How to Win Big This November
The choice couldn’t be more clear: We either win big this November by defeating the coup and its Republican enablers — or we kiss our democracy goodbye.
On its surface, this shouldn’t be hard to do. A record-setting 81 million Americans came out to vote for Joe Biden just 14 months ago — 7 million more than those who voted for the defeated former guy. That made this election the seventh of the last eight presidential elections where the Democrat won the most votes from the American people.
That’s right. The Republicans have won the popular vote only ONCE since the election of the first Bush in 1988. For the past 34 years the American people have made it abundantly clear that they do not want Republicans running this country. Only voter suppression, gerrymandering and the racist invention called the “electoral college“ have given the Right any power at all. WE hold the real power because there are tens of millions more Americans who agree with us, not them.
Women, young adults, and people of color make up more than 70% of the total eligible voters in the U.S. These groups also make up the massive hardcore base of the Democratic Party. In the 2020 election Biden won¹ 92 percent of the Black vote and 60 percent of the Hispanic vote. Biden also won 55 percent of the women’s vote and 61 percent of the young adult vote.
That is now the country we live in, no matter what the pundits say, no matter how many fat white guys I grew up with who now storm the Capitol or threaten to kidnap the governor of Michigan. Their days of holding power are now in catatonic remission — they know it, and their current decision to commit literal suicide in their own Berlin bunker of COVID denial and vaccine rejection is one for the history books. Our side never had to learn how to fire a single gun in that “civil war” they told us that was coming. The other side simply chose to die by a thousand Corona blood clots, because suffocating to death was more noble than trusting facts, science, and two hundred million fellow citizens who fought to keep them alive. But we weren’t listened to because we got our booster shots, wore our masks, and believed in things like universal health care and other socialist rot.
But here’s the ugly rub. The Trumpsters have every intention of taking us down with them — and that means Republican victories in the upcoming elections of ‘22 and ‘24. Of course, these will be their final victories, just before the last of them occupy the final available ventilator in the last hospital on the last mile in the last town in northernmost Idaho, just a few hundred ironic feet from a country where everyone has a free doctor.
How will the Republicans win in November? They can only pull it off with our help. The best way to help them win is to make sure just enough of the 81 million who put Biden into the White House end up deserting him by staying home on Election Day this November. As many surely will, dejected and demoralized because there will be no promised hike in the minimum wage, no paid family leave, no help with the price of groceries and a complete abandonment of saving the Earth from the catastrophe at hand.
Mr. Biden — the first thing that you must do for us to win in November 2022 is for you to do what you said you’d do in November of 2020!
Here’s the recipe for how we can win this year’s midterm elections:
1. Biden! Listen up! You must fulfill your campaign promises by doing an end-run around Manchin to give the American people what they need — RIGHT NOW!
If the people who voted for you immediately have more money and more help with child care for their kids, if they have more assistance with their aging parents, if they begin paying far less for prescriptions and can go to community college beginning next semester tuition-free, then they will return en masse to the polls in November and elect more Democrats to Congress. Do this NOW, and we can stop the oncoming tsunami of insurrectionists taking seats in Congress next year.
If the problem is Manchin and Sinema, you must consult the ghost of Lyndon Johnson. You’ll know what to do. Threats and pork work in our messed up political system. Give them what they want. Yes, they are sticking you and all the rest of us up. They are holding the country hostage. Pay them off and let’s get on with it! Do it.
Note: Yesterday, you finally announced that the filibuster must go to get the voting rights act passed. It took you a while to get over your old self as a centrist Senator. We may soon know if this action of yours succeeds. Even if it does, though, the Republicans will continue to abuse us with the filibuster, and little in the Senate will get passed.
That is why, President Biden, you must immediately start signing a series of executive orders. You can legally do this. You have numerous emergency powers for moments like this. You can:
1. Immediately offer federal unemployment checks to all who don’t have work or are underemployed.
2. Send a rebate check each month this year to every family in America that earns less than $110,000.
3. Send a child security check to the parents of every kid in America. We are in a NATIONAL EMERGENCY and the law allows for it.
4. Announce that ALL seniors can immediately get hearing aids, glasses and dental care through Medicare. Who is going to challenge you? Who is going to stand up and say our parents and grandparents don’t have a right to see, hear or chew? NO ONE! Do it!
5. Announce that we are in a medical emergency when it comes to the mental health of our children. Declare the government will provide free PRE-K and 3-K.
This is also so that parents can work. It’s a pandemic.
You have the authority to do a whole host of things when the country is in collapse. Don’t wait for Congress — immediately reduce the price of prescriptions. That alone will bring victory in November. To make double-sure that will happen, throw this in:
Because it has been declared a Homeland Security IMPERATIVE, every child in America will now be given A FREE HOT BREAKFAST AND LUNCH everyday at school and throughout the summer.
And because the Homeland cannot be secure if it’s own citizens have been reduced to being wage-slaves that keep them in poverty, declare that no American or resident will be forced to work for less than $15 an hour.
That’s how you win in November. But you/we must also do two more things:
2. We must, right now, recruit beloved, winnable candidates to run for the Senate, House, and local elections all over the country.
