October 26, 2018

Everything is at stake on November 6. Here’s how you can still help.

Summary: The November 6 election is hugely important to the future of freedom in the United States. The main remaining way to help is to donate to Democrats in very close races. My most specific advice is:

Further ideas are below.

It is common, and usually hyperbolic, to say that everything hinges on the next election. But this time, in the United States, less than two weeks from now, (almost) everything really does. Republicans are doing everything they can to seize and keep power, including:

If they aren’t stopped soon, our democracy may be destroyed beyond repair.

More precisely, everything hinges on the series of three election years: 2016, 2018, and 2020. If we haven’t stopped them by then, Republicans will have nearly full control of the courts and of the voting rules, and will be able to dictate election outcomes for a very long time to come.

At this late stage, all the practical ways of influencing the 2018 election revolve around voter turnout, including:

What I’ve already done, and suggest you emulate with all the money you can afford, is:

1. Sign up with ActBlue, a kind of PayPal-for-Democrats. Signing up has two easy stages:

Once you’re registered with and logged into ActBlue, any donation to a specific Democratic candidate or organization is super-easy.

2. Donate to two organizations that are focusing on influencing stage legislature races, with the intent of averting Republican election-rigging and gerrymandering:

3. Donate to selected House races across the country that are:

The best resources I found for assessing races were:

The official Federal Election Commission site, however, is disappointing; its interface is clunky and its data is way out of date.

The specific House candidates I’ve picked so far are:

Finally, not every donation has to be optimized. Despite my skepticism about the efficiency of donating in gubernatorial races, I can’t resist helping out Stacey Abrams in Georgia.

I’ll close with something I posted recently on social media. It isn’t hyperbolic. I mean every word of it, and am living it myself as best I can.

Thomas Schelling, the late Nobel Laureate economist, once told me that World War 2 – when he worked in the war effort in Washington – was the best period in his life. Why? Because what he did really MATTERED.

Well, never in our lives has ordinary political conflict mattered as much as it does today. Embrace that. Do what you can. Sacrifice what you can afford to sacrifice. When you look back on your life, there will be few things you’re prouder of than what you do to save the freedoms you thought would never be at such grave risk.

Related links

Comments

One Response to “Everything is at stake on November 6. Here’s how you can still help.”

  1. Bob Frankston on October 27th, 2018 8:02 am

    Remember that we need to combat voter suppression — give to https://democraticredistricting.com/

Leave a Reply




Feed including blog about enterprise technology strategy and public policy Subscribe to the Monash Research feed via RSS or email:

Login

Search our blogs and white papers

Monash Research blogs

User consulting

Building a short list? Refining your strategic plan? We can help.

Vendor advisory

We tell vendors what's happening -- and, more important, what they should do about it.

Monash Research highlights

Learn about white papers, webcasts, and blog highlights, by RSS or email.