Dear John,
This much is clear: Democracy means counting every vote. Our responsibility now is to organize to make sure that happens. When it does, I firmly believe that Biden/Harris will win the White House. So let’s take a deep breath together, collect ourselves for some hard days ahead, and get busy organizing.
Look, we wanted to wake up to something better this morning. We wanted to see Trump’s hate repudiated so strongly by a Biden blow out that the pundits could call it right away. We wanted to have confidence that a Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate could move quickly to pass a bold Covid-19 recovery bill, expand health care, confront climate change, and improve our rickety democracy. We wanted some certainty in our deeply uncertain lives.
But we knew, we’ve been reminding each other for months, that we probably would not get that certainty, that the results on Election Day would skew towards Trump while the unprecedented numbers of predominantly Democratic mail-in ballots (remember: the ballots of people who care about the health of their families and neighbors) were counted in key states.
Now, we must do all we can to make sure that all the votes are counted. Biden is winning the votes of the people with a lead of millions and growing. Here are our next steps:
- Join me today at 4 PM at the Protect the Results march in Manhattan. If you want to meet up with me and our team, we will be gathering on the north side of 42nd and 5th Avenue to join the rally. Some details may still change, so RSVP to get the latest information from the organizers.
- RSVP to join us Thursday at 6 PM on Zoom to process the elections with some of the best organizers in the country, and to plug in to the next steps in the fight to defend democracy and win justice.
There was a moment yesterday, seeing so many smiling, diverse, faces, so many first-time voters, at the polls in Philadelphia that I thought maybe it was possible for us to win it all outright last night. I teared up when Meg sent my the video of Tracy Chapman singing “Talking ‘Bout a Revolution” and tried awkwardly to dance with progressive elected officials in Philly bringing #JoyToThePolls.
But we knew, even if I let myself forget for a few minutes, that wasn’t the most likely of the many scenarios. The outdated, anti-democratic electoral college has left us staring at precinct data in a handful of key counties in swing states (anyone else remembering good times visiting Omaha, Nebraska?), rather than celebrating the massive and growing lead in actual votes for Joe Biden. Biden is ahead by more than 2.5 million votes now, and that lead will likely grow by millions more as absentee ballots are counted. And there are several paths to a Biden victory in the electoral college, as rigged as it is (who else has shuffled and counted MI, WI, GA, AZ, and PA in your head so many times that your dreams involved state map puzzles).
Just as we expected, of course, Trump has wildly called to stop the counting of absentee ballots, even as millions of valid ballots remain to be counted. In his head, his narcissism is bigger than our democracy. But luckily, we don’t live in his head.
All this is really, really hard. With each state's reporting timelines and rules different and expected court challenges, we may be waiting quite a bit longer (and fighting harder to make sure everyone’s voice is heard). Some people are inclined toward organizing and find solidarity in the streets. But I know that plenty of people -- who care just as deeply about their neighbors and our democracy -- feel like hiding under the covers right now. We need to do all we can to see each other, to take care of each other.
But if you can find the strength to keep organizing, and to help those around you do it too, I really hope you will. That’s what hope is after all, as Grace Paley says, “the only recognizable feature of hope is action.” So please join the rally today at 4 pm, and join our call tomorrow night.
Even if (let’s say when for now) we do come out of this with Joe Biden as our next president, we know we have a lot of work to do to bring relief to families struggling from the covid crisis, fund our public schools and transit, and begin the shift to a green economy with jobs for all. The fact that this election was this close just shows us how far we have to go to win dignity, respect, and justice for all residents.
We should not overlook some exciting wins last night. So many people (more than 280,000 and growing) voted for Biden/Harris on the Working Families Party ballot line that the WFP is going to move up a notch to Row C, a strong showing for progressive power in New York. Florida voted to raise the minimum wage to $15/hour. The Senate is still very much in play.
But we have a long way to go. We’re going to have to keep breathing, and to keep organizing. As we always do, let’s do it together.
Brad
