Yes indeed. My area is really, really lucky in this regard, although I'm pissed at my congressman (Bill Keating, MA-09) for supporting the Israel Security Assistance Act. Fortunately it won't get through the Senate, and I'll vote for Keating anyway because he's mostly OK otherwise.
State elective offices are vital as well. While hailing from MA the choice was between D/lobs and Country Club Rs, liberal Rs and moderate Rs.
When I arrived in AZ there was only one party, the Mormon Party. They dominated the state including by running Mormons who re-registered as Ds in primaries. Lots of win-wins.
Then along came the first bump in population pitting the Mormons against more traditional Rs, led by former CJ Rehnquist who dubbed the late Sen MCain as the titular head of the party Before my time/arrival).. Rsand Mormons dominated the state office (Gov-AG-SECSTATE) with an occasional D now and then and kept a super majority in both state chambers and sending 2 to 3 Representatives to Congress for each 1 D. chipping away beginning with the emergence of O.
1000s joined together to GOTV along with registration drives all around the state. Now all 3 top state offices belong to Ds in a state we are outnumbered, both US Senators are Ds kinda, and in 2022 the Rs took back control of the majority of the 8 House districts. And of course Joe won AZ EC in 2020 by a whisker. We closed the gap in both state Houses and have a decent chance to hold one in 2024 now that Kamala is leading the ticket. Joe was lagging Trump here and the second order effect was dragging Ds on the ticket down.
Point being in deep blue states there will be some Ds who care only Ds because of the behind their name.
Turning a ruby red state pink and then kinda purple took a decade and a half. It's a labor of love to do so because it's the majority of Zonies who benefit from it.
FTR: The best way to bump out voter participation and turnout is Vote By Mail. We got it thru the R-dominated legislative branches and Gov by focusing solely on lowering costs. Rs love single data points and rarely think beyond 1.
I didn't realize the Mormons were so influential in AZ. Democrats in MA control just about everything now that Maura Healey is governor. Despite its Democratic supermajority, the legislature is pretty awful at getting anything done. I'm partial to Kim Driscoll, the lieutenant governor, and Diana DiZoglio, the auditor, who is a pistol. Auditor DiZoglio wants to audit the legislature. Naturally the legislature says NO WAY. Meanwhile this past week I helped my town clerk mail out vote-by-mail ballots to everyone in town. I'm a poll worker so I don't vote by mail but I love that it's so easy to do.
Vote By Mail by opting in irrespective if a person lived in the same building as a precinct voting location was the secret sauce. Was ez due to cost savings and with the population explosion. Population explosion put a strain on poll workers, equipment (voting machines) and the logistics of rearranging past voting locations and adding others.
The tradeoff was NOT counting any mail-ins until early voting and same day votes were counted. That delays the results here by a lot. That can't process a mail in ballot-signature verification, sens any thru the machine that slices the outside envelope, then the inside then separates into machine ready piles for counting.
Automation is useless unless its unleashed.
Yes, Mormons ate up all the free land wabac in the olden days. AZ became ranch land, farm land, and cotton land all owned by Mormon families. It's only been since the late '90s into this century that they began selling it to developers.
The TELL is a development whose entrance sits pretty far back on the road, and the street front is a huge sprawling house/yard. THen down the road a piece same TELL.
Out here a extra long SUV is referred to as a BMW, Big Mormon Wagon. I have one for the doggos.
Avg # of kids in Mormon families is 7. And ready for this, when the oldest ones go off to school , the Mormons bring in foster kids to convert plus squeeze every nickel they can out of the state for "caring" for them.
While they slowly lost political power it's offset with wealth. Here, even developments of multi-million dollars homes or say 550K and up , the developers are allowed to build what is called high density developements...like 20-25 apart on each side. Puts a great strain on the water supply.
So a factoid that the greater PHX metro is now larger than the Commonwealth of MA.. When we moved out of what was then a 'burb of PHX to out here, there was still dirt roads, no street lights, and no traffic lights. We are about 45mi from the center of PHX, story not we, me and the doggos. Now the metro area overlaps and pasted over to the east and south into the next county. The west of here is Rez that cant be built on and unless a suoer offer comes to them they will not lese any more land. Last time they did a jet engine plant went up...testing those babies could be heard for 25 milies. Leases are no longer like the old days of 99 years. Now <10 cuz of all the messes corporations left when they left.
