The Digital Grassroots and Pennsylvania’s Right Wing Hacks
The Digital Grassroots and Pennsylvania’s Right Wing Hacks
Inside the left and right post-election
Welcome to the big Sunday edition of Progressives Everywhere!
Today’s edition isn’t just big, it’s really big. We’ve two great interviews, one about progressive activism and another about brazen and ridiculous Republican shenanigans. Then it’s on to some big news stories and deep dives into some very worthy reads.
But first, breaking news: Presiden-elect Joe Biden has chosen California Attorney General Xavier Becerra as his Secretary of Health and Human Services. Becerra was a long-time member of Congress and supports Medicare for All.
Also, Rudy Giuliani has COVID-19. Can’t believe it took that long. I sincerely hope he recovers… but also finally realizes the seriousness of the pandemic and stops trying to keep Trump in office (and embarrassing himself in the process).
By the way, if you’re looking to give lasting gift to a progressive person in your life (or really want to annoy a conservative uncle), consider buying them a gift subscription to this newsletter!
Growing the Grassroots Is the Best Investment
When COVID-19 shut down the country in March, Democratic candidates were forced to switch to digital campaigning. As we can see from what happened in November, solely focusing on digital came with mixed results, in large part because for many campaign managers, it represented a total departure from both their plans and staffers’ expertise.
For years now, campaigns have largely seen the internet as an ATM, not a place to find and activate voters. The activists and organizers behind rootscamp, which is online this year, aim to fix that by creating a gathering space and panels where campaign staffers, organizers, and newcomers can discuss this year and what the future of digital (and on-the-ground) work might look like.
“It's a really important space for organizers from around the country to meet each other and debrief on the election,” says Elana Levin, the co-founder of Organizing 2.0. and one of the organizers behind rootscamp. “We talk about what we experienced, what we saw, the cool things we learned, the problems we encountered, and share skills and share stories. It’s much more informal than a traditional conference.”
I spoke with Elana about how digital organizing works, what she noticed and this year, how people can do a better job with their campaigns, and more. Rootscamp runs from December 11-12.
People are starting to read and use a lot of buzzwords from the world of activism. It’s amazing to see, but I think it’s come so fast that people often read and write about words — like digital organizing, activism, deep canvassing — without fully knowing the meaning behind them. So how do you define them?
Digital activism is not necessarily the same as digital organizing. Activism is like signing a petition online. And you should do that! But digital organizing is organizing, it's just that you're having these conversations online because either you can't physically be in the same place as each other (as is the case right now with COVID), or in some cases historically, there were just some people who you were not going to be able to find walking down the street. You’re actually more likely to find them in a Meetup for people in a certain community, or maybe they're in a discussion group. People are real on the internet, too.
Did you see a sea change this year due to everyone being at home? How did you see organizations adjust?
People definitely were spending more time on social media than they were prior to COVID. And certainly, if you were going to try to talk to people on worksites and things like that, that was going to be much harder. Essential workers were all working, but people were trying to protect themselves. We definitely saw a huge pivot by organizations that traditionally haven't done much digital organizing, they started to go digital either to augment their traditional stuff or to immediately switch entirely over to it. They had to build new programs, whether that meant developing textbanking capabilities or ways to contact members and gather data.
Early in COVID, the asks of people were unclear. People are used to asking people to go to this rally or go to that march, but since they weren’t doing rallies and marches, a lot of the messages were things like “Donate money to this emergency fund.” Which is great, but if you're a regular working person, there is a maximum amount of money that you're going to be able to donate no matter how good the ask is.
The closer we got to the election, the clearer the asks were for people. It would be things like, “I'm asking you to vote for this person,” or “I'm asking you to volunteer to talk to three of your neighbors about voting for this person,” or “I'm asking you to donate money to this candidate.”
This year, we saw record numbers of people signing up to phonebank and textbank. There were some text banks that I encountered that were fully populated, to the point where [organizers] were like, “we actually don't need any more volunteers.”
Were there some particularly innovative methods of digital organizing you saw emerge this year?
