Tag: Sane Republicans

A Believe It: You Matter Two-fer to Use When Talking to Friends and Family About Voting in 2020
Community Activism · Use Your Power, Recruit Friends

A Believe It: You Matter Two-fer to Use When Talking to Friends and Family About Voting in 2020

otycd

A Believe It: You Matter two-fer–a pair of past BI:YM pieces to reference when talking to friends and family about voting in 2020, especially those who have voted Republican in the past, or the recent past. 

 

The first is The GOP Really Is That Bad, and it explains why some people have kept voting Republican despite what they do when they get into office–at least some of those people simply can’t believe that they want to destroy Medicare, Social Security, etc. In other words, they can’t wrap their heads around the notion of public servants supporting things that are so obviously wrong, and even evil. Use the information in this entry to help disabuse them of that.

 

The second is The “May Contain Peanuts” Presidency, and it gets at a problem with Trump that might resonate with people who want smaller government and fewer regulations: Trump’s norm-breaking and rule-flouting will FORCE us to pass laws to penalize behavior that every sane, decent individual knows not to do anyway.

 

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Escape Your Bubble By Joining Stand Up Republic
Escape Your Bubble · Read, Educate Yourself, Prepare

Escape Your Bubble By Joining Stand Up Republic

otycd

This OTYCD entry originally posted in July 2017.

 

Escape your bubble by joining Stand Up Republic, an organization founded by former CIA officer Evan McMullin and digital politics wizard Mindy Finn.

 

McMullin, you might recall, jumped into the 2016 presidential race late, after the Republicans chose Trump as their candidate. Finn was McMullin’s running mate. Despite not getting started until August and their status as a third-party ticket, McMullin and Finn won three-quarters of a million votes.

 

Since the election ended, McMullin has been an outspoken critic of Trump, so much so that he’s actually gotten under Trump’s skin a few times.

 

He and Finn have also co-founded Stand Up Republic, an organization devoted to “build[ing] and organiz[ing] a grassroots movement in defense of liberty, equality, and truth in America. Our priorities will be to uphold the Constitution and defend the democratic norms and institutions upon which the protection of our basic rights depend.”

 

Please check out Stand Up Republic, follow it on social media, and follow its co-founders as well.

 

Obligatory warning, with apologies for bonking you all on the head about this fact: McMullin and Finn hold at least some different political beliefs than you do. That means they’ll sometimes say things and do things that don’t match your beliefs, and might piss you off well and thoroughly. That’s ok. Really, it’s OK. You’re being asked to look at what they’re doing and support what you like, not endorse every last little everything they do. They understand the danger of Trump–that’s the key thing. One of the reasons this country is so borked right now is we’re fiercely polarized and, in avoiding jerks who disagree with us, we end up avoiding decent people who happen to disagree with us. That’s got to stop if we want to make things better.

 

 

See the Stand Up Republic site:

https://standuprepublic.com

 

 

Like it on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/standuprepublic

 

 

Follow it on Twitter:

@StandUpRepublic

 

 

Donate to Stand Up Republic:

https://standuprepublic.com/donate

 

 

Subscribe to One Thing You Can Do by clicking the blue button on the upper right or checking the About & Subscribe page. And tell your friends about the blog!

 

 

Follow Evan McMullin on Twitter:

@Evan_McMullin

 

 

Follow Mindy Finn on Twitter:

@mindyfinn

 

 

Read an Op-Ed McMullin wrote for CNN calling for Republicans to stand up to Trump:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/28/opinions/conservatives-stop-caving-to-trump-on-liberty-mcmullin/

 

 

Read a New Yorker profile on McMullin:

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/evan-mcmullins-quest-to-save-democracy

 

 

Read a good Washington Post opinion piece on McMullin:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/02/17/evan-mcmullin-and-senate-republicans-go-where-chaffetz-wont/?utm_term=.cadeb68c4ef5

Commit to the Long Haul, Because We Need You, Yes, You, to Help Un-Bork the Country
Community Activism · Good News · Health Care · Stand Up for Norms · Use Your Power, Recruit Friends · Vote with your Dollars

Commit to the Long Haul, Because We Need You, Yes, You, to Help Un-Bork the Country

otycd

This OTYCD entry originally posted in April 2017.

Commit yourself to the long haul, because that’s what’s needed to un-bork the country. 

Waking up on November 9, 2016 was tough and bewildering, and not just because Trump won. It was tough because many of us were shocked to discover that the Democrats—the opposition party—was weak and in piss-poor shape to reign in Trump and his minions.

