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"They will try to separate us in demographics, they will try to separate us by religion, race, congressional district, class. They will fail. We WILL come together."
-- David Hogg, Parkland school shooting survivor and co-founder of March for Our Lives and Leaders We Deserve
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Hi all!
Age seems to be a topic of conversation lately, have you noticed?
We need the youth vote, we need to reach young people, we need to register and get first-time voters to the polls this fall. Our Indivisible-RISE meeting next Tuesday March 19th will focus on this issue, as we watch the film The Young Vote and hear from one of the young activists in the film. The event is free but you must register as space is limited. See details in the To Do section below.
We also have the ongoing headlines about President Biden's age. How old is too old? Is he fit for four more years? The so-called liberal media can't seem to stop poking at this question, and of course the Republicans have been frantically fanning the flames, trying to make it the central issue in the election. (Hard to blame them for trying, when you consider Biden's impressive track record versus their train wreck of a criminal candidate).
Biden came out swinging in his State of the Union address, proving his vigor and competence through a powerful speech that pushed back on all attempts to paint him as incompetent. As a popular quote on social media puts it: "If there are two elderly firefighters standing there when my house is on fire, I pick the one with the hose, not the can of gasoline." In other words, we have two older candidates; two men whose age might cause concern over the next four years. But one of them is a lying narcissist and sexual predator who has over ninety criminal charges against him, has overtly threatened to limit our democracy and aligns with fascist leaders, and regularly forgets names, dates, and facts when talking.
The other one -- also elderly, it's true! -- has enacted the first meaningful gun laws in recent history, has legislated groundbreaking climate action, has grown the economy, strengthened frayed and strained relations with allies, and greatly respects democracy and each of us individually.
We know which firefighter we want, no matter what his age.
Onward!
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TO DO
Seats are Filling Up for our March 19th Monthly Meeting - Register Now!
On March 19th at 7:00-8:30 at The Screening Room at 82 State Street in Newburyport, we will show a one hour film called "The Young Vote", after which one of the young activists featured in the film will offer additional remarks and address our questions. Pre-registration is required due to limited seating . Email us here to register for this free event, and please let us know if you will bring a younger voter with you (which would be great!). Learn more about the movie here.
Join our LTE Working Group
Our letter writers had a productive meeting last week. They are researching, writing and starting to submit LTEs to help persuade undecided voters. The group is meeting again on Wed, March 20 at 2:00-3:30 pm. Please email us if you are interested in getting involved with writing, researching newspapers or both!
Write Postcards
This week, we are finishing up our current campaigns to register Democrats in PA and reminding PA mail-in voters to sign up for this year's elections. When we're done with these lists, we're moving to two campaigns: 1) Registering Democrats in AZ; and 2) Encouraging Democrats who vote infrequently to vote in the PA Primary, making it more likely that they'll get out to vote in November!
As always, there are two ways to write with us:
-- In person at Action Hour on Wednesdays 5:30-6:30 at Nu Kitchen on Pleasant Street in Newburyport.
-- Remotely, with writers getting postcards at one of our pickup locations, buying postage and emailing indivisible.rise.newburyport@gmail.com for the script and addresses. Email us with questions or to join this program. And let us know if you'd like to sign up for a regular weekly supply of addresses so you don't need to email us every time you are ready to write more postcards.
Make the Most of Your Donation Dollars
Join a Zoom meeting on Monday, March 18 at 7-8 pm to hear from a Swing Left organizer about how to make your donation dollars count. Register here.
Save the Date for April Meeting
Our next monthly meeting is on April 16th at 7:00-8:30. We're working on the details of an Evening of Action that continues our focus on youth voters. Stay tuned for details!
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TO CONSIDER
This Data for Progress survey contains interesting insights. Among other points, it details how way too many people are not aware of Biden's accomplishments. This evidences the importance of spreading the word about how much the Biden-Harris admnistration has managed to accomplish, even with a divided and divisive Congress. Here's another link to the Biden Harris Record on the White House website, which we've included before and is useful to bookmark for your conversations with undecided and uninformed voters.
How Democrats Can Win Anywhere and Everywhere is an interesting opnion piece.
We quoted David Hogg above, and we're showing a film about young voters at our March 19th meeting. Here are a couple additional resources combining these two subjects:
- "Us Kids" is a moving and motivating documentary about how the student surivovors of the Parkland shooting activated after their horrific experiences. Watch the trailer and you can stream the full film for $3.99.
- This is a bit dated but still interesting NPR report about Hogg's work and the critical power and interests of young voters.
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TO CELEBRATE
Elections News
AZ - A federal court struck down provisions of voter suppression laws that set strict proof of citizenship requirements for voting, ruling that the policies violate federal law.
FL - A federal judge struck down part of a new voter suppression law banning noncitizens from helping organizations register voters. The judge ruled that the provision violates the 14th Amendment.
ME - The Maine House passed a bill to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, a workaround to the Electoral College where participating states pledge to award all of their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote. It still has to pass in the Maine Senate, but it’s a hopeful step!
PA - Gov. Josh Shapiro created the Election Threats Task Force, a new effort dedicated to protecting the state’s elections from interference and protecting voters against election misinformation.
As always this section primarily fouses on good news related to elections and voter rights. Also as always, we rely heavily on two sources for this information: Jessica Craven's Chop Wood Carry Water newsletter and Democracy Docket.
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I-RISE volunteers have been multipliying their impact by inviting friends to join us! Yay to all of you, and welcome to all of the new postcard writers attending Action Hour or writing remotely with us, plus the newcomers who will be joining us at the March meeting. This is how we grow our reach and keep making an even bigger difference!
If you are motivated by recent developments, have some good news to share, or would like to get more involved, please let us know. Indivisble-RISE is completely volunteer run, and we can always use more help organizing and leading our actions, events, programs, and more. Email indivisible.rise.newburyport@gmail.com with ideas, news, suggestions, and anything you would like to tell or ask us. We'd love to hear from you! |
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