I apologize to my fellow theatre/film/music kids for pre-emtping the “Does LMM get the EGOT” discussion so we can (literally) help save the country.
What Ben Wixler said to Ali Velshi last night in Rachel's usual 9pm hour was so important I thought it was worth setting aside even that critical conversation (I think we can have the conversation next week; the Oscars aren't till the end of March).
He'd like you to make a few calls this weekend to remind – just remind! No persuading! - people to vote in the LOCAL elections in Wisconsin that are coming right up … to maximize the chances of getting people in LOCAL seats who have responsibility for doing things like sending out ballots and counting votes in local, state, AND FEDERAL elections.
GOP Seeks to Usurp Control of Elections So WI Democrats Mobilizing Locally
Wisconsin Is Ground Zero for the MAGA Effort To Steal the Next Election –Rolling Stone
“Republicans, convinced Trump won, are pushing to decertify his 2020 loss — and lay the groundwork to overturn the next election if it doesn’t go their way “
It may require giving up a little glamour in the (extremely!) short term but it may well end up saving the country. Just some calls on Saturday, and Ben provides all the instruction on where to go to sign up for a shift, why it's so important, and explains much more clearly than I can when I get this excited about something why it'll make a MUCH bigger difference TO THE OUTCOMES IN 2022 REACHING INTO 2024 than it looks like it might from the ground over here.
To repeat: You do not have to live in WI to make calls.
You might not even have to talk to anyone who voted for … that guy.
But what anyone who participates IS doing is mobilizing the necessary turnout to save the precinct positions – the places where the nuts and bolts of democracy really are controlled – from wild-eyed Q and other white supremacist types who would rather set aside a system where the governed pick their leaders than share control with people who don't look like them.
I wrote a lot here, so I don't want people falling over from boredom as I go on about the horror that is the WI Republican legislature, and when we started hearing about Scott Walker's lunacy was when some of us who do a lot of this stuff were like “What IS going ON over there?” and how horrified we were when Ron “Active Treason” Johnson ousted Senator Russ Feingold (who runs the American Constitutional Society now) from his US Senate seat for WI (still trying to figure out how that happened).
But local races are so small, relatively speaking, that if each of us makes a few calls, it could make the difference between having a fair-minded conscientious person willing to follow the rules in that seat and having a Q type in that seat literally willing to burn the whole thing down (as we've seen from the video of the white supremacists in places like Minneapolis and Ottawa – because spreading authoritarianism is NOT a problem confined to the US) smashing windows to climb through them and scapegoat BLM protesters for the damage, and doing their best to set entire buildings on fire).
I've been incredibly frustrated because every time someone like Ezra Klein writes an article about how Steve Bannon might have a point and how Democrats should “just sign up!” and I'm pretty sure I'm not by myself.
Because the people who write pieces like that are usually #DudesWithWives, famous enough that they're at least partially removed from the scrabble of day to day, and it's at the very least been a long time for them since they had to choose between a decent standard of living and taking a job they believed in (like the anonymous Capitol Hill staffers bringing to light a problem that's been a problem likely since the time when the term “ Capitol Hill staffer” was coined) …
… and the people on the Russiapublican side who take those jobs - the ones in election administration, the ones at the school board – can frequently be women who can afford to do it because their husbands/fathers are out actively grifting & stealing for them and/or have left them a trust fund from their prior generation(s) of grifting & stealing.
Doing it THIS way, we don't have to give anything up except for a bit of time on the weekend … but if (no, when, if I know the kind of people who read here) we SUCCEED – we put people in charge who are willing to fairly administer the election and make sure the votes are counted, in order for the ELECTORS to be chosen, in one of THE most contested swing states – Wisconsin electoral went to Trump in 2016 (if you believe that Putin didn't choose Jill Stein to siphon off some Democratic votes, and to this day I'm not so sure) and they went to OHJ Biden in 2020.
Stalin was right about one thing:
IT MATTERS WHO COUNTS THE VOTES.
Even during awards season. But we'll get to that before the Oscars.
Watch the video! Get your info! Help save democracy so the autocrats don't control our award seasons.
You all know what happens when Russiapublicans get hold of culture – it'll be Chachi and Ricky Schroeder and Pam Bondi every day and Bannon and Breitbart will think they've “gotten revenge” on the Hollywood that said “Ew, no, we don't want you here” and force them to give them script deals to reenact that terrifying French novel that Bannon swears predicts a world where … well, you know the one.
Let's not have that. Let's have the world WE want.
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