There are five Republican senators who have announced they are retiring this year. So we need to run the best candidates for these open seats who can defeat the new unlikable Republicans on the ballot. Many are already running.
These next couple months are our last best chance to run the best Democrats in our districts and states. The local state party hacks are already looking for boring, centrist, moderate candidates. Those candidates will lose. Political scientists who’ve studied why Democrats lose so much have learned it’s because these moderate Dems believe the only way to beat the Republicans is to be more like them. This does not work. Running left of center and being a true progressive Dem is the best path to victory, as shown by the massive turnout by young voters and voters of color in 2018² and 2020³.
The winning candidate will be the one who is authentic, decent, and a fighter for the working person. She’s a teacher, or a veteran. He’s an astronaut, or a General who opposed invading Iraq. She lost a child in the Parkland high school massacre. He is a business owner who pays everyone a living wage, whose employees all get paid family leave. She’s a former local TV anchor who people wish was still on TV. He’s a coach with a conscience in San Antonio. She was one half of the Miami Music Machine. He was the other half. She’s the Stacey Abrams of your state. He’s Michael Jordan of North Carolina. She’s America Ferrera. He’s Rob Reiner. She’s Meryl Streep (She’s gonna kill me for writing that). So let's say she’s the fighting Congresswoman, Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio.
(Here she is in my film, “Capitalism: A Love Story”. Watch after you finish this letter.)
Let’s run the right people for once and win like they did in Georgia in 2020.
3. Put ballot proposals on your Statewide ballots that will bring out The Base to vote. Once in the voting booth, they’ll also vote for Dems over Republicans.
I have seen this succeed numerous times. Get your base out to vote by giving them the chance to make their own laws.
In 2018 in Michigan, we had record turnouts of young people and people of color in an off-year election because we put two proposals on the ballot: Legalize marijuana and outlaw gerrymandering. They both passed by big margins — and the bonus was, with so many progressives drawn to polls by these ballot proposals, they ended up tossing the Republicans out of the top leadership positions in the State Capitol and replaced them with all Democrats: a woman Governor, a Black Lt. Governor, a lesbian Attorney General and a female Secretary of State. Not one straight white male calling the top shots in Michigan. Sweet.
That wouldn’t have happened without the voter cat nip of those ballot proposals.
Ballot Proposals to Legalize Marijuana
The same thing happened in 2020 in Arizona. One of the reasons both Joe Biden and Sen. Mark Kelly won Arizona in 2020 was because there was a ballot proposal to legalize pot⁴. A landslide of 60% of the voters said yes — which caused an 18% increase in youth turnout over 2016⁵, and thus turned Arizona blue in 2020. Without Arizona Biden would not be President. All because of a ballot proposal for weed!
This November there are already TEN states⁶, including Missouri, Ohio and Florida, that are slated to vote on ballot initiatives on legalizing or decriminalizing recreational marijuana. Shouldn’t your state be one of them to help tip the results against the Republicans? Start those petitions circulating now!
Ballot Proposals to End Gerrymandering and Voter Suppression
In addition to Michigan outlawing gerrymandering in 2018, Colorado and Ohio did the same. Turnout? 14%⁷ and 9% over the previous election. In Ohio, the measure to stop gerrymandering passed with 74% of the vote⁸.
Ballot Proposals to Raise the Minimum Wage
Here’s an amazing statistic. Every single ballot proposition to raise the minimum wage in the 21st century has WON⁹, Red state or Blue. It’s the one sure way to increase turnout. Whether it’s to lower the cost of prescription drugs, pass the Equal Rights Amendment, or expand Medicaid, ballot proposals for the things the public wants bring out the voters and help to elect the right candidates.
That’s it! The three steps to victory! All it takes is the will of each of us to say, “That’s it. We’re doing this. Everyone off the bench! Everyone in the pool!”
The result? The Coup is crushed. Free dental and mental for everyone within a year! Let’s do this!!
Endnotes:
¹ “Behind Biden’s 2020 Victory” -Pew Research Center
² “Election Night 2018: Historically High Youth Turnout, Support for Democrats” -CIRCLE, Tufts
⁴ “Arizona Proposition 207, Marijuana Legalization Initiative (2020)” - Ballotpedia
⁵ “State-by-State 2020 Youth Voter Turnout: West and Southwest” -CIRCLE, Tufts
⁶ “Marijuana on the ballot” - Ballotpedia
⁷ “Colorado Amendment Y, Independent Commission for Congressional Redistricting Amendment (2018)” - Ballotpedia
⁸ “Ohio Issue 1, Congressional Redistricting Procedures Amendment (May 2018)”- Ballotpedia
⁹ “Minimum wage on the ballot” - Ballotpedia
Call it a bribe - or not?! So what! Your urgings of Biden are right on & would garner the Demos a ton of much needed votes!
Absolutely agree with you!! i don't know what to do about concerns that "democrats" like Manchin & Cinema, won't vote for the voting rights bills, or all the republicans who won't vote for it ...I always thought Democracy meant one citizen/one vote. Isn't anyone against that treasonous to our country? How can they be allowed to hold office? Here in WA State we have free and fair elections - every voter receives a ballot in the mail and we can drop it off or mail it in. All private, no intimidation, no fraud. This is how our whole country needs to vote!