The Democracy Dies in Darkness water bottle I carried everywhere now has a lovely little "Vote" sticker over it. I'm keeping an eye out for another when we have the "Vote Harris/ Whoever" sticker options.
Thankfully the ostensible D senators Manchin and Sinema are in their way out. One wonders if they even understand they were played by Republicans for their part in holding fast to the 60 votes filibuster. In McConnell’s hands especially, it was nothing but a cudgel designed to block progress because it only took 40 votes to say no.
People like Sinema and maybe Manchin too are so determined to prove their "independence" that they're easily lured into traps that prove they're anything but independent.
Sinema is the worse of the two because she was elected as a professed progressive and was nothing of the kind. Shocker that she had no basis for re-election.
Leaning into the idea that negotiating is best always was exceedingly silly. Sinema was the Democratic negotiator with Lankford for the border security bill. She essentially gave him almost everything he wanted, with few Democratic concessions. Not even permanent Dreamers protections.
Before Trump “ordered” it to be tanked, Republicans openly marveled that it was a bill that they themselves would never get if they sought to negotiate with Democrats in order to get 60 votes for that bill.
Thanks for that article. Bipartisan cooperation on substantive issues in 2021?? I remember Sinema's defense of the filibuster. Then along came Adam Jentleson's book KILL SWITCH: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of Democracy (2022) and blew it out of the water. (P.S. I agree about Manchin. He's pretty much WYSIWYG as long as what you see is coal and $$$.)
It was ridiculous. Seesawing policies? If that happened, welp, the populace will definitely see which party preferred what, right? But the reality is simpler than that. For the last 40 years, Republicans have been perfectly happy to be the party of no, blocking all legislation, no matter how badly needed, with a mere 40 votes. And when they do have a trifecta? Reconciliation laws rules suits them just fine, because they only want tax cuts.
Democrats want everything else, and they’re blocked. Increasingly, Republicans simply required a vote and blocked them that way. And people don’t understand the 60 votes cudgel and only see majorities and blame Democrats when they have trifectas. And Democrats do their best, and pass complex laws like the Affordable Care Act, and yeah simply passing Medicare for All is impossible without scrapping the filibuster, but people don’t understand that either.
And we have sanctimonious arguments like that article from Sinema of all people, who go on to have big public sads about the future loss of the filibuster and it is all totally ugh. Because it would be one thing if negotiations occurred all the time, in actual good faith, and for every bill, but that’s just not the case. No real bipartisan legislation for decades. Badly needed laws just… left on the floor. How could she see voting rights and reproductive liberty just being blocked and thinking that was better than passing them? Boggles the mind.
Tomorrow night (Monday) I'm going to hear Rhiannon Giddens (be still, my beating heart!). Will watch out for future opportunities. Meanwhile I'm doing "relational organizing" (buzz phrase for emailing, phoning, or otherwise talking to people you know) for a local candidate for state rep.
If the tieback of sustaining our democracy to managing alcoholism and addiction doesn’t resonate as a campaign message the DNC must use, then I don’t know what will…
Who amongst us in this country is not an addict, or can’t relate to someone who is? Not just the pain, but the relevance - and correlate to the pain of living in an undemocratic country.
Wonderfully put. It's also a reminder that we have to be in this together. Going it alone ("white-knuckling it"?) tends to lead to disaster -- or to falling in line between a wannabe strongman.
Elect state and US senators and representatives in 2024 and then do it again in 2026 and 2028.
Yes indeed. My area is really, really lucky in this regard, although I'm pissed at my congressman (Bill Keating, MA-09) for supporting the Israel Security Assistance Act. Fortunately it won't get through the Senate, and I'll vote for Keating anyway because he's mostly OK otherwise.
(Adding without substracting)
State elective offices are vital as well. While hailing from MA the choice was between D/lobs and Country Club Rs, liberal Rs and moderate Rs.