All this was made exponentially worse by the behavior of the Republicans, who have consistently favored their party over the greater good of the country since the current Congressional session began.

Let’s be painfully honest. There’s only so much the Democrats can do when the Republicans own everything and show no interest in fulfilling their obligation to check Trump’s power. The Democrats are trying, and in many cases, trying valiantly to curb the worst excesses, but the Republicans hold all the cards right now (in 2017).

Do not lose sight of the fact that the Democrats are stepping up, and the Republicans are not.

Trump will leave eventually. We won’t take bets on when. But never forget that this does not end when he’s gone. In the immortal words of God, speaking at the end of the classic film Time Bandits (which you really need to see if you haven’t yet): You need to stay here and carry on the fight.

The good news of the 115th Congress, such as it is, is that sitting Congressional Republicans are showing us who they are–unfit to govern, and incapable of governing.

We need to remember this, take down their names, and work to remove members of Congress who rolled over and surrendered to Trump. We need to work to elect Democrats, and we also need to work to elect Republicans who are sane and responsible.

Yes, you read that right. You need to work sane, responsible members of the opposition party, too.

One of the big reasons this country is borked right now is that we’re polarized. We used to be able to tolerate, and even befriend, people who disagreed with us on key issues. Somehow, without any of us really noticing, too many of us lost this talent.

You can argue about the hows and the whys, but it’s a fact. One of the ways to fix it is to go out and befriend people who don’t think like you all the time, on everything, but who are responsible and sane and have backbones.

You’re probably thinking by now, “Yeah, but what one thing are you asking me to do?” Fair enough.

Read this past post about recruiting friends in red states to call their MoCs:

https://onethingyoucando.com/2017/04/01/recruit-your-red-state-friends-to-call-their-mocs-2/

Pay attention to the bits about cultivating friendships. Get to work, if you haven’t yet. Build up your network so you can support your red state friends during elections and perhaps help them ID and support sane Republicans (assuming the Democrats are feckless or the Republican candidate is actually better).

And be on watch for future posts about sane Republicans, and consider following those folks on SoMe.

In addition, look at your state and local reps. Do you see any sane Republicans? Keep tabs on them. Maybe support them. Certainly support them if their Democratic counterpart is feckless or worse.

Donate to Republican Bill Weld’s 2020 Campaign for President (Update May 2019)
Elections · Read, Educate Yourself, Prepare

Donate to Republican Bill Weld’s 2020 Campaign for President (Update May 2019)

otycd

Update: On April 15, 2019, Weld announced that he would indeed go ahead with a Republican primary challenge to Trump. As of May 11, no other Republicans have stepped up.

 

Donate to Republican Bill Weld’s 2020 campaign for president. 

 

Yes, we at OTYCD just asked you to consider giving money to a Republican. You read that right.

 

Regular readers won’t be surprised. We are, we remain, and we will always be in favor of SANE Republicans. Weld qualifies.

 

Bill Weld is a former governor of Massachusetts, and he ran on the Libertarian ticket in 2016 as the vice presidential candidate.

 

He has announced an exploratory committee for 2020, but he only says he’ll run if he gets enough donations to make a campaign worthwhile.

 

The GOP, craven cowards that they are, does not want Trump to face any challengers in the primary. Other Republicans have publicly mulled stepping up to challenge him, but none have done so as of March 2019.

 

Weld has stepped up, and he will not be scared off.

 

This should go without saying, but to be clear–asking you to consider giving money to Weld does not mean we at OTYCD endorse his platform or his worldview. Some of his positions suck like a Dyson showroom.

 

As Republicans go, he’s definitely one of the ones who suck less. He’s pro-choice, pro-LGBT rights, and in favor of legalizing marijuana. He also ran Massachusetts well for six years in the 1990s.

 

But, yeah, Weld likes stuff you don’t like, for sure, no question. He supports charter schools, and he wants to cut, cut, cut taxes like vampires want to drink blood.

 

If giving money to a Republican is a 100 percent always-and-forever no-go for you, understood, we get it. Go here or here instead today to get things you can do.

 

But if you can’t, or can’t bring yourself, to give money to Weld, consider educating yourself about him and supporting him by spreading the word about his efforts, in person and on social media.

 

Trump can’t win with his base alone, and his base is shrinking by the day. It’s worth it to do what we can to encourage the rise of alternative candidates who appeal to voters who typically vote Republican, but who don’t want to re-elect Trump. Weld fits the bill.

 

Weld says he’ll make his decision in late April or early May. If this is something you can do, please do it.

 

 

Donate to Weld’s 2020 exploratory committee:

https://www.weld2020.org

 

 

Read Ballotpedia’s page on Bill Weld:

https://ballotpedia.org/Bill_Weld_presidential_campaign,_2020

 

 

See his entry on the On The Issues website:

http://www.ontheissues.org/bill_weld.htm

 

 

Subscribe to One Thing You Can Do by clicking the blue button on the upper right or checking the About & Subscribe page. And tell your friends about the blog!

 

 

Read a New York Times piece on Weld’s announcement of his 2020 exploratory committee:

 

 

Read a Guardian piece on Weld and his possible 2020 primary challenge:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/23/bill-weld-interview-trump-republican-2020-challenger

 

 

Like Bill Weld on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/GovBillWeld/

 

 

Follow Bill Weld on Twitter:

@GovBillWeld

 

Welcome Independents, Libertarians, and Typically Republican Voters Who Plan to Vote for Democrats In 2018
Community Activism · Elections · Use Your Power, Recruit Friends

Welcome Independents, Libertarians, and Typically Republican Voters Who Plan to Vote for Democrats In 2018

otycd

This OTYCD post originally appeared in June 2018. In the lead-up to the midterms, we’re re-running important posts. Please click on the announcement from Sarah Jane to learn why you’re not seeing timely daily posts.

 

Welcome Independents, Libertarians, and typically Republican voters who plan to vote for Democrats in 2018.

 

We live in weird times. We have a manifestly unfit person sitting in the Oval Office. The second that Trump finished the oath of office on Inauguration Day 2017, his business entanglements put him in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, making him impeachable.

 

Still more evidence for impeachment has piled up since then, but the Republican-controlled Congress hasn’t started to begin to consider thinking about bestirring itself to do its job and remove Trump from office.

 

Once upon a time, Republicans did the right thing and threatened President Richard Nixon with impeachment over the Watergate scandal, prompting him to resign. Today, tribalism is stopping the Republicans from doing the right thing with Donald Trump. It’s shameful. History will judge them harshly for it, and so will voters.

 

Some Alabamians who normally vote Republican realized that staying home would not be enough during the December 2017 special election for Senate. Some–admittedly a minority–went to the polls and voted Democrat for the first time in their lives to do their bit to stop Republican Roy Moore from winning.

 

People across the country who don’t normally vote for Democrats are coming to the same conclusion that Republicans in Alabama did. They’re watching Trump’s antics, and watching Congress do nothing, and realizing they have to act by voting for candidates who will do what their party will not.

 

They’re starting to speak up publicly as well. Consider this March 2018 piece from The Atlantic, by Jonathan Rauch and Benjamin Wittes, of Lawfare, who both describe themselves as “true independents”. Bluntly titled Boycott the Republican Party, it counsels Americans to methodically vote for Democrats to send a message to the GOP in hopes of getting it to straighten up and fly right (pun not intended):

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/boycott-the-gop/550907/

 

Key quote:

“So we arrive at a syllogism:

(1) The GOP has become the party of Trumpism.
(2) Trumpism is a threat to democratic values and the rule of law.
(3) The Republican Party is a threat to democratic values and the rule of law.

If the syllogism holds, then the most-important tasks in U.S. politics right now are to change the Republicans’ trajectory and to deprive them of power in the meantime. In our two-party system, the surest way to accomplish these things is to support the other party, in every race from president to dogcatcher. The goal is to make the Republican Party answerable at every level, exacting a political price so stinging as to force the party back into the democratic fold.”

 

On June 7, 2018, the Washington Post reported on a poll that shows that around a quarter of Republicans favor candidates who will act as a check on Trump.

Here’s the piece:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/06/07/a-quarter-of-republicans-say-they-want-candidates-who-will-be-a-check-on-trump/?utm_term=.db5e5358b5a8

 

And here’s the key passage:

“Perhaps the most interesting part of this poll, though, is that more than a quarter of Republicans want candidates who will act as a check on Trump. On net, Republicans were 11 points more likely to say that they would be turned off by a candidate acting as a check on Trump, but it’s still the case that 27 percent would be encouraged to vote for a candidate willing to check Trump. That even as Republicans support candidates who support Trump on policy issues. By more than 60 percentage points, Republicans are more likely to support candidates that stand with Trump on taxes and immigration. But they’re nearly split on candidates who stand up to Trump generally.”

 

And since we at OTYCD drafted and queued this piece, more longtime GOP supporters have publicly defected and called for others to join them.

