Friend,

Watching the election returns come in state after state last night was
flat out painful.

A lot of people are waking up this morning deep in thought and deep in
pain. From a historical perspective, polls show that the atypically short
campaign timeline made it hard for voters to know where Vice President
Harris stood on issues. This, combined with deeply rooted racism, sexism,
homophobia, and patriarchy in our nation – and also with a massive
disinformation campaign from the far-right and from foreign nations –
created a perfect storm.

*Remember: This moment, just like our next president, is not permanent.
History shows us that when the political pendulum swings too far in one
direction, voters soon correct it. We can mourn, and we can also build
something brighter for our futures.

Through it all, our next steps remain clear:

1- The work we did to get out the vote together is important, not just for
2024, but for the future too – so we’re doubling down on building an even
stronger movement with you. The programs we built together to get out the
vote (with more than 82,938 GOTV volunteers!) created a bigger, stronger,
more powerful, long-term movement. Thank you. That long-term movement
we’ve built together has never been more needed than it will be in the
weeks, months, and years ahead. For that reason, we’re doubling down, and
not giving up. We’ll be scheduling an all- movement ZOOM meeting ASAP to
be in community together (Watch your inbox for an invite and details) –
and in the meantime:

[ [link removed] ]NEXT STEP #1: We are in this together and we’re not giving up. Many
people are feeling alone right now, so we invite you to help show the
continued power of us together – and help people feel less alone. Reach
out to family and friends. [ [link removed] ]*Click here to put a dot on a map to show
others in your community that you’re not giving up for our daughters, our
sons, our aging parents, our future generations, and ourselves.

2- Disinformation hurts democracy – so we’re launching a campaign to
educate the public about the disinformation crisis. The sheer level of
disinformation, misinformation, and flat out lies that’s been aimed at
voters – often through 30 second video bits – has been historically high
through this election. It’s coming from a multitude of sources, including:
Being intentionally spread by the Trump-Vance campaign (and from there
across social media like wildfire); being moved by right- wing
news-entertainment outlets like Fox; being distributed by foreign nations
like Russia and China in an effort to destabilize our democracy; and being
amplified by right wing business leaders like Elon Musk who bought X, to
name a few. [1,2,3,4]

This moment in history is unique. We are in a time “in between.” A time
between having had professional journalism at the center of national
conversations and a time of figuring out how to deal with a barrage of
faux news coming at us in a rapid succession through seconds-long video
bits via nearly unlimited platforms as more than half of us now get our
news on social media. [ [link removed] ] Our national conversation hasn’t caught up with
disinformation tactics, so there’s work to do.

[ [link removed] ]NEXT STEP #2: We’ll be launching a new campaign to educate the public
about disinformation, including how to spot it and how to find real
information, and we’ll also work to stop disinformation at its source.
[ [link removed] ]*Sign up here to let us know that you’re interested in being part of
the effort to stop disinformation in our communities.

3- Hope is still around us – so we’re committing to look for it each day.
 We’re going to say it again: Hope is still around us. Every morning,
we’re still going to wake up and be able to find joy in big and small
things like watching a small child laugh with delight, taking a moment to
catch up with people we love, drinking a warm cup of coffee or tea,
watching the sun create mini-rainbows through water droplets, connecting
with people to keep helping to build a nation where everyone can thrive.
These little things are big. We lost (for now) a major election and the
promise of major changes that we’ve long-needed, but we can’t lose track
of our hope, our joy, our love for one another, and the fact that together
we can and do make a difference.

And, despite the loss at the top of the ticket, when we look for examples
of hope and change from Election Day, we can find them. For instance, we
had many meaningful wins, including: We won 7 of the 10 state abortion
ballot measures and had majority support in 8 of them. We also elected two
Black women to the United States Senate (from Delaware and Maryland) and
elected the first openly transgender member of Congress (also from
Delaware). And we also handily beat back measures that would have rolled
back our progress on paid family and medical leave, child care, and
long-term care in Washington state. Voters backed ballot measures to boost
the minimum wage and provide paid sick time to working people in Alaska
and Missouri. Nebraska voters approved a ballot measure giving workers the
right to earn paid sick leave. California voters enshrined the fundamental
right to marriage for all people into their state constitution. And
there’s even more breaking good news heading our way.

NEXT STEP #3: Commit to not giving into despair. Take breaks. Take care of
yourself. Take care of each other. Find the helpers. Look for the ways we
are building better policy and better representation. And don’t give up.

These are just the first of many steps along the way that we’ll take
together. We’ll be reaching out to you in the coming days with more ways
to take action; and for now we want to close this note with our gratitude.

Thank you for believing we can build a better tomorrow for our children –
it’s that belief that’s going to make our progress, which sometimes feels
impossible, inevitable.

With gratitude,

-Kristin, Donna, Gloria, Monifa, Nate, Ruth, Xochitl, and the entire
MomsRising Team

References:
[1]
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[2]
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[3]
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[4]
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[5]
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