When I arrived in AZ there was only one party, the Mormon Party. They dominated the state including by running Mormons who re-registered as Ds in primaries. Lots of win-wins.
Then along came the first bump in population pitting the Mormons against more traditional Rs, led by former CJ Rehnquist who dubbed the late Sen MCain as the titular head of the party Before my time/arrival).. Rsand Mormons dominated the state office (Gov-AG-SECSTATE) with an occasional D now and then and kept a super majority in both state chambers and sending 2 to 3 Representatives to Congress for each 1 D. chipping away beginning with the emergence of O.
1000s joined together to GOTV along with registration drives all around the state. Now all 3 top state offices belong to Ds in a state we are outnumbered, both US Senators are Ds kinda, and in 2022 the Rs took back control of the majority of the 8 House districts. And of course Joe won AZ EC in 2020 by a whisker. We closed the gap in both state Houses and have a decent chance to hold one in 2024 now that Kamala is leading the ticket. Joe was lagging Trump here and the second order effect was dragging Ds on the ticket down.
Point being in deep blue states there will be some Ds who care only Ds because of the behind their name.
Turning a ruby red state pink and then kinda purple took a decade and a half. It's a labor of love to do so because it's the majority of Zonies who benefit from it.
FTR: The best way to bump out voter participation and turnout is Vote By Mail. We got it thru the R-dominated legislative branches and Gov by focusing solely on lowering costs. Rs love single data points and rarely think beyond 1.
I didn't realize the Mormons were so influential in AZ. Democrats in MA control just about everything now that Maura Healey is governor. Despite its Democratic supermajority, the legislature is pretty awful at getting anything done. I'm partial to Kim Driscoll, the lieutenant governor, and Diana DiZoglio, the auditor, who is a pistol. Auditor DiZoglio wants to audit the legislature. Naturally the legislature says NO WAY. Meanwhile this past week I helped my town clerk mail out vote-by-mail ballots to everyone in town. I'm a poll worker so I don't vote by mail but I love that it's so easy to do.
Vote By Mail by opting in irrespective if a person lived in the same building as a precinct voting location was the secret sauce. Was ez due to cost savings and with the population explosion. Population explosion put a strain on poll workers, equipment (voting machines) and the logistics of rearranging past voting locations and adding others.
The tradeoff was NOT counting any mail-ins until early voting and same day votes were counted. That delays the results here by a lot. That can't process a mail in ballot-signature verification, sens any thru the machine that slices the outside envelope, then the inside then separates into machine ready piles for counting.
Automation is useless unless its unleashed.
Yes, Mormons ate up all the free land wabac in the olden days. AZ became ranch land, farm land, and cotton land all owned by Mormon families. It's only been since the late '90s into this century that they began selling it to developers.
The TELL is a development whose entrance sits pretty far back on the road, and the street front is a huge sprawling house/yard. THen down the road a piece same TELL.
Out here a extra long SUV is referred to as a BMW, Big Mormon Wagon. I have one for the doggos.
Avg # of kids in Mormon families is 7. And ready for this, when the oldest ones go off to school , the Mormons bring in foster kids to convert plus squeeze every nickel they can out of the state for "caring" for them.
While they slowly lost political power it's offset with wealth. Here, even developments of multi-million dollars homes or say 550K and up , the developers are allowed to build what is called high density developements...like 20-25 apart on each side. Puts a great strain on the water supply.
So a factoid that the greater PHX metro is now larger than the Commonwealth of MA.. When we moved out of what was then a 'burb of PHX to out here, there was still dirt roads, no street lights, and no traffic lights. We are about 45mi from the center of PHX, story not we, me and the doggos. Now the metro area overlaps and pasted over to the east and south into the next county. The west of here is Rez that cant be built on and unless a suoer offer comes to them they will not lese any more land. Last time they did a jet engine plant went up...testing those babies could be heard for 25 milies. Leases are no longer like the old days of 99 years. Now <10 cuz of all the messes corporations left when they left.
