Take a deep breath and get ready for the fall

Here’s a frightening thought: Labor Day is just a few weeks away. That time when politics gets real, TV ads multiply and those awful urgent fundraising texts you hate seem to reproduce on their own.

It will be time to remember what’s at stake. If the November elections take place and are mostly unsuppressed, they are our best chance to save what’s left of our democracy and start turning the tide. That will take a lot of hard work by everyone. That means that tuning out in exhaustion and disgust just isn’t an option.

What can you do now to get ready? Here are a few ideas:

• Remember what you are fighting for. It’s way too easy to get lost in pollsters and pundits, anger and adversity. Remember the positives. You’re fighting for something, not just against the bad stuff.
  • One of us spent the Fourth of July sitting down and just stream-of-consciousness writing down what they want for their country. It was one of the sanest, healthiest things we’ve seen. You can check out their unedited list here or start your own without peeking first, then maybe compare.
• Check your voter registration. Make sure you’re good.
• Urge everyone you know to do the same, especially first-time voters, occasional voters, and voters in states where Republican voting officials have tried to purge voter rolls.
• Start to make your voting plan. Find out when your state starts early voting; if you can, vote in person and vote early. If you’re planning to vote by mail, find out the earliest day you can do so, so Republican efforts to subvert the Post Office are less likely to erase your vote. If you’re planning to vote in person, put it on your calendar now and find out where you can vote – again, especially in states where Republican officials have tried to limit voting opportunities.
• Make your donations budget.  Sadly, elections take money. Not everyone can afford to donate. Certainly, no one reading this can afford to out-donate Elon Musk. But still, every bit helps. 
  • Decide how much you can donate. 
  • Decide where to donate: local elections, elections that might affect control of the Senate, or anything else you care about. 
  • Decide when you want to donate. Maybe you want to donate early for more impact, or maybe wait until October and see which races are hanging in the balance. 
  • Decide how to donate. The best way is to donate directly to the campaigns you care about, not through committees which will take a cut and then decide what or who they think is important. Either use ActBlue or go to candidates’ own websites to make sure your money is really going where you want it to go. 
  • Never donate in response to a text or email from anyone you don’t know. A respected political scientist just published a new expose of how, following years of Republican abuses, now "Democratic consultants, committees, and party leaders built a fundraising spam pipeline that funnels money from a captive pool of elderly donors into their own operations." Not to be outdone, Google "Just Made It Easier for Campaigns to Send You Fund-Raising Emails."
• Make your “time and attention” budget. What are you going to pay attention to, what sources will you tune in to, and how much time will you give this every day or week, to keep your sanity?
  • Ignore the polls. They’re often wrong, now more than ever. Both the left and right seem wary of answering pollsters or saying what they think. Fracturing technology means there’s no way to reach everyone. As a result, polls increasingly include pollsters’ assumptions about who will or won’t actually vote, and how to weight small samples to reflect larger trends. We call that guessing.
  • Ignore the pundits. Most have an axe to grind, or are playing for attention (or clicks or likes or whatever currency they trade in). Controversy sells; consensus doesn’t.
  • Ignore the “civil war.” Those pundits have already declared that the Democratic party is riven by a civil war between centrists and progressives. They like to focus on more exciting terms like Establishment and DSA. The reality is that the opposition to autocracy cuts across a wide spectrum. Sure, policies matter. Preserving (or restoring) a democracy that allows voters to have an impact on those policies matters more. Preserving or restoring a democracy that allows a free press to report on policies (and corruption) matters more. Support candidates who support democracy, and worry about the rest later.
  • Find sources you can trust. We’ve listed a few on our Staying Informed page. If you want us to identify more, or if you have more to suggest, contact us at foshereandnow@gmail.com.
• Volunteer if you can. Lots of campaigns, especially locally, need bodies. The traditional needs are for things like phone banks, door-to-door canvassing and giving rides to the polls. These days, poll watching may be a high priority too.

And stay tuned. It’s going to be an interesting ride. We’ll try to help you keep up with it.

And as always: