THINKING THEY KNOW BETTER SHUTTING DOWN YOUTUBE AND OTHER SOCIAL PLATFORMS FOR ME AND PEOPLE LIVING IN THE EU FOREVER!
PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE I REPEAT THE ARTICLE HAS BEEN CHANGED COMPLETELY NO FUCKING JOKE GUYS! LAST TIME IT WAS ALL ABOUT PROTECTION NOW THEY ADDED SOME STUPID STUFF AND THEY WILL BE TAKING AWAY MY YOUTUBE; SOCIAL MEDIAS AND EVERYTHING!
PLEASE SIGN UP IN THIS PETITION IF WE DON´T HIT 5 MILLION GERMANY AND SO MANY EUROPE COUNTRIES WILL LOSE THEIR SOCIAL AND MORE!
SHARE THIS POST AND SIGN UP AND VOTE THE MORE THAN BETTER! Let’s SHOW THESE OLD PEOPLE THAT YOUTUBE, TUMBLR, INSTAGRAM AND ALL THESE GREAT OTHER SITES AREN´T FUCKING USELESS AND SHET BECAUSE THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT SOCIAL MEDIA IS! INSTEAD OF TAKING THESE PRECIOUS THINGS THEY SHOULD WORRY ABOUT OTHER.STUFF ( Migrants, new school system) BUT NAH THEY WANT TO TAKE AWAY OUR SOCIAL MEDIAS
I REPEAT article 13 HAS COMPLETED CHANGED AND IN A FEW MONTHS IT WILL TAKE AWAY OUR SOCIAL media LIKE TUMBLR AND YOUTUBE HERE IN EUROPE PLEASE SIGN UP FOR US GUYS I BEG YOU!
guys the democrats losing the senate isn’t a sign of anyone failing. the senate is stacked towards conservatives anyways, and it needs to be changed. or abolished. we’re sweeping the house, that’s the body of government that represents the will of the people because representation is proportionate to population. don’t be upset about the senate. we did it, we stood up and we voted, against gerrymandering, against voter suppression, against ill-equipped polls, we went out and we spoke out and no one should see this as a loss because it’s not.
Conservatives all over the internet are bawling right now that the House now can (and will) completely block Trump’s wall and many of his other plans, so yes, big and very important victory last night that happened because tons and tons of you voted this time.
I saw a sad facebook post from the gay bookstore back in Ann Arbor where I used to live about how they hadn’t sold any books that day so I went on their online store and bought a couple, and while you don’t get #deals like elsewhere online, I’d love it if y’all would consider buying your next gay book from them instead of like, Amazon.
A sad day – this post really helped them out big time back in April, but it seems the good fortune was unsustainable and they’ve announced that they’re going out of business at the end of December. I love Common Language and it’s one of the highlights of visiting Ann Arbor, and I’m very sad to see them close.
for a quick change of pace–i know we’ve all seen a thousand posts about voting, but what i haven’t seen (not yet) is one saying thank you.
thank you for those who made it out in the rain and the cold, who organized and canvassed and took on the onerous task of working with non-voting & conservative friends/family to change their stance if at least just this once. thank you for those who stood in line for hours, who had to travel because your voting place was moved, who had to jump through ridiculous fucking hoops to register, who weren’t inspired but showed up anyway for the disenfranchised and the greater good. thank you as well to everyone who voted early, absentee, and provisional.
andtheytoldustotellyouhello 