The Democracy Dies in Darkness water bottle I carried everywhere now has a lovely little "Vote" sticker over it. I'm keeping an eye out for another when we have the "Vote Harris/ Whoever" sticker options.
Can't wait for the merch roll-out!
Thankfully the ostensible D senators Manchin and Sinema are in their way out. One wonders if they even understand they were played by Republicans for their part in holding fast to the 60 votes filibuster. In McConnell’s hands especially, it was nothing but a cudgel designed to block progress because it only took 40 votes to say no.
People like Sinema and maybe Manchin too are so determined to prove their "independence" that they're easily lured into traps that prove they're anything but independent.
Sinema is the worse of the two because she was elected as a professed progressive and was nothing of the kind. Shocker that she had no basis for re-election.
Leaning into the idea that negotiating is best always was exceedingly silly. Sinema was the Democratic negotiator with Lankford for the border security bill. She essentially gave him almost everything he wanted, with few Democratic concessions. Not even permanent Dreamers protections.
Before Trump “ordered” it to be tanked, Republicans openly marveled that it was a bill that they themselves would never get if they sought to negotiate with Democrats in order to get 60 votes for that bill.
I consider this article (that she wrote) the length and breadth of Sinema’s legacy: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/21/kyrsten-sinema-filibuster-for-the-people-act/
As if Republicans had any interest in ending gerrymandering, discrimination, voter suppression, reforming the Supreme Court, or preserving rights.
Thanks for that article. Bipartisan cooperation on substantive issues in 2021?? I remember Sinema's defense of the filibuster. Then along came Adam Jentleson's book KILL SWITCH: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of Democracy (2022) and blew it out of the water. (P.S. I agree about Manchin. He's pretty much WYSIWYG as long as what you see is coal and $$$.)
It was ridiculous. Seesawing policies? If that happened, welp, the populace will definitely see which party preferred what, right? But the reality is simpler than that. For the last 40 years, Republicans have been perfectly happy to be the party of no, blocking all legislation, no matter how badly needed, with a mere 40 votes. And when they do have a trifecta? Reconciliation laws rules suits them just fine, because they only want tax cuts.
Democrats want everything else, and they’re blocked. Increasingly, Republicans simply required a vote and blocked them that way. And people don’t understand the 60 votes cudgel and only see majorities and blame Democrats when they have trifectas. And Democrats do their best, and pass complex laws like the Affordable Care Act, and yeah simply passing Medicare for All is impossible without scrapping the filibuster, but people don’t understand that either.
And we have sanctimonious arguments like that article from Sinema of all people, who go on to have big public sads about the future loss of the filibuster and it is all totally ugh. Because it would be one thing if negotiations occurred all the time, in actual good faith, and for every bill, but that’s just not the case. No real bipartisan legislation for decades. Badly needed laws just… left on the floor. How could she see voting rights and reproductive liberty just being blocked and thinking that was better than passing them? Boggles the mind.
Here is an addtional way:
Another ZOOM call in the works. Was supposed to be tonight however was moved to Monday:
https://events.democrats.org/event/653900/ or
Monday, July 29th at 7:00 PM ET to accommodate the surge.
RSVP here: https://events.democrats.org/event/653900/ #AnswerTheCall #AnswerTheCall2024
<Wimmin For Harris>
There is a male counterpart, "Dudes For Harris> on Monday as well
Tomorrow night (Monday) I'm going to hear Rhiannon Giddens (be still, my beating heart!). Will watch out for future opportunities. Meanwhile I'm doing "relational organizing" (buzz phrase for emailing, phoning, or otherwise talking to people you know) for a local candidate for state rep.
If the tieback of sustaining our democracy to managing alcoholism and addiction doesn’t resonate as a campaign message the DNC must use, then I don’t know what will…
Who amongst us in this country is not an addict, or can’t relate to someone who is? Not just the pain, but the relevance - and correlate to the pain of living in an undemocratic country.
Wonderfully put. It's also a reminder that we have to be in this together. Going it alone ("white-knuckling it"?) tends to lead to disaster -- or to falling in line between a wannabe strongman.
I'd be pissed as well, though he has a lot of company.