I'm all about getting people to tweet at companies because they care about their brands a lot. Any of the interventions where people were coming out at like — for example, Kroger wasn't giving their workers sick leave and they sure as heck have a Twitter account, so UFCW started getting folks to tweet at Kroger [who then reversed the policy]. There are definitely ongoing pushes against Amazon on Twitter from the folks at Athena, which is really great. I think there's a lot more that we could be doing, I will probably end up giving a training around this topic at rootscamp because this is my obsession.
I’ve noticed it being successful with businesses, and I wonder if it’s because companies need to have more shame than politicians, who only need to worry about pleasing enough people to get re-elected.
I think some politicians do care. There was a Democratic elected official... whatever, it's Chuck Schumer, it's fine [laughs]. We're always telling people to tweet at him about stuff and I know for a fact that he cares because former staffers have told us that he cares about those tweets. There are some people who work for elected officials who will tell you that they don't care. I don't think that's true. I think that if all of the tweets are coming from out of their district, then that's a different story.
If Mitch McConnell doesn't care, it’s because Mitch McConnell doesn't care. I think if you mobilized enough Republicans in his district, I don’t know, maybe you’d have a different story there. But at least in New York, elected officials care when people say things. We have some electeds in New York that do wonderful work on social media, who truly are engaging with people and having conversations. People like Gustavo Rivera or Yuh-Line Niou, it makes me so happy to see them connecting with people that way.
Georgia and Arizona both went blue after years of being Democratic strongholds, and it’s no accident that both states have great progressive grassroots organizations. What do groups like Fair Fight do that others don’t?
Organizations like Fair Fight or LUCHA Arizona or Pennsylvania Stands Up are organizations that are there on the ground in their districts all the time, not just right before the election, like a political campaign. I wish people were giving all their money to 501(c)(4) organizations, which are political nonprofit organizations. Those groups will continue to have a meaningful presence in those communities and work with people in those communities long-term and build those relationships.
That's really important, because too many political campaigns just go up in smoke; they're there and they're gone, so they don't have those long-standing relationships with community members. So many candidates will tell you that they're building a movement, but with a few exceptions, like the Bernie campaign, that’s very unusual. When you have these political organizations like Fair Fight later on the ground all the time doing the work, day in and day out for years, they are building a movement.
Most of the canvassing that people do is about mobilizing our base to make sure that they turn out, getting the sporadic voters to be sure to come out to vote. Deep canvassing is how you actually have a shot at getting somebody who doesn't necessarily agree with you already to change it or thinking about it. And it's rooted in listening to them and not just talking at them.
If you were to advise a potential candidate who is starting to explore a campaign on how to digitally organize, what would you tell them?
I would definitely encourage people to make the digital aspect part of the initial plans and to not just have it be an afterthought. If they’re hiring staff, they need to understand how digital organizing works. Saying “Oh, my niece can do my tweets” is not an acceptable answer to that. I think it's important to have social media profiles on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. While Instagram does not want us to use it to organize, there are many people who are only on Instagram and will only connect that way. So we're gonna climb up that hill with our bare hands and try to organize on Instagram.
Make sure you have those profiles and use them to communicate people in a way that's genuine and in your own voice; you can't just be a faker. And then make sure that you're collecting people's contact information in an organized way, using a CRM of some kind and think about what are you going to ask them to do and engage with them in a way that's honest and supportive. Those emails from candidats are like “THE WORLD IS ENDING IF YOU DON’T DONATE MONEY BEFORE MIDNIGHT,” that doesn't build trust between you and the people you're speaking with. The organizations that do that are just treating people as money and don’t actually build support.
Pennsylvania Republicans Are Trying to Overturn the Election (And Suck Up to Trump)
In the end, Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump in Pennsylvania wasn’t all that close, as the son of Scranton took the state by 1.2% (or over 80,000 votes). But with Trump continuing to insist erroneously that he really won, Republicans can’t exactly acknowledge Biden’s obvious victory — just 27 GOP members of Congress were willing to do so in a recent survey, while state-level conservatives are also publicly insisting — without any evidence — that the election was stolen and requesting the use of obscure legal maneuvers to award him a second term.
Pennsylvania Republicans are doing their best to satisfy the far-right portion of their base. On Friday, a large number of GOP legislators released a letter asking that Congress reject Pennsylvania’s pro-Biden electors, something that can’t be done but nonetheless makes for some good headlines.
I spoke with Stephen Caruso, a reporter who covers the Pennsylvania legislature, about what exactly is going on there and what it portends for the future of this key swing state.
Republican legislators in the state said they couldn't overturn the popular vote this week, then turned around and released a letter asking Congress to not accept the election results. What changed?
The change appears to be the White House. As the Philly Inquirer reported, Rudy Guilliani and Jenna Ellis noticed the Thursday PA Republican statement that they do not have the authority to change the electors or call session in December, and began calling Republican legislators on Twitter.
Republican leadership has not been shy in saying they can't appoint electors. They've said it since before the election, ever since that big Atlantic story put electors on the radar and quoted a bunch of PA Republicans appearing super sketchy. So Trump's base, or at least the people with Three Percenter flags or chanting prayers or citing QAnon conspiracy theories who have shown up to the Capitol to protest, have known where their lawmakers stand for some time.
In particular, a wave of constituent calls have been called any time Republican lawmakers are pressed on why they are trying to, say, pass a duplicative audit of the 2020 election or holding a press conference to peddle conspiracy theories on Dominion. "Oh, we just want to get our concerned citizens answers." Something to that effect.
Until the Congress letter, just 20-30 GOP lawmakers were putting their name to the extreme measures. That process would have broadly looked like — demand session return, issue subpoenas or pass a resolution, block election certification with an investigation, and appoint electors. But doing any of that to override the popular vote would be legally dubious, violate state law, and set a very far-reaching precedent. Also, it would require a majority of lawmakers to be on the record with a vote saying "I like Trump" in some way.
For a combination of those reasons, leadership and most rank-and-filers, including some from conservative districts in central PA, have tried to walk a line to offer lip service while not putting their name into an effort to ignore popular sovereignty. This letter — which to be clear, is nonbinding and is nothing more than an advisory, albeit a stark one — is the first time I've seen even some pretty conservative names disputing the election.
Who was the ringleader of this process? Do you think it was done out of true conviction or was it more of a political calculation? Is there a big divide in the PA Republican caucus?
It appears Rep. Seth Grove (R-York), was the ringleader. He was tapped by Cutler to lead the House's election response two weeks ago. He's a very conservative lawmaker on fiscal issues (once was an ALEC lawmaker of the year IIRC) but not, say, dipping into white nationalism like Rep. Daryl Metcalfe. Yes, these are the gradations of the PA legislature.
The GOP's legal argument the whole time for not taking state legislative action was argued from process, not any sort of faith in the election itself. If House Speaker Bryan Cutler or Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman believe and trust in the results privately, they haven't said it publicly. Instead, they've used a lot of energy to claim that the PA state Supreme Court (controlled by liberals) or Gov. Tom Wolf's admin interfered by interpreting Pennsylvania's new vote-by-mail law in expansive ways they don't like. This complaint is what Cutler cites in his letter disputing the electors to Congress.
To be clear, judges considering Trump campaign complaints about the election administration have tossed them near uniformly. And there is bipartisan interest in fixing election inconsistencies and streamlining administration, not the least because counties run elections and the majority of our 67 counties are run by Republicans who don't want to wait until election morning to open ballots!
But I say all of this because, combined with the evolution I described in answer one, it's hard to see this as anything other than political calculation. We had to finish a state budget in November. Lawmakers were in Harrisburg, legislating. If Cutler, Corman, or anyone with their hands on the levers wants to make things difficult, they could have. But GOP leadership specifically did not issue subpoenas, and did not hold up the budget over whether our Secretary of State should resign, or what have you. All in all, a letter from one legislative body with a huge set of powers beseeching Congress to do something is pretty milquetoast in substance, if norm-breaking in appearance.
There is definitely a divide between those who would rip up the results and those I've mentioned who don't want to. It's funny to me, because what the Congress letter does is essentially what Republicans hoped to do with a non-binding resolution that "disputed the 2020 election results" or something. Once again, kinda meaningless legally, but an important message nonetheless. That resolution only had maybe 40 sponsors and was introduced by a rank-and-filer? This letter that leadership controlled has 64 sponsors? It's hard to chalk that up to anything but a desire to control appearances.
Also, either way, GOP did not have a majority to vote on anything disputing the election outcome. So, you send a low-stakes letter.
I also think that the election is likely further dividing the archconservatives, the middle-of-the-road conservatives, and the moderates. That divide existed pre-2020, but COVID-19 and the election have brought it forward. Keeping an eye on this divide and seeing if PA gets its own Freedom Caucus is a reporting priority next year.
A bunch of suburban Republicans who took their name off of the letter — do you think that reflects the changing politics of the PA suburbs or was it a legit error?
I think it was a genuine clerical error. As soon as I saw the congressional letter, my eyes lit up. Absent were some really hardline supporters of disputing the election — Metcalfe and Rep. Russ Diamond to name a few. Instead, there were a bunch of people in districts that voted for Clinton, likely voted for Biden, and overall try to comport themselves as moderates. Calling to overturn the results is not moderate. Their names were just meant for two letters that called for the Attorney General to look into voter fraud.
However, there is still some politicking at play. Last Monday, I was at the Capitol and met a GOP committeewoman who was in the Philly suburbs and lobbying for her lawmakers to overturn the results. These Trump loyalists are everywhere, not just central PA.
One more anecdote to try and show that. We had a legislative dustup pre-election because Cutler secretly introduced a resolution to create an "election integrity" committee with subpoena power before the election, in late September. But a huge outcry stopped the committee from passing, as suburban Republicans in droves said they wouldn't vote for it. A suburban Pittsburgh lawmaker, Valerie Gaydos, even put out a statement opposing this committee.
Now, after the election, Gaydos has shown up to press conferences on Dominion or signed onto pushes to stop the certification of the 2020 election. So these suburban types can feel a push/pull between "moderate for the squishy centrists" and "Trump it up for the base," even among the Paneras and Chipotles.
They asked Attorney General Josh Shapiro to look into irregularities; have there been any documented cases? And do you think Shapiro will do so in order to quiet them down?
There have been two documented cases of voter fraud. One guy applied for a mail-in ballot for his dead mom. Another — this isn't a cartoon — voted once in person and then put on sunglasses to try and vote as his son. Both were caught and charged. Both were also Republicans.
There's no evidence of widespread voter fraud, full stop. And Shapiro isn't doing the review, he says he doesn't have the power.
Now that PA has gone back to Democrats on the national level, do you anticipate any degree of bipartisanship in 2021? Or does gerrymandering make that less likely?
In the last two years, I covered a conservative Republican give an Islamaphobic prayer before the first Muslim women was sworn in, a Republican lawmaker compared not wearing a mask to being trans, a Democratic lawmaker offering to pay money to people who doxx teens protesting outside an abortion clinic, and a bunch of partisan BS where everyone knows they are posturing.
None of this is to downplay that state legislatures handle really important issues, or that some of these issues are worth partisan fury (like when the GOP eliminated a small cash assistance program to people with disabilities, people in substance abuse treatment, or domestic violence abuse survivors among others.)
But it is to say that with a new President, a falsely contested election, a gubernatorial contest in 2022, and the fact that half of Republicans sometimes can't even be bothered to wear masks, I am expecting a toxic environment for these upcoming two years. Gerrymandering also helps, but we'll have new maps soon. So on second thought, maybe everyone will be on their best behavior to get the district they want. I guess the system works, eh?
A Quick Pause Before We Continue…
This week, Progressives Everywhere surpassed over $5.5 million dollars raised for progressive Democratic candidates and causes. Isn’t that cool?
That said, none of that money goes to producing this newsletter or all of the related projects we put out there. Not a dime! In fact, it costs me money to do this. So to make this sustainable, I need your help.
I’m offering very low-cost premium subscriptions that offer a lot of goodies. If you become a member of Progressives Everywhere, you’ll get:
Frequent election season emails with deep dives into elections and the crucial political stories not getting enough attention. You’ll read the news before anyone else you know.
Exclusive updates from candidates and interviews with other progressive leaders.
Coverage of voting rights, healthcare, labor rights, and progressive activism.
The satisfaction of financing new projects like AbsenteeBallots.info and COVIDSuperSpreaders.com.
A new best friend (me).
We’ve got one shot at saving this country. Let’s work together to make it happen. I’m excited for you to join our team.
You can also make a one-time donation to Progressives Everywhere’s GoFundMe campaign — doing so will earn you a shout-out in an upcoming edition of the big newsletter!
Important News You Need to Know
With two interviews already done, we’ll make this a nice, tight roundup.
Ron DeSantis, political hack and murderer
There are few politicians more openly awful than Ron DeSantis, who in his first two years in office has stolen hard-earned voting rights away from well over 1 million people and done everything possible to ensure that as many Floridians die of COVID-19 as possible. And I’m not exaggerating — DeSantis really has worked hard to maximize the carnage and devastation in Florida.
So far, COVID-19 has claimed the lives of nearly 20,000 Floridians, while over 1 million people in the state have been diagnosed with it since March. Those numbers continues to rise, as over 8,000 people tested positive and 246 died on Saturday alone. That we even have an accurate count is somewhat remarkable, considering DeSantis’s efforts to lie to the public about the disease.
In a blockbuster report released late last week, the Orlando Sentinel said that DeSantis “engaged in a pattern of spin and concealment that misled the public on the gravest health threat the state has ever faced.” The report does not hold back, taking DeSantis to task for every aspect of his response. The Sentinel reports that DeSantis “suppressed unfavorable facts, dispensed dangerous misinformation, dismissed public health professionals, and promoted the views of scientific dissenters.”
Among other things DeSantis…
Ordered in September that the state Department of Health’s county-level spokespeople stop giving updates on the virus until after the election;
Promoted a culture that discouraged masks and suggested early on the COVID was not being transmitted in the state despite the obvious evidence otherwise;
Hired a sports blogger and conspiracy nut as his COVID-19 data analyst
There’s a lot more — I suggest reading the whole report!
Georgia Updates and Debates
President Trump was in Georgia for a rally last night, where he said a few nice things about Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue (lol) and then went on his usual rant about the election being stolen. He also called the special election “rigged,” which may not inspire confidence amongst GOP voters!
Raphael Warnock and Loeffler are debating tonight, while Jon Ossoff is getting a free half-hour of air time because Purdue refused to show up. Presumably, Perdue doesn’t want to answer questions about his prolific term of insider trading. Also, Ossoff wrecked him in the last debate. This time around, he’s mocking him on Twitter:
Money Money Money
Virginia Rep. Elaine Luria, who once adamantly backed a ban on accepting corporate PAC donations (but secretly accepted them herself anyway) is now going to officially back out of that caucus-wide pledge.
It’s hard to blame her — there’s a whole lot of corporate cash to be had right now! IN addition to record highs on Wall Street, Grocery and big general retailers have also flourished. For example, Kroger has seen profits rise 100% (!) over 2019, while Walmart’s coffers have been enriched by 45% more than last year.
Their employees, however, have not shared in any of the profits that they’ve put their lives on their line to produce — Kroger ended hazard pay six months ago and Walmart is now under fire for ridiculously skimpy holiday bonuses meant to make up for its lack of hazard pay.
Walmart's starting wage, $11 an hour, is below many competitors' $15 minimum wage, and [Brookings Institute fellow Molly] Kinder noted that Walmart's latest bonus to workers accounts for less than 25% of the profit increase the company earned last quarter compared to a year ago.
With the additional $388 million in bonuses announced Thursday, Kinder said Walmart workers will earn an average of $0.71 an hour in extra pandemic pay through the end of the year, "far less than the additional pay that frontline retail associates will have earned at many of Walmart's closest competitors," said Kinder.
These are the people who bankroll the Republicans who refuse to send out a single stimulus check. I’d ask how they sleep at night, but they’re all vampires.
Wait, before you go!
Figured I’d give it one more shot: Please subscribe and join the team!
You can also make a one-time donation to Progressives Everywhere’s GoFundMe campaign — doing so will earn you a shout-out in an upcoming edition of the big newsletter!