 

Steve Schmidt, a high-ranking GOP strategist who helped elect George W. Bush, worked on John McCain’s 2008 campaign, and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s gubernatorial campaign in California, quit the party. On June 19, 2018, he tweeted (and it’s now his pinned tweet):

29 years and nine months ago I registered to vote and became a member of The Republican Party which was founded in 1854 to oppose slavery and stand for the dignity of human life. Today I renounce my membership in the Republican Party. It is fully the party of Trump.

 

Read stories on Schmidt quitting the Republican Party:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/veteran-republican-strategist-steve-schmidt-renounces-gop/2018/06/20/7bcf53fe-74c7-11e8-bda1-18e53a448a14_story.html?utm_term=.872cc10a5f60

https://www.yahoo.com/news/steve-schmidt-helped-run-republican-212844307.html

 

 

On June 22, 2018, prominent conservative George Will, who won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1977, put out a blunt column installment in the Washington Post titled Vote Against the GOP This November.

 

He hasn’t decided he likes the Democrats. He doesn’t, and he won’t. His call to vote Democrat this fall is intended as the corrective Trump needs, and which the GOP-controlled Congress has been too feckless to give. Here’s the final paragraph from the piece:

 

“In today’s GOP, which is the president’s plaything, he is the mainstream. So, to vote against his party’s cowering congressional caucuses is to affirm the nation’s honor while quarantining him. A Democratic-controlled Congress would be a basket of deplorables, but there would be enough Republicans to gum up the Senate’s machinery, keeping the institution as peripheral as it has been under their control and asphyxiating mischief from a Democratic House. And to those who say, “But the judges, the judges!” the answer is: Article III institutions are not more important than those of Articles I and II combined.”

 

 

Read Will’s full column:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/vote-against-the-gop-this-november/2018/06/22/a6378306-7575-11e8-b4b7-308400242c2e_story.html?utm_term=.97ccad43bccf

 

 

This is where you come in.

 

If you know someone who doesn’t normally vote for Democrats, but who gets that they must in 2018 in order to right the GOP and provide a check on Trump, you need to be welcoming and gracious toward them.

 

In other words, don’t be an asshole, and be extra-careful not to come off as an asshole to these people.

 

Don’t assume they’ve gone all liberal and progressive because they’re going to vote for Democrats this fall. They haven’t.

 

Respect the fact that these folks wouldn’t vote this way under normal circumstances.

 

Respect the fact that they think differently about politics than you, and respect the fact that they’re doing what needs to be done for the sake of our country, and our democracy.

 

Also, keep your interactions pleasant and fun. Don’t bring up politics unless they do, and if they do bring up politics, let them lead the conversation. Be supportive. Commiserate.

 

After Labor Day, start talking about plans to go to the polls together. Offer a ride. Offer to have lunch or buy a drink after you both vote. If it makes sense, offer child care or offer to cover a shift for your friend if it will help them reach the polls on November 6, 2018.

 

Also, do not say “Thank you”. Seriously. It’s not appropriate because it could be read as insulting.

 

Think about it–should you get a cookie for stepping up and blocking a wannabe dictator from destroying our democracy? No, it’s the right thing to do. If someone has decided it’s time to cast a punitive vote against their home party, they would definitely be offended at the notion that they deserve praise for doing it.

 

Instead, you can say, “I look forward to the days when we can go back to disagreeing with each other.”

 

If you want to show lasting gratitude to those who don’t normally vote for Democrats, but are doing so to send a message to the GOP, you can do this:

 

You can promise to listen to them.

 

Not just now, in the breach, but going forward, too.

 

Listening to them does not mean agreeing with them. It does mean making a good-faith effort to hear out those who don’t share your view of politics, and trying to understand them.

 

 

Here, again is the March 2018 piece from The Atlantic that urges Republicans to boycott the GOP and vote for Democrats:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/boycott-the-gop/550907/

 

 

And here, again, is the June 2018 Washington Post story on the poll on what sort of candidates Americans are likely to support in the midterms. In addition to 25 percent of Republicans favoring candidates who would provide a check on Trump, the story says that voters, in general, were 25 percentage points more likely to vote for a candidate who promised to push back against the president:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/06/07/a-quarter-of-republicans-say-they-want-candidates-who-will-be-a-check-on-trump/?utm_term=.db5e5358b5a8

 

 

Read December 2017 stories from Newsweek and the Washington Post on how Republican affiliation has fallen by five points since Trump was elected:

 

http://www.newsweek.com/trump-scaring-voters-republican-affiliation-dips-year-election-poll-730604

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/12/11/a-lot-of-americans-spent-2017-bailing-on-the-republican-party/?utm_term=.d6e51e7a9cc0